@cobrat , Most US residents at the SUNYs I’m most familiar with don’t drive fancy cars and few are wealthy. Those from some towns in Long Island and Westchester may be upper middle class but they don’t have the discretionary income to plop down 50-100K for their kid’s car. Many made a deal with parents that they’d get a car if they went to a SUNY rather than a private school but they are driving used Hondas. Only internationals students are driving new cars in the 50-100K range.
Not a gremlin, but a 1970 Ford Torino. Ran on leaded regular. Lap and shoulder seat belts were separate pieces. But it had cloth seats, no vinyl. Could see the highway passing though a few places where the rust was pretty bad.
Sent the current college kid with a Scion xB, the old toaster style. I swear the thing is made of tin foil. You can pull out the dents with a suction cup.
No car for me as an undergrad. And no car for either of my kids as undergrads.
hahahahaha. I love this question.
1964 Volkswagen Beetle
1962 MGA Mark II
1968 Fiat 850 Spyder
1964 MGB
That was just undergrad !!!
1979 Doge Omni - worst car to come out of Detroit. This was Chrysler’s first attempt at building a small car. I bought it used and probably put on ~20,000 miles before I had to junk it. Literally. I drove it to a junk yard (with no muffler - that drew a lot of funny looks along the way) and talked the guy up from $25 to $35. I used the cash to buy a bikini, which also fell apart. I figured it was cursed money.
At the time, a sorority sister of mine drove a brand new BMW and another had a Trans Am. My car looked splendid in the parking lot next to those.
'77 Delta 88. Mic drop.
I didn’t have a car in college - I was paying for college on my own and couldn’t afford the insurance, let alone the car. My daughter, who just graduated last month, had a 2010 Ford Escape.
Freshmen & Sophomore year- 200x (can’t remember) Saturn Vue. Total in an ice storm.
Sophomore-present - 2010 Kia Rio
Car was necessary for me. I worked several off-campus jobs and public transportation doesn’t exist 'round these parts.
None. No parking to speak of for students to park a car on campus. There was a lot at the far end of campus for commuters. Even now it is very difficult to get a parking permit for one of the campus lots. Off campus students pay a lot for anything near. Walked those hills. Other schools had a lot of parking near dorms and not too far to walk. UW was definitely not a suitcase campus!
Got my first car when I needed one for third year of medical school hospitals. New 1977 red Ford Maverick bought off the lot in August (back in the day all new cars came out in fall)- it had black vinyl seats (hot) and an AM radio- no air conditioning. My mom paid for it- tax, license (and insurance)- a loan I’m sure- for a total of $3000. A medical school classmate traded in his clunker for a newer used car and at first forgot he could have heat. Getting rides- learned to avoid the hole in the floor.
I only had a bicycle while in college!
My D has a Corolla that she will take to college this fall.
I had a 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass in high school, but where I went to college, it was an inconvenience to have a car. I only brought it to school senior year so that I could use it for job interviews. My H had a 1979 red Ford Fiesta with stick and no air conditioning.
When I graduated college, my Cutlass got “turned back” to my parents to be used for my younger sister and my parents got me a 1986 Audi 4000, which was a gorgeous car. Alas, this was right when there was the unintended acceleration controversy on the 5000, which meant that the value dropped. It was an expensive car for a young person just starting out to maintain. We wound up selling it and buying a more reliable Honda Civic. I drove that for years (including with infant / toddler twins - no minivan or SUV for me) then moved to Toyotas where I’ve stayed since.
Neither of my kids had cars in college. We said we would get them a car at graduation. S got a Toyota Prius – same car that I drive. He works in a small city without public transportation so a car is necessary for him. D lives / works in the city so a car is unnecessary for her. So she’s got a rain check til such time as it is needed. We would likely get her a Prius as well.
Never had a car until I got my first job after graduation. I couldn’t afford one, so used the university bus system and mooched rides off of friends/bf.
D1 had a Nissan XTerra.
D2 had a Jeep.
I had a bicycle while in college too! Loved that!
No car in college. I didn’t have many places I needed to go. My bf (now husband) had a car by junior year, so that helped.
64 Pontiac Lemans 4-door Custom Sport Coupe. Keep a wallet-sized photo of it.
I had my late great-grandma’s navy blue 1981 Buick Skylark. By the time I got it, the car was about 12 years old, yet it only had maybe 20,000 miles on it. I drove that car all the way through high school (junior and senior years…) and college. It had no headrests, but the seats were sheathed in some sort of velvety velour (if that makes sense – I don’t really know fabrics) that made the seats really comfortable. Even though the heater required about 10-15 minutes to warm up in the winter – which is a liability in Wisconsin – I loved that car.
I had a Toyota Corolla. My kids share a Honda Civic.
@cobrat I’m from Philly suburbs and I’m stumped trying to think what school would have been a public LAC in the Philly area. On the Main Line, there is a Lambo etc dealer, and you will see high end imports, but I’m not sure which other areas around Philly would have sported high-end cars like that, unless you were across the river in parts of NJ.
My parents bought a new Camaro in 1982 - it was the first year of the new look. They let my sister drive it her senior year in high school, then when she came to UT and lived in my dorm, I had first dibs on it as a college senior. I loved that car. V8 and fast! My folks let me have it when DH and I moved up to Maine in 1986. It was horrible in the snow, but we drove it more than once through snowstorms to go skiing. A kid bought it from us in 1989 or so and wrapped it around a tree not long after. 
WCU.
Older college classmate’s parent was tenured faculty there before retiring and said classmate frequented the campus while growing up/coming home from college and he mentioned there were a fair number of wealthy kids driving such cars attending the school.
One other thing I also remembered from my visit was the prices of many restaurants/items in that town were comparable/worse than prices in NYC*. Only exception were a couple of diners which served great portions of food at reasonable prices comparable to what I remembered from similar establishments in my rural Midwest college town.
- $3-4 for a slice of mediocre looking pizza when a better slice in NYC was ~$1.75-2.25. Frozen yogurt there was higher priced for the same portions than what's available from one of the most expensive frozen yogurt shops in Greenwich/East Village at the time.