My First!

Every car enthusiast has one. His first. The one that awakened him to the excitement that only a hot car can bring. Mine was a Maroon 1984 Mustang SVO. Previously I suffered through a Toyota Tercel and 1981 Mustang with an anemic (that is a kind description) inline 6 with 94 horsepower. Those were some sick horses also. The only excitement that Mustang generated was it's tendency to stall while turning left at stop lights. Regardless, I had poured over car magazines looking for something different and I found it. The Mustang SVO was everything I was looking for. It was rare, fast (for the day) and good looking. More importantly it only cost me $4000. I quickly headed up to an out of the way place to see the object of my desire. The owner agreed to let me test drive the car and I anxiously awaited my turn at the wheel. The car only had 60K miles on it and the exterior was in good shape. The Biplane rear wing was really cool and gave the car a distinctive look. Best of all it was a manual transmission. The only problem is that I had only driven a manual about 2 times before that. I had driven a rather breathless 4 cylinder Stang and had to give it some gas and slip the clutch to keep from stalling. Thinking I could keep the same technique with the SVO I quickly buckled myself in with the owner in the passenger seat. I slowly pulled it down the driveway. The owner lived on a rural highway with a 55 MPH speed limit so I was nervious about pulling out too slow. So I tried the only method I knew how and gave it some gas while slipping the clutch. Holy mother of god was that a mistake! I smoked the tires and proceeded to do a complete donut before coming to rest in the middle of the rural highway. The suddenly more pale owner of the car quickly told me to get out and drove it back up the driveway. As brief a test drive as it was I was smitten like I never have been before. I quickly thanked the owner (who probably thought he would never see me again) and proceeded straight to the bank the next morning. Somehow I got approved for the loan and some very generous people at the insurance company granted me a policy for my new Stang for the outstanding price of $1800/year. Almost half the price that I payed for the car. I arrived and picked up my beauty and instantly fell head over heels in love with my new car. I quickly grew intoxicated with the immense power generated right after a brief period of lag. Triple digit speeds became somewhat commonplace with my newfound power (if you are a member of the law enforcement community I am making this up) and I would smile widely as I would explore the limits of it's handling. Expectedly I had a few accidents here and there, mainly due to the SVO's inherent ability to oversteer when taking a bend too fast or when the boost would kick in on a slippery surface. Through my boneheaded mistakes I did learn a ton of lessons about car control and recovering from skids. Through all of this I became a better driver and an even more avowed gearhead. I somehow even became cool once I had my car and that paid dividends with self confidence that I never had. That time period started my love affair with the automobile that has not ended until this day. I actually still had the car until last year. It was sitting outside my parents house in desperate need of repair. My parents were going to make me sell it to get it out of their driveway. So I started a search to find a good home for it and turned down multiple people because I didn't think them suitable. It wasn't just a car. It was the memories of my youth and one of the best relationships I ever had, the one with my car. When I finally had to say goodbye it was a sobering moment. It was like I was saying goodbye to my youth, and in a way I was.