My car history is a bit....dull

Many of my car friends have a long and interesting car history with upwards of 20 cars. Me...well, I didn't start out strong. My first car was given to me by my Dad. It was a 1994 Plymouth Acclaim with the Mitsubishi 2.5L I-4. It was my Dad's car, which he purchased from his employer when they got new company cars. If I remember correctly, he paid all of $1.00.
I was "Given", or more accurately, allowed to use, as long as I covered all of the repairs, fuel and insurance, when I was 16, to allow me to get to and from work and the Career Technical Center. It's the car I did my driving test in, it's the first car I got sideways, the first car I got into an accident with, and the first car I spun out. What did it in ultimately was a blown head gasket, and a warped head. My uncle bought it from us with intent to repair it...it had a full tank of Gas....

The next car I had was given to me by a friend of the family. It had been parked for some time with the Parking brake set, so we had to dump about $350 into it to repair the brakes. It was a 1991 Dodge Dynasty. Essentially, an early version of the platform my Acclaim was built on. This one had the 3.3L Mitsubishi V-6, and the infamous A604 4-speed automatic, which had it's solenoid pack die twice on me. As you can see from the photo, it started to rust quite a bit by this point. We sold it to a local salvage yard for scrap....with a full tank of fuel...seems to be a pattern.

Next, I got my real first car. I paid half of the car, and my dad covered the rest, which was paid back eventually. The 1998 Lumina. This one had a fairly interesting history. It started life as a Rental Fleet car, where it was wrecked, repaired and sold to another rental lot, which, in turn, wrecked it, repaired it and sold it to my uncle's friend, who ran a Used car lot. He fixed it up, and loaned it to an employee for a bit. So I was the 5th owner of this former rental car with a Salvage / Repair title. I had this car from 2005 to 2012, and put nearly 62,000 miles on it. What did this car in ultimately was rust, and an inability to contain it's fluids. Also had most of a tank of fuel when I traded it in.

Before my current car, I nearly bought a few project cars, including the following. This one was a 1989 Honda Prelude 2.0si 4WS, marked at $1,000. It needed a bit of work, including a rear steering box, which is about $850 used, and both front seatbelts. The repairs would have doubled the cost, without touching the rust. I decided that wasn't worth it.

The second car I very nearly bought was this 1989 Nissan 240SX hatch parts car. It was way rougher than it looks in the photo. The frame rails were completely rusted away, the battery tray was rotted through, the engine was missing piece and the whole thing was way more work than I wanted to get myself into.

That leads me to my current car, this 2006 Subaru Forester. I got it in 2012, and have owned it since. I love this thing. You may remember my Long Term Review i did back in November. I have had a few issues with the car, but thanks to my Extended warranty, I've had to pay very little out of pocket for the repairs.

Thanks for reading. I hope you've enjoyed this look into my car history.

-Phil