By Hayden Garrett
From another state, from a family friend, as a gift, or bought with their own money.
Students get their first cars from many different places and all have different backstories and sentimental value with them.
Delta’s parking lot has a variety of cars from expensive, big trucks to old cars you can hear a mile away, yet all of them have some kind of story behind them.
A big part of the parking lot is old beaters.This includes a truck driven by junior Joseph Malia.
“I bought it off of Griffin Fisher,” Joseph said. “I mainly bought it to be honest because it had manual windows and I love manual windows, but I also have some sentimental value to it because my grandpa has a bunch of square bodies.”
Joseph drives a 77 C10 Chevy to school every day, at least he does when it’s not broken down in the school parking lot. Joseph’s truck didn’t leave the school until he and juniors Everertt Linn and Evan Connor towed it back to his house.
“It took an hour and a half on the back roads at 15 miles an hour and I live in Yorktown,” Joseph said.
His truck is also missing a heater and has gone through four or five starters this year.
“Thank God warranties exist,” Joseph said
Joe’s truck was picked as one of Delta’s favorite beaters alongside a car driven by Corbin Ladig.
Ladig, a junior, drives a 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. Corbin bought his car last January with the money he made from working at McDonalds.
“I got it out of some dude’s barn in Ohio without an engine or transmission and I built the engine,” Corbin said.
Delta students know that it’s Corbin’s car when you hear the roar of his engine and see the rusty car roll into the parking lot.
Corbin’s car may not be everyone’s first pick, but it’s definitely his. He put in the work to buy and fix his car. He also has plans to paint his car and make it more his own.
Although old cars bring a lot of attention to themselves there are a few other unique cars that stick out, such as senior Hailey Metcalfe, who was chosen for “Delta’s Most Unique.”
Hailey drives an old Ford F150. She doesn’t normally drive this truck but when she had to it drew lots of attention.
“It’s been a farm truck for years and has barely been driven at all,” she said. “I was driving it because I wrecked my car and it’s a good truck. It ‘s just really bumpy.”
The main attribute of the truck that draws attention is the light. The truck’s headlights are a light blue and green when on. These lights make the truck illegal to drive on the road so she doesn’t get to drive it every day, but it’s still memorable for the students at Delta.
Even with these lights Hailey loves the basics of an old truck. Hailey said that her favorite thing about her unique truck has to be the way it sounds, especially when it’s cold outside.
With all these cool cars bringing attention to the parking lot, many students still focus on the trucks. Junior Brady Gruwell drives one of Delta’s favorite trucks.
Brady drives a 1989 Ford F-250. It was bought from Indianapolis for $10,000 as a gift from his dad. Since buying the truck he has changed the headlights but has kept it the same outside of that.
Another favorite Delta truck is junior Sebastian Gillum’s 2009 Chevy Silverado.
Although Brady kept his truck mostly original, Sebastian had to make more changes including the tire rods, control arms, sound system, windshield wipers, headlights and tail lights. Sebastian also let one of his friends drive his truck which resulted in the replacing of the tire rods and control arms.
“It was my dad’s friend’s truck who lives in Ohio and it was kind of expensive, but I didn’t pay for it, my parents did,” Sebastian said. “I have just kind of paid them off and as long as I’m in sports I don’t have to pay as much toward it.”
The final truck that sticks out from the rest is senior Lane Norton’s 2006 Chevy Silverado 2500 Hd.
Lane’s truck wasn’t always an attention grabber, but he has turned it into something that will turn heads.
“I got it handed down to me and it was just kind of a grandpa truck and I made it into kind of like a show truck,” Lane said.
He has enjoyed putting the work into his truck and said his favorite thing about it was just building it to where it is now. Lane has put a lot of lights onto the truck and new tires along with new tire rods.
“I was at the gas station one time and some old lady commented on my LED door handles, so that was cool,” Lane said.
