tof

The first car I ever owned--in 1970--was an old Triumph Spitfire.

I fell in love with the S2000 after driving one recently purchased by a fellow ClubSi.com member back in 2000. It just took me seven years to finally get one.

jukngene

I've been meaning to post to this thread, but somehow, haven't gotten around to it until now.

My first sports car was a 1967 Sunbeam Alpine, which my mom paid for as my college graduation present. I should have seen the writing on the wall as the passenger side window promptly fell out of the track right after I got it. However, this car survived trips to Texas from Newport News,VA and back, when I went to flight school and was the only car we had until I returned from Vietnam in 1970. My wife at the time learned to drive in it, and she often carried our 3 infants in it while I was gone. (Couldn't do that now!) This marvelous piece of British engineering left us stranded several times because the alternator bracket insisted on breaking. One night that I clearly remember, we were returning from a visit to my parents (with our one child at the time), in the middle of nowhere, when it let go, and promptly threw the alternator into the radiator, causing an instant loss of water. Luckily, some kind soul came along and towed us back to a hole-in-the wall repair shop which was closed (it was Sunday night), then took us to get some milk for my son and then to a motel. The next day, the mechanic welded up a replacement bracket, soldered the leak in the radiator, and we were on our way. I think he charged $5.00 for the repair!

I kept the Sunbeam as a second car until 1974, when I sold it for about $200.

My next sports car was also a 1967 model, this time an MGB-GT. You would have thought I would have learned about British cars by this time (1987) but, apparently not. This car was in pretty bad shape, and I managed to restore it to serviceable condition. However, the Prince of Darkness was determined to have his way, and the starter had a bad habit of locking the "Bendix" into the flywheel, requiring removing the starter to unlock it. Also, the transmission would not go into reverse, so I sold it in 1992.

Though not a true sports car, my next vehicle was a 1990 Mazda RX-7 convertible. This was a sweet ride, even though the rotary engine blew at 75,000 miles. I subsequently gave it to my son in 2003, when I got the S. Soon after he got it, the engine blew again (those damn seals).

In 2003, I started my search for another sports car, looking at the Boxster and the Mercedes SLK-250. In doing my research on-line, all of a sudden I saw the reviews of the S. Believe it or not, I did not know of this car until that instant. The day I read the reviews, I did a search of dealer's inventories nearby, and low and behold, there was a certified used 2001 only 10 miles away, with 11,000 miles on it. I immediately drove down there, the salesman and I went for a ride, and the deal was sealed that afternoon.

Without a doubt, this purchase was the best one I have ever made, since it opened up this site to me, and allowed me to meet the nicest group of people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. The Spring Fling meet we just had confirmed that!

And that is my sports car story, and I'm sticking to it!

Morris

My first sports car was a Bugeye Sprite. Had several over the years, one just bought for parts. The best Bugeye I ever saw was one a friend had. He replaced the engine with a Datsun 1100cc engine, if my memory serves me. Easy to get parts and ran great. No gas pouring out of the carbs. I also picked up a 1964 MGB, but I never could get that bugger to run proper.
I had a brand new 1976 Celica, but I don't think that counts. No more sports cars until I married the current +1. She had a 87 RX-7, then a 95 Rx-7 which she totaled when a dog ran into her. (yes I typed that correctly) That led, in 1998, to a search for a new RX-7, but instead we got on the wait list for some new roadster Honda was coming out with. 15 months later, a call came from the salesman saying our S2000 had been delivered. We drove it home the next day. (It's officially her car)

paS2K

As I expected, I'm one of the sportscar vingins

I probably COULD have had a sportscar before the Dec 1999 purchase of my '00 Silverstone, but my famous frugality probably kept me from spending the money I had a couple "fun" cars but nothing to compare to the S. Its simplicity is perfect for my tastes. I'm so easy to please that my new-to-me Supersprint exhaust makes me think that I got a new car a few weeks ago ( Thanks again, Tom717)

Cool thread, Rob....thanks for starting it I love to read about other's experiences....living vicariously, I guess

dlq04

Sports cars always played a huge part of my life. I certainly fit the description of “sports car crazy”.

My dad’s life long friend was the person who played a huge influence. Norman always seemed well off and one day he drove up to our house, back when my dad was driving a '49 Ford, in a Cadillac Allard. I was only 8 or 9 at the time and but I knew I had just seen the coolest car in the world. Allards at that time dominated the European Rally scene. Later I would see Norm driving a bathtub Porsche (early 365 or 911) and one of the first Corvettes. And I learned he rallied them. It's pretty cool to think those kind of cars would be in our small town out in the sticks of PA! There’s an old Pennzoil magazine ad that shows a large number of European sports cars lined up on the side of the road running a rally through the refinery section near Franklin, PA. Maybe Norm was one of them.

