Throwin’ It Back: What MotorTrend Editors Drove in High School

We’ll be the first to admit that our day jobs are neither jobs in the truest sense nor the kind that you can casually dismiss as “day jobs.” We’re not punching time cards like Fred Flintsone after busting rocks all day and we don’t write pointless TPS reports for multiple bosses. If on any given day of “work” we have a glazed-over look in our eyes, well, maybe we’re just hung over or dealing with something outside of work. That’s because most days, we’re reviewing the latest new cars and sharing our takes with you. Our work is really a hobby, an escape, a dream. “Oh, another Ferrari, how bo-ring.” Yeah, sometimes we have to slap ourselves to remember how good we have it.

But what did we drive before the endless parade of brand-new fancy exotics, hardcore 4x4s, and, yes, economy cars? Everyone catches the car bug differently, and the MotorTrend Group staff is no different, and to show you, here are some of our editors’ tales of their first cars and what they drove in high school. Trust us, there isn’t a single Ferrari on the list. There is, however, a school bus.

1983 Suzuki GN 250

My parents didn’t want me to drive a beater car, so they bought me a 1983 Suzuki GN 250 motorcycle with just enough power (22 horsepower at a screaming 8500 rpm) to get me out of trouble, but not enough power to get into it. Despite its mock-cruiser shape, the bike was nimble as heck. Actually, the ‘Zook was an example of racing tech migrating down to entry-level bikes in the form of Suzuki’s twin-swirl combustion chamber, which gave it an advantage over the competing entry Honda. But the real story was my mullet-meets-helmet-hair appearance every morning as I’d arrive at school. Dressed in my Rush concert T-shirt and Baja hoodie, I was a cross of Jeff Spicoli and Robert M. Pirsig as I’d stroll into Mrs. Linehan’s journalism class. Reliable as a Seiko, the Suzuki would sit idle for the nine months as I began my journey off to college—and upon my return, I’d press the starter button, and it would fire right up. We paid $1299 for it. Six years later, I sold it for $650. Decent retained value, if you ask me.—Mark Rechtin, MotorTrend Editor-in-Chief

1966 Ford Mustang(s)

Before you conclude that I spent my fast times at Ridgeway High in an iconic pony classic, remember that in Memphis, TN circa 1978, these were abundant and cheap used (up) cars. Four summers’ worth of pushing a lawn mower and fetching parts at Pryor Oldsmobile had built up a modest first-car fund, and this sweet, rust-free, six-cylinder, three-on-the-floor ’66 notchback ‘Stang with “light rear-end damage” hooked me hard for $125 (about $500 today). I replaced the battery, exhaust manifold, and brakes (lesson learned: Bernzomatic torching and hammering won’t free a rear drum if the parking brake is firmly set). I sold my “practice Mustang” for $325 and “upgraded” to a $1,100 convertible—a rusty, Bondo-riddled Michigan car. My “restoration” included sheet-metal-screwing in replacement floor panels fashioned out of home heating ducts, re-Bondoing the body, removing all trim to facilitate a $99.95 Earl Scheib paint job, and installing new carpet and used whitewalls. Today we’d call it a passable 20-footer, but in the high school parking lot it drew plenty of admiring stares (or so I always imagined).—Frank Markus, MotorTrend Technical Director

1980 Fiat Spider 2000

I bought my Fiat used when I was in high school from a doctor in Lubbock and paid about $6,000. My buddy’s dad cosigned for the loan and taught me how to drive it since I didn’t know how to drive a stick (thanks Colonel Berry!). It was my second car after a second-gen Camaro and my Suzuki 125 Enduro. (In Texas you can get a motorcycle license at 15 and driver’s license at 16, so I was set even before the car came along.) My Spider was mint green with a tan top and interior, and I added a sweet chrome luggage rack for hauling stuff. It packed a 2.0-liter inline-four that was mated to a five-speed manual. It was a blast to drive but it also had a thermostat the size of a human heart that would stick and cause it to overheat. Good times. I drove it with the top down (mostly) through at least 40 states, Canada, and Mexico before I finally sold what was left of it in L.A. for about $500.—Ed Tahaney, Automobile Online Editor

