Like many of you, I had big dreams for my first car when I was growing up. Obviously, it would be rear-wheel drive and manual, because how could it not be? I was a car enthusiast, dammit. Except by the time I got my driver’s license and had enough money to look at buying a car, I ended up with my dad’s Kia Spectra. It did the job of getting me from point A to point B, and it did have a manual transmission, but it certainly wasn’t an enthusiast car.
No, it took me until much later to finally find what I considered a properly fun car. You could argue my motorcycles were fun enough to count, but I bought those more for their extremely low prices and running costs, so I’d argue I didn’t get my first truly fun vehicle until I was in my early 20s and found an E39 540i for sale nearby with a manual transmission and the sport suspension.
Should I have been more careful about buying a car that originally cost more than $100,000 in today’s money? Absolutely. In the end, though, it worked out so much better than it should have. Sure, I’ve had to replace several window regulators, the cooling system was a ticking time bomb, I can’t open the sunroof anymore and half the pixels in the cabin are burned out, but dang it, that car is still so damn fun to drive that I just don’t care.
There’s a torquey naturally aspirated V8 under the hood, a six-speed manual and suspension that was tuned correctly right from the factory, and it was an absolute hoot when I lived in the North Georgia mountains. It currently lives with my parents who have room for it and doesn’t get driven much, but maybe by my 40th, I’ll finally have enough saved up to really get it back into great condition.
What about you? What car was your first fun car? Did you get it in high school or have to wait? Also, what happened to it? Do you still have it? Let us know down in the comments.
