Was I a spoiled rich white kid? Did blacks and hispanics have it worse than me?

How long did you maintain your virginity in that thing?

Good God...that's like road pollution or something

I lost the virginity when I was still driving the Cougar. And believe it or not, the high school girls actually liked the truck, it didn't hurt me at all. In college though, I wasn't so quick to tell girls what I drove.

Little did I know that everyone in Stillwater would have the same car.

Too bad they didn't make them in yellow.

My first vehicle was a '71 or '72 Ford pickup. No air conditioning. No power steering. Three on the tree.

I bought it myself when I was 15.

When I was a senior, my dad got me an extended cab '78 Ford F-150.

That was a luxury car compared to my first ride.

No car for me when I turned 16. Got mine second year of college. Still drive it. It was my dad's old car - a 94 ranger. He got a new fancy something or other and so he gave me the truck.

One of my friends has a truck exactly like that (except it's a Ford Splash or something, and it's even brighter yellow).

Also, something I forgot to mention in my earlier post. None of us had jobs before we turned 16 because we were too young, so we didn't have any extra money to buy our own cars. Inheriting 10+ year old cars worked out well for most of us, we never had any accidents or tickets (except for one of my idiot friends who ran into a pole backing up). Some of the "rich kids" often got hundreds of dollars in allowance, so by the time they turned 16 or 17, they were able to buy Mustangs and rice rockets, which they would promptly destroy.

I would laugh so hard when they showed up to school the next week in a rented Ford Taurus.

I still can't drive :'(

I can survive without a car, so it's okay, but it's so expensive to learn (and something silly like £100 to take the test!!), and my parents are only paying for a limited amount of lessons, that theres no point in spending that money till I have a job so I can pay for the extras.

If I want a car, I'm gonna have to pay for it myself. Borgs has a car, in that they brought it off our aunt, it's in good nick, but until he's passed his test and paid them back for it, as far as they're concerned, it's their car. Which is fair enough.

If we lived somewhere you couldnt cope without a car, I would have probably had my lessons paid for, and a car to share.

Ask a preacher.







What?

You can bet a kid is going to care more for a vehicle that they have to save for and maintain themselves than one that their parents just put in front of them.

Hey I got mine for free. I care for it more than my dad did. Probably because if I fuck it, there's no way in hell I can replace it for a year and a half.

Yeah I remember the old ship. Quite the eye catcher it was. Not only was it bright yellow, but it also said "Splash!" on the side for an extra helping of queer.

So, you figure Mewa is defeated yet?

Is good nick a very english thing to say?

Oh, and a friend of mine has had a car since he was 17, passed down from his grandad.

Its... how to put this... seen better years.

We were all very confused when it came back from it's MOT and we were told it was too dangerous to drive, he needs to spend about £300 on removing the rust. The rust is what's holding it together!!!

It's the gippiest car in the world, and we shall hold a funeral for it when it passes

I thought nick=steal in Brit slang?

Is Borgs driving around a stolen car??

context!

Also, A good nick I guess would be a good steal, but no-one says that....

To nick something is to steal it, but saying something is in good nick, means it's in good condition.

It sounds so much more complicated when you explain it!

Crazy British slang...

I got "nick" from the context. We might use 'shape' in the US.

But wtf is "gippy?" That's not even greek.

I'm not entirely sure it's actual slang, according to my friends I'm the first person they've heard use it. But I like it

Gippy. From the noun "Gyppo". Tbh, I probably shouldnt use it...

(For those of you that don't know, Gyppo/Gippy is derogatary slang for gypsies.)

Gippiest=Gyppiest? As in, to gyp someone. But the car itself is a gyp.

Usage of the term:

My friend Katherine spilt some crisps or something on her top, and left it there for three days. (during which time, it was stepped on). She had no clean clothes, so she brushed the food off, and went out clubbing in that top.

That was a really gippy thing to do. It was not, however, (unfortunately for those of us who live with her), the gippiest thing she has ever done. Katherine can be a bit of a gyppo at times.

Edit:

Thinking about it, I don't know if you would have the same image of Gypsies that we do.
Theres the original Romanys, who have the whole mystical thigs going on, then you have the ones that are basically shit estates that move, and nobody really likes, who are the gyppos. Gyppo and Pikey are generally interexchangable as general insults, but Pikey's are the irish ones. I'm not so sure of the whole gypsie insult etymology tbh.

Car ownership among adolescents in America is not a matter of race or social class, but of geography. If you live somewhere where you *must* have a car, it's necessary. If you don't, it's a luxury or, if you're trying to find parking in a major urban area, a liability.

I got my dads old car for christmas, wasn't a neccesity for getting around, but the area was so spread out that it dropped any transport times to about a quarter of what they would have been using public transport.

It's a long way from Maroochydore to Tweed Heads.

I got my first car when I turned 18 (1998). I had spent the previous years (14 and upward) saving money to pay bills for my family, and working damn hard for it, too. Once in a great while I would save some money for my car, and when I turned 18, I bought one in cash. A 1984 beige Ford Tempo with 86,000 miles on it. Four cylinder. No A/C, no stereo, non-functional windshield wipers.

Just like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Push_The_Tempo.jpg
But with more rust. And when I did 45 miles per hour, it felt like the Enterprise when it entered that wormhole in Star Trek: TMP. Chekov's slow Russian accent included..."Phoootooonnnnnnn....tooooorrrrpeedoooooo....awaaaaaaaayyy!"

And I drove that car everywhere. I even had fuzzy dice hanging on the rearview mirror until the mirror fell off. I paid my own insurance, paid for my own gas, paid for parts and anything else the car needed. I remember one time I drove over bumpy railroad tracks and the car died on the other side. It coasted for about 100 feet before pulling slowly to the right side of the road due to my loss of power steering and everything else. It ran over a piece of concrete lying on the side of the road and bumped the power back on and off I putted away.

Rich white kid, my ass.

-J.

My folks had an old broken down station wagon they said I could have if I could get it to run. It didn't take that long, old cars are easy to work on, plenty of space under the hood. It only had two blown head caskets and broken a water pump, so in no time I was good to go.

The thing was a death trap, no seat belts, crappy brakes and steering, everything was shot except the 400 small block engine I had just repaired. In other words, perfect for a sixteen year old.

Oh and this was in California where most everybody has a car.

I don't think I was spoiled.

Those are very rare. For a good reason.