1984 Toyota Truck

My dad gave me his ’84 Toyota to drive in high school, and in retrospect it might have been the perfect gift (from my father’s perspective). Whatever meager zip its 22R engine had was sapped by the automatic transmission. Being a single cab long-bed in banana custard yellow, it repelled girls. Its brown vinyl seats burned unwitting shorts-wearers in the summer. I could only carry one other troublemaking friend, two if we wanted to get uncomfortably close. Manual steering discouraged hooliganism, but not completely. It endured virtually zero maintenance for around 176k miles before a classmate in a VW Fox T-boned it a few months after I got my license.—Alex Kierstein, MotorTrend Senior Editor

1982 Plymouth Reliant

When I graduated high school in 1989, my present from my parents was Mom’s 1982 Plymouth Reliant—the infamous first-gen K-car. His name was George P. White, and he was a white four-door with a red interior (for lack of a photo, we’ve included a press image of a similar model above). Power, what little of it there was, came from Chrysler’s 2.2 “trans-four” topped by a diabolical Holley feedback carburetor that consumed nearly as much carb cleaner as gasoline. One time the automatic transmission’s shifter cable broke and for a week I had to open the hood and shift into drive using the lever on the tranny. This would have been no big deal if the parking brake would stay in adjustment, which it wouldn’t. George was nerdy and slow, but he was reliable, immune to speeding tickets, and great in the snow. Also, his front bench seat meant that my girlfriend, on the rare occasions I had one, could snuggle up next to me and still wear her seat belt. But the best thing about him is that any car I’ve owned, driven or looked at since has seemed like an improvement.—Aaron Gold, Automobile Senior Editor

The School Bus

I couldn’t afford a car and insurance when I was in high school. So, my ride was the yellow, not-so-magic school bus. It certainly could not navigate a nostril, spank a plankton, nor raft a river of lava like the actual (made-up) Magic Schoolbus. But it did come in different forms. One day, it could be a Blue Bird TC/2000, another day it could be a Thomas Saf T-Liner. Regardless, it ran on diesel and could swallow up to 90 hormone-addled teenagers. While NVH levels and seat comfort were nothing stellar, but it transported me to school safe and on time for three years. I’d like to take this chance to say a thank you, bus.

Fun fact: The bus’s yellow paint is officially known as National School Bus Glossy Yellow, sRGB code (255, 216, 0). According to colormatters.com, yellow gets people attention faster than any other color in their peripheral vision.—Alan Lau, MotorTrend Road Test Analyst

1986 Ford Escort

I didn’t own a car in high school, so I was forced like many kids to borrow wheels from my parents. When I got my license, the car I drove most that first year was my mom’s gray 1986 (or thereabouts) Ford Escort, by then on its last legs. And I’m talking absolute base model here: No air conditioning, crank windows, ambient temperature-matching vinyl seats (a joy in both winter and summer), a radio straight out of the ’70s, and a four-speed manual. For some reason, my best friend and I took to calling it “The Batmobile,” for no obvious reason other than as nonsensical mockery of just how bad it was. But hey, a lot of kids don’t have access to any car, and I did learn to drive a manual transmission thanks to the Escort. In retrospect, I probably got away with more stupid antics in it than I had any right to, especially in the snow. (Note: The Escort pictured here isn’t the exact one in question, but it’s close and gray enough.)

My mom finally donated the car to charity after the clutch gave out on a winter Saturday morning as I drove it to basketball practice, leaving me stranded two miles from home. Luckily, I was able to coast into a gas station parking lot, where I abandoned it after using a payphone to call my coach and explain why I wouldn’t make it to the gym that day. I was so annoyed with the situation and that car—and even though I had $4 or $5 in my pocket I could have used to take a bus home down metro Detroit’s famous Woodward Avenue—I walked all the way home in the 20-degree air because I refused to spend a dollar as a result of the Escort’s quit. But I will definitely never forget the good old Batmobile.—Mac Morrison, Automobile Editor-in-Chief

2003 Honda Accord EX

There are few things I regret in life; however, my bratty attitude toward getting a low-mileage, less than three-year-old, 2003 Honda Accord EX sedan from my family for the price of a new Vespa is something that regularly weighs on my mind. You see, I’d been saving up for years for a car of my own by working at restaurants and grocery stores and the like, and I was eager to spend the approximately $3,500 I’d hoarded on a beat-up old Volvo or Saab—in other words, something European and quirky. And then my grandma passed away, which left my mom with her late mother’s near-new, six-cylinder Mazda6. In short, mom no longer needed her four-cylinder Accord. Rather than cash out, sell the Honda, and pocket $10,000 or more from the sale, my parents pressured me into buying the car for the same money I’d saved for an old beater, I should have been ecstatic to own a modern, reliable car for so little money. Instead, I was miffed. I wanted my first car to reflect the savings I’d accumulated from the work I was doing outside of school.

