My First Car: 1984 Cutlass Ciera

Some people get really cool cars for their first car.  Some people get really junky cars for their first car.  Some people get no car for their first car.  My first car was none of these.

My first car was the exceedingly adequate Cutlass Ciera.  A 1984 Cutlass Ciera in some sort of sky blue color.  I remember loving it prior to driving age as I thought it was cool that it had that little multi-flag emblem on each side of the front fenders.

I was given the car late in my high school days and took it with me to college shortly thereafter.  As I said above, it was...adequate.  It held a lot of cargo in its trunk, carried people around fairly well and my father had added a decidedly aftermarket Radio Shack tape deck that hung below the dash.  The Ciera was slow.  God was it slow.  I didn't realize just how gutless it was until today when I looked it up and saw that the '84 Ciera in its 2.5L 4 cyl. form only produced 92 hp.  Pretty weak for a 4-door sedan though likely adequate...at the time.  Can't blame my parents for purchasing such an adequate vehicle though.  It was Oldsmobile's perennial best seller, was a good value and deemed a "safe" car.

The Ciera rusted away pretty quick with its trunk and fenders being perforated with numerous rust holes by the time I got my hands on it in 1991-92.  Flying the car over some train tracks and lawndarting it into the asphalt didn't help the electronics early on, nor did its numerous offroad excursions to random unlit fields.  In college it got left in snowbanks and squeezed in between trees in order to park in an area neither the campus police or town police would touch you (within the privately owned right of way zone on either side of the local train tracks).  By the end of my freshman year of college the "Blue Bomber" had exhausted itself and proceeded to snap a CV, tie rods, and a whole host of front suspension/driveline parts when rounding a slow left hand turn on my way to pack the car for my return trip home.  I left the old girl in the middle of the road and walked the half mile back to my dorm where my parents would meet me and I would relate the Bomber's fate.

By the time we finished packing my parents minivan and went looking for the old girl, the police had nicely had her towed to a wrecking yard I knew well (as the Bomber had been towed there a couple times for illegal parking that Freshman year).  My father walked in, heard what the bill would be to repair her and off we went, never to see the Blue Bomber again.  She was a good...adequate car for the time I had her.  My kids won't ever be wishing I kept her for them to have but I'll always remember her adequacy...