Your first car is the best one you'll ever own.

That sound you just heard was the collective groaning of every person of a certain age saying "are you kidding me? My first car was a piece of dog crap."

Now hear me out: your first vehicle is an important one. It's your first taste of true independence, of freedom to explore and roam without boundaries.

Unless your car really was a heaping pile of turd, and you didn't dare drive it outside city limits without fear of it sputtering to a halt in a remote area with crummy cell signal. Then it was a slightly less powerful statement of true independence, but I'm willing to bet you have a fun story about your first car.

Everyone has a fun (or interesting, or horrifying) "first car" story. Some people are still driving their first car, so the stories keep piling on. Others have long passed their first, and are well into their second or third (or fourth, if you're like one of my friends that just can't stop ruining vehicles).

Americans have held a particular fascination with the automobile for a long time. "You mean to tell me I can have my own personal horseless carriage, and I don't have to be rich to afford it? Where do I autograph?!" That was a revolutionary idea back around the turn of the century. To own a car was the beginning of an exploratory renaissance to many in this country. I mean, we practically invented the road trip as we know it today, what with Interstate highways and station wagons and pre-packaged beef jerky and such.

I am a big fan of the classic American road trip. It runs in the family; we're all predisposed to drive somewhere over flying. As a family, mine is obsessed with cars. My dad has made a living working on them, knowing all there is to know about them (as well as motorcycles, snowmobiles, etc.). My mom has also made a living with them, mostly reupholstering them and making sure the interior is spick and span.

So, you can imagine my excitement when it came time to look for my very first car. I searched local classifieds daily for a good deal. Being a 16-year old with eyes bigger than my bank account (and my parents'), I had to keep within a tight budget. I had an interest in working on my own car, so I looked at unfinished projects, vehicles that "needed some TLC," stuff like that. Whatever I settled on, it had to meet three criteria:

*Start and run reliably every day.

*Be cheap to work on and service.

*Be cool enough to make the high school parking lot jealous.

My ideas of an old Camaro/Firebird/Mustang/generally sporty car were quickly dismissed. Plus, in western Kansas, you weren't cool unless you had a pickup truck, so I turned my attention to old trucks. I love old pickups for their usefulness, classiness, and rugged character. At any given point in time, I want at least three in my driveway. However, finding one that was suitable for teenage AJ was tough; the ones I wanted were either too expensive or too rusty.

Finally, my dad actually found one that turned out to be perfect. It was first hauled home by a UPS driver who bought it for $500 for his teenage son. They did "some work" to it (I'll explain that later), but -- and there's always a "but" -- his son lost interest and the truck sat in their garage, untouched. He mentioned it to my dad one day, and the lightbulb went ding! AJ would love that.

On a weekend, we went to visit UPS Driver Man and the pickup in question.

It was simultaneously the coolest and most uncool thing I'd ever seen, and I wanted it badly.

It was a 1985 GMC 1500 short-bed pickup, with a Chevrolet grille and busted tailgate. The paint job was a decidedly distasteful selection of navy blue from a rattle-can, with blue overspray on some of the chrome pieces, like the door mirrors and drip rails. The wheels were the original "steelies," but were in dire need of a shining-up. The body trim was either removed and stacked in the back of the truck, or missing entirely. The steering wheel -- a huge plastic thing that could've been a hula hoop in a past life -- was missing the horn button in the middle. But the horn was missing too, so that was of little importance.

My exact comment to my dad: "I hope they're not asking too much for it."

Then we talked about what kind of "some work" had been done to it, and I started to get more hesitant. It was going to become "smooth and slammed" -- in other words, it'd have no door handles, exterior chrome bits, or much of anything really other than smoothly-painted sheet metal. The slammed part? A blowtorch to the suspension would provide a cheap version of the desired effect of making the bottom of the truck scrape the ground.

We paid more for the truck than it was worth, but it was mine, dammit.

So we drove it home. Oh, and did I mention the turn signals didn't work? Nor did the lights, or the power steering, or the brakes… you get the picture.

