I worked to pay for my first car. It was all mine, paid for by me. Only a few hundred bucks. I sank about $1k into it and in 3mo the engine seized on the freeway in the dead of winter. Had to walk 7 miles to a train station to get home, when I got home the police were waiting for me demanding I tow it off the freeway within the hour or THEY would, and charge me towing and storage until I got it towed from the police impound. Wound up calling a junkyard and giving them the car fro the cost of the tow. Learning experience? Sure - if I have a daughter I'm not having her driving through the dead of winter in a car that cost a few hundred bucks. I will buy my son his first car. Under these conditions: It will be whatever he wants. He likes Subarus. We haven't decided yet. He will get it as a gift when he turns 14. He will need the next two years to restore it. It will be a basket case that will require him to do rebuild everything. Engine, trans, tcase, bodywork, brakes, suspension etc. I will supply parts, use of a spare a workshop bay and lift for those two years and I will always help him when he asks for help, lending my knowledge and expertise to teach him so he can do the work himself. I am not going to fix anything on that car. His car, not mine. By the time he gets his driver's license he will have a nice-as-new restored car that he has put blood sweat and tears into, so he will know the value of that car when he decides how to treat it. He will also know how every single component works inside and out, so he will always be able to fix his cars.