Most first cars aren’t cool. People still tell stories about theirs decades later like it was a legend.

The stories people tell about a first car are almost never about the car. They are about where it let them go, who was in it, what broke on the way, the particular freedom of leaving a house without asking anyone. The vehicle itself was an unreliable box with a bad stereo. What it made possible is the part still being retold at dinner thirty years later.

If you get something unimpressive, use it hard and take people with you. The quality of the object matters far less than the mileage you put on it with other people inside.