If I could turn back time, though, I’d grab young Greg’s face with the palms of my hands like Billy Madison does to his young, elementary school classmate and tell my teenaged self to be more appreciative. After all, my parents didn’t just hook me up with a safe and reliable modern car with high-end—for the time—features (including a six-disc CD changer, steering-wheel-mounted audio controls, and a power sunroof) on the cheap, they also gifted me an investment. I really don’t remember what I eventually sold the Accord for, but I know it was a hell of a lot more than $3,500.—Greg Fink, MotorTrend Senior Editor

1996 Audi A4

I gotta say, each time my first car was loaded onto a tow truck, it looked hot. Despite the issues I had in high school and college with a well-used 1996 Audi A4, I love and still miss that car. From the Audi’s sharp exterior design to the flashy 18-inch wheels a previous owner installed, I felt incredibly lucky. I have no idea why someone felt an eight-disc CD player in the trunk and an additional one-disc in-dash unit was necessary, but I definitely put the system to good use. Between flat tires and complaints from my family (“why do I feel every bump in this car?”), I was happy. And although I had limited points of automotive comparison, the car was thrilling to drive—a blessing when your drive to school traverses beautiful winding roads. Thanks to its strengths and faults, my first car helped me hone my sense of what’s important to look for in cars. For that, and even for the fact that I had a car at all, I’m grateful.—Zach Gale, MotorTrend Senior Production Editor

2003 Honda Odyssey/CR-V

Although I started driving when I was 16, I didn’t own a car in high school. I wasn’t as lucky as some of my friends, who got brand new trucks and Mustangs during their junior or senior years. So, my high school car was either my mom’s 2003 Honda Odyssey or my dad’s 2003 Honda CR-V like the one pictured here. (I obviously preferred the latter, but sometimes I got stuck with the former). I got my first ticket while driving my mom’s white Odyssey, and my dad’s silver CR-V was my hot ride to take girls out the movies, for ice cream or to Starbucks. (My strong Spanish accent was the seller here, though, not the ride). Both cars have a special place in my family’s heart, as they were the first cars we got when we moved to the U.S. to start our American Dream.—Miguel Cortina, MotorTrend Managing Editor

1970 Chevrolet Impala

It was not flashy, but it was the perfect shade of brown to not show the dirt and mud it accumulated on unpaved roads in northern Ontario, outside Sault Ste. Marie. I loved seeing the 1970 Chevy Impala squeeze down the steep driveway to my parents’ cottage because it meant a visit from my Finnish grandparents. When my grandfather died, he left me the Impala and it easily carried me and about 20 of my best friends inside the voluminous cabin.

We all called it the IMP-ah-la, giving it the same Finnish accent that my grandparents did. When Chevy brought back the Impala in 2000, during a news conference I accidently slipped into my past and used my makeshift pronunciation in a question, much to the bewilderment of the company executive nearby. But, I will always wax nostalgic about the IMP-ah-la with its 350-cubic-inch, 250-hp V-8 and three-speed transmission that I almost always drove barefoot on my way to teach swimming at the local beach; great summer job and great memories from my high school days.—Alisa Priddle, MotorTrend Detroit Editor

1999 Chevrolet S-10

This is my 1999 Chevy S-10, which I bought right after I got my driver’s license as a sophomore in high school. My brother drove it home since it was a manual. On my 17th birthday I had it lowered. By the time I graduated high school, it was air-bagged. Custom flame paint on the tonneau, full tweed interior and bed, engine-driven compressor and Air-Zenith electric compressors, KP Components six-link, Slam Specialties ‘bags and Digital Stealth two-way valves that allow the truck to hop (in front) or lift and lower slowly. I still have it!—Monica Gonderman, Four Wheeler and Truck Trend News Editor