Aside from Norm, the foreign-car invasion did not reach our small corner of the world but car magazines did. I feed my hunger by burying myself in Sports Cars Illustrated, Car Life, and Road & Track. I knew I didn’t have the money to buy a sports car but it didn’t cost much to dream. Dreaming about sports cars dominated my life - at least when I wasn’t dreaming about girls. Come to think about it, the two things usually were together.

None of my buddies had this bug; at least not the sports car bug. They were all jazzed about America cars. I too could appreciate the 1955 and 1956 Chevy’s that were at the top of their dreams and the George Barris custom cars of the day. Somehow the high tide of the British sports car invasion missed sweeping them up as it had me. I read about the pre-war Mercedes-Benz, Auto-Union, and Alfa Romeo, and all the epic road races on the European continent. These cars and their stories symbolized freedom and self-expression. I leaped through the pages trying to memorize every detail on the new AC, Aston Martin, Jaguar, MG, Morgan, and the rest of the England’s wonderful sports car alphabet and the Italian cars; the all conquering sexy machines like Ferrari, Maserati, and Alfa. Finally, there were German cars from Porsche and Mercedes-Benz to dream about. Perhaps the toughest part was the dream seemed so close, yet out of reach. Northwest Pennsylvania definitely was not sports car country so there were no used sports car markets to choose from. New ones were out of my price range. At the bottom of pecking order was the Austin-Healey Sprite. Cost, $1,935. The hotter version of the standard MGA, the Twin-Cam, could be found for $3,209. Near the top, a Ferrari 250 Gran Turismo would set you back $12,725.

Even if my buddies didn’t catch the sports car wave, others did as reported in Life magazine in features like “The Rage for Sports Cars”. I was sure that no matter how long it took, I would someday own a sports car. It might be the lowest rung on the sports car automotive ladder but it would be a sports car. I loved them all; some more than others, with their long hoods, often louvered, swooping fenders, cutaway doors, their great handling and top-down excitement.

Before I had a driver’s license I was saving for my dream. As a bag boy at the local grocery store, and at my parent’s urging, I deposited money weekly into a bank savings account. Besides establishing a good habit my parents probably envisioned that I was saving for my college days. Little did they know but it would all go towards my first car - a new Triumph Spitfire, the first year they came out.

And the rest, as they say, is history. . . . . with the exception of seven months I’ve never been without one; often more than one.

MsPerky

I think this would be a great story for the homepage. Very nice writeup!

dlq04

Thanks Deb. And thanks Jerry for catching the bloopers.

S1997

I think I got my love of automobiles from my dad, but I guess most American dads were car crazy in the post WWII era. He was always too busy, though to devote any time with me on cars. As a kid I was an early subscriber to Hot Rod Magazine and always coveted a Deuce Coupe or hot rod Ford roadster. In high school I had an 1936 Chevy that I refurbished and rebuilt the engine for. I never had enough money to support any emergent car habit until I finished school and started earning enough to afford a sports car. As a teenager I spent a year abroad in Germany and came to love the smaller well-engineered European automobiles and the Euro racing tradition. I and my German friends over there rode motorcycles and drove to auto races all over Europe on them. At home in college I spent a lot of time working on and modding VW bugs, and then progressed to a TR4A in 1965 that I loved -- and then to small BMW 2002s. Years later, I was looking for an older British sports car to work on and track when I read about the upcoming S2000 in 1999; so I got on the dealership list to purchase one. Bar none, the S was the most fun of any car I had ever owned or driven. In 2007 I bought an AP2 and have reverted to my old love of wrenching. There is no end to the fun you can have with the S car in the garage if you have the time, spare change, and inclination. You only live once.

PJRider

This is my first sports car. I didn't choose it, my late husband Bob (Sssnakesss) did. What made him choose it, I'll never know but he did research several different cars and decided on this one. He leased the S in June of 2006 and a month later we discovered that his kidney cancer had returned after 13 years. In retrospect, he was dying at the time but we didn't know it. I came to love the car as well and when he died and the lease came due a year later, I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase it.

He knew before he died I was going to keep it.

So, Bob, you can't have the S back! Get your own and I'll race you!

By the way, he used to call me "Mario (a la Andretti)"; bit of a lead foot at times, I guess

Connie

tof

Connie, you sure know how to put a lump in one's throat.

I immediately thought of Mario as in Mario Cart (Nintendo). He's also pretty quick.