Immediately into the workshop it went, where my dad and I (but mostly my dad) brought the truck to life over the span of a few months. In that time, it got a refreshed engine, working power steering and brakes, and speakers wired in (but no stereo yet, because those are expensive, dude). The electrics were re-wired and sorted, and new suspension was fitted to the back, which had the effect of jacking the rear end about three stories into the air, while the front end would drag on steep dips in the roadway.

The wheels were sandblasted clean and repainted, fitted with sticky new tires, and mounted (by me). The pickup bed was sanded down (by me) and coated with gray primer to keep it from rusting while my dad and I perused paint schemes.

All the while, my mom revamped the interior, giving me a brand-new bench seat with memory foam inside. The seat cover was a custom job too; a black and gray vinyl/cloth mix with an awesome scarab-scorpion-art-deco design of my creation, stitched into the middle. Matching door panels and aluminum dash trim would complete the ensemble. Oh, and it had power windows too!

Once it was road-ready, it was a sweet truck. I finally had my own rolling monument of self-expression, a boxy thing I thought was totally cool and was proud to park amongst every other high-schooler's vehicle. Some folks had newer cars, some had nicer ones with better stereos, but mine was a rat rod in progress, and I loved it.

It gave me the ability to explore the countless roads criss-crossing Kansas. That truck and I spent an ungodly amount of time aimlessly cruising everywhere, from gravel back roads to lumpy city streets, picking quick races between street lights with Mustangs and Civics, chasing storms that nine times out of ten didn't do anything more than rain hard and look pretty, and generally cause a nuisance wherever I went.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: the truck had loud exhaust, because I'm still a little kid at heart and I like loud things. Once, I was sitting at a red light which turned green, and the car in front of me wasn't moving. Since I didn't have a horn to politely remind them to move, I popped the truck into neutral and revved the engine. That definitely got them to move -- and set off a car alarm nearby.

Later in high school, Truck got a fresh new engine (with more power!) and new exhaust which wasn't quite as loud, but was still obnoxiously fun. We never did get the air-conditioning working well, so I was constantly driving with windows down and the rear sliding window open. That's what older folks call "3-55 air-conditioning," FYI. A friend and I later did some experimenting with a paint job, drawing stripes and tracing Von Dutch-style designs on it. The veritable blank canvas, if you will, to our automotive creativity.

That friend, also named Andrew, and I ended up painting most of the truck in a black and red two-tone style the day of our high school graduation. He was an up-and-coming car builder, and was great with a paint gun. The truck transformed into a subtle hot rod, black on top and red on bottom with some chrome accents, shiny aluminum wheels and new white-letter tires. It looked damn good…

… and then I hit a deer at 55 miles per hour one night, shattering the grille and right front headlight, wrinkling the right front fender and caving in the passenger door. The impact also cracked the radiator and battery, which sent battery acid and coolant spewing everywhere. The shiny valve covers and air cleaner were ruined.

The Truck would never fully recover. Parts were expensive, so I drove with a busted-up front end for longer than my pride wanted to allow. Eventually Truck was healed, with a new grille, headlights, front fender and door, but it would never be the same. It also got two new gas tanks -- yes, it had two, which was hilariously expensive to refuel -- and the rear end got lowered to a much less sky-high level, but it was never the same.

By then it was determined that I needed a much safer, more reliable and economical vehicle for college, and I eventually ended up with the little red coupe I still have today. Truck was sold to a neighbor, who loved it just as much as I did, and is probably still driving it now. The damn thing wanted to work, it just ran into some bad luck -- literally.

You never forget your first of everything, including your first car. It's an important part of a person's evolution; I think it's a big factor in who they become later in life. It's the key to a door of personal freedom with ties leading back to the early days of automotive Americana. It's a special moment, getting your first car, even if you don't care at all about cars. If you're the type of person that treats your car the same as you treat your refrigerator, that's fine. I'm willing to bet you still got excited about your first vehicle.

Do I need another obnoxiously loud, square, gas-guzzling pickup? No.

Do I want another obnoxiously loud, square, gas-guzzling pickup? You betcha.

If nothing else, I want one for nostalgia's sake, and that can be a powerful force. The original Truck was exciting, unpredictable, and had a character all its own. I mean, it's got screen time in a movie my high school friends and I made. It's practically famous.

Who wouldn't want something like that?