The cars I've owned throughout the years

I currently live in a society where owning a car isn't terribly important. This was also true in Thailand, which was the last country I lived in. It wasn't necessary or really economical to own a car in those places because public transport was readily available and extremely cheap. For example: I could drive from Krabi to Phuket (180km) and spend about $20 on fuel, probably more, or I could take the bus and pay $3.

When I lived in USA it was pretty essential to have a car unless you lived in a major metropolitan area. Unfortunately the train system in America is rarely used, horribly inefficient, and expensive - which is a damn shame because the States has the most railroad tracks of any country in the world.

Anyway, this isn't a philosophical post about transportation options, just the cars that I have owned (or when i was young, was loaned by my parents,) throughout the years.

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My first car was an '85 Ford Escort and while these things have all but disappeared from the roads they were everywhere in the 80's and 90's. The Escort is one of the best-selling cars of all time. Mine sucked, but it didn't matter because I had a car and was thrilled about it.

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My second car was also a Ford Escort but with a manual transmission, a slightly more powerful engine and some sexier lines to it. It was still a piece of crap but this thing kept going and going until one day it was so plagued with rust and various problems that I parked it on the side of the road for so long and then one day woke up and the city had towed it for leaving it there too long. They told me I was going to have to pay a couple hundred dollars to get it out of the impound and I just told them to keep it.

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Definitely the sexiest car I ever owned, my 1990 Toyota Celica GTS had a reasonably powerful engine in it that had quite a lot of get-up-and-go but not much of a top end. It sported a 16V sticker on the side that was the subject of a lot of ridicule because it was kind of playing on people's misunderstanding of the difference between a V8 and 8V - they are not the same thing.

I got it up to 140 MPH one day and that scared the hell out of me.

The GTS would meet an untimely end when a teenager in a road yacht ran a red light and I "T-Boned" her. There was almost no damage to her monstrous vehicle but the trusty GTS was toast.

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The 2002 Toyota Corolla was the only brand new car I have ever owned. It was boring, underpowered, efficient, and had that new car smell. It also held its value very well over the 4 years that I owned it. I certainly wasn't going to turn any heads with this but I never had any mechanical issues. I guess it got the job done.

It would be the last car I would own in the United States

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While I have driven plenty of cars in Asia, I only ever owned one of them. It was a late 80's Suzuki Caribbean and this might be the favorite car I have ever had in my life.

The engine was simplistic which meant that anyone could work on it for very little money, the interior was massive, the 4-wheel low setting was unstoppable which I proved one day when I drunkenly decided to drive through a river and made it through, and everyone loved being a passenger because of the gigantic "Jurassic Park" windows on the back. The doors were removable and the front window would fold forward for some reason (we never did this.)

With a top speed of around 100 km / hour, this vehicle was a beast off-road, but rather shit on the highway. It also got terrible gas mileage. Although I did have to get repairs done on it fairly regularly, none of them ended up being very expensive. Years later I would sell this car for half what I paid for it to my mechanic, who probably knew the car better than anyone else on the planet.

Ever since that fateful day of selling the "beaner" I have not owned a car at all. I don't see the point really. The last city i lived in in Northern Thailand my bicycle was my only vehicle and I lost a bunch of weight because of that.

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Now my only vehicle is my shoes. I'll get a bike eventually but honestly, if I never own another car in my life I'll be quite alright with that. It's a massive expense and as long as I continue to live in countries where buses cost next to nothing, I don't really see the point in having a car.

So what about you? I don't expect anyone to post their entire car history but what was your first car and what are you driving now? I'd be interested to know!