1964 MGB

What is the statute of limitations on driving before you have a license? Hopefully, 48 years is long enough, because I was 15, I think, when my dad I came across this 1964 MGB at a used car dealership on Beach Blvd in Huntington Beach. Before long, I had badly de-synchronized its SU carburetors (note the oil-stained pants above), painted red and yellow flames on the hood, made a cut-down plexiglass windshield like I’d seen on SCCA racing MGBs, and was doing Mr Toad laps around the neighborhood (why am I telling you this?) Before graduating to my even more treacherous High School car (a ’66 Jaguar E-Type), I put everything back, reupholstered the door panels, recarpeted it, and had it painted (the paint shop guy liked my door panels enough to offer me a job). I was a hopelessly, 100% British sports car guy—tweed hat, dorky Peter Warr (Lotus F1 team manager) glasses. Blimey. And I still flinch when I see an MGB. Is that it? Is that it?—Kim Reynolds, MotorTrend Technical Editor

The Subway

I am among the unfortunate ones who didn’t have a car in high school. What I did have was arguably infinitely more useful to me, though: A MetroCard. Specifically, I had one of those student MetroCards that gave me three free trips on New York City public transit (a whopping $4.50 value back then) a day, plus a transfer or two. Like many New Yorkers, I couldn’t be bothered with the bus, but I did use my MetroCard each and every day to take the subway from Park Slope, my neighborhood in Brooklyn, to Chelsea, in Manhattan, home of Xavier High School.

If you must know, I’d either take the Q to Union Square and hoof it to school, or, if the B came to the 7th Avenue Station first, it to West 4th Street, transferring across the platform to the F train, which I’d take a single stop to West 14th Street.

The Subways, just like cars, could make or break friendships and relationships. Some friendships thrived because they lived just a couple stops away from me. Other relationships died, because I didn’t want to waste half my life taking the R train all the way to Queens on a Saturday. As a car enthusiast, I certainly wanted to own a car in high school, but in retrospect, NYC’s fantastic subways quickly and reliably took me any place I could possibly dream of going. Anything in the world I desired was just a swipe away. Except Staten Island. Screw that.—Christian Seabaugh, MotorTrend Features Editor

1999 Toyota Avalon XLS

I was three years old when my dad brought home his brand-new 1999 Toyota Avalon XLS. According to him, when he signed the dotted line for the lease, he never planned on keeping it for more than the three-year term. Then 2013 rolled around. I passed my driving test (on my first try, I should add), and the 14-year-old Toyota was still in our possession. Its little V-6 made 190 horsepower and some torque; it was as slow as molasses in January. Despite this, I still managed to get my only two speeding tickets in it, in addition to denting nearly every body panel and breaking almost every button in the center console. I did everything I could to kill that thing without resorting to driving it off a cliff—not intentionally, I was just an idiot. But it was also quiet, comfortable, easy to drive, and ran without issue until it crossed well beyond the 200,000 mile mark. I never loved that car when it was mine, but after we gave it away something clicked in me. Now everytime I see a 1999 Toyota Avalon XLS on the road I smile to myself and think, “that’s a damn fine motorcar.”—Nicholas Yekikian, MotorTrend Associate Online Editor

1998 BMW 528i

Like a few of my colleagues, my high school years weren’t spent behind the wheel of my own car. Instead, I had access to my parents’ fleet. Usually, that fleet was narrowed down for me to only a 2002 Honda CR-V, and my time in it was split with my twin brother. We made the best of the situation—meaning we did plenty of stupid crap with it. (You’d be surprised how well a second-gen CR-V lands a jump.) But, I’m editing my own history here and remembering instead my father’s E39-generation BMW 5-series. I needn’t wax poetic here about that 528i (much), as many of you know it is today held up among the greatest sport sedans BMW ever produced. Sure, the black-over-black example I messed around with had the smaller inline-six; the doughy, tall-sidewall 15-inch base tires; and—gasp!—the automatic transmission. Doesn’t matter. That car remains among the better vehicles I’ve had the pleasure of driving even to today.

As luck would have it, I drove it more and more as college approached, although I’m convinced this had less to do with my infatuation with the by-then aging car than my father’s desire to replace it. As best I can tell, he was hoping my brother or I would channel our reckless, testosterone-misguided attempts at walking on to an F1 team’s driver roster and wreck the 528i, thus opening the door to something new. And there I was thinking it was love.—Alexander Stoklosa, MotorTrend Senior Editor

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