When my daughter turned 16 in 1985, I gave her a '72 Datsun station wagon. It was almost as old as her. It had been owned by a retired gentleman down the street, and when he passed away, his wife sold it to me, cheap. It only had about 16K miles, and the paint and interior was like new. No one had ever sat in the back seat.
At her party, everyone disappeared when she visited the bathroom. She found them all outside, standing around the car. At first, she was hurt -- a station wagon? It just wasn't cool. But, all her friends started calling it "Datsoon", and she was the most popular kid in town after band practice -- she could haul them home with their instruments in the back. She was also proud that she passed her license test in a stick shift station wagon with manual steering, when most of her friends could only drive automatics.
When my son turned 16, he got his Mother's '83 Toyota Starlet. However, I added Tokico gas shocks, bought an extra set of wheels mounted with Yokohama 008 autocross tires, and we went racing. Autocross, called Solo II in the Sports Car Club of America, is a skill contest in which one car at a time travels a miniature road course made up of orange cones, as fast as possible against the clock. The courses are set up on very large parking lots or airport runways. The courses are tight and tricky, and it takes a lot of skill to do it right. He was good -- he won our regional championship in his rookie year. After that, he had no problem with the fact that it was much slower on the street than his friend's cars; he was a bona fide race driver with a championship, and he could care less what they thought. He also had no need to race on the street. In a couple of years, he go so good that I bought him an '85 Toyota MR2, in which he won a couple of more championships, and which he still has, today. It needs a bit of freshening, and will be one of the first projects when my barn is built.
