It wasn't fast. It wasn't new. And with that paint job — Stephan Ogasawara calls it "old-lady gold" — his car wasn't going to win any style points in the Kailua High School parking lot.

But Ogasawara really didn't care. It was his first set of wheels, even if it was a temporary ride, and it provided a delicious first taste of independence.

"My parents didn't like driving me everywhere," he said. "I had to bum rides off my friends."

When Ogasawara graduated a few months after he got that old Toyota Corona — a hand-me-down from his sister — he received his own graduation present, the car he drives now. It's a 2004 Toyota Corolla, nothing flashy, but it gives the Keolu Hills resident some reliable acceleration and the means to get together with his friends, make it to work and his afternoon gig as a tennis coach.

"My group is more into the luxury-looking cars," said the 19-year-old Ogasawara. "I wanted a Chrysler 300 or a BMW, nothing fast. But my friend just bought a Jaguar. We always drive with her if we go out to dinner."

The power of wheels is undeniable, and few things can change a person as much as a first car. Whether it came with that new-car smell or the stink of someone else's bad habits, it still offers status, freedom and repair bills you didn't expect.

It gets you to school or the movies, or maybe even to a moonlit view of the ocean. It gets you to work so you can earn money to pay for gas, so you can get back to work.

NO DOWN, JUST A SMILE

For Jimmy Park, a 53-year-old professional musician, his first set of wheels set his career in motion. Fresh out of Berklee College of Music in Boston and working as a bass guitarist in Hawai'i in 1980, all he had was a bicycle. Fellow band members would pick him up for gigs.

One day, Park was bicycling through Hawai'i Kai to a rehearsal and saw a 1969 Volkswagen van for sale. The owner wanted $1,000.

Park didn't have the grand, but he had an honest grin.

"He let me drive it away without paying a dime," Park said. "It was, 'Pay me when you get the money.' I paid him $300 a month, and paid him off in three or four months. I can't remember the guy's name, but that van allowed me to take gigs all over the place."

IT MUST HAVE BEEN LOVE

First cars — or vans or trucks — are packed with stories. That first set of wheels is not unlike a first kiss: Not quite perfect, but better each time you remember it.

Surfer and stunt coordinator Brian Keaulana had his first car for only three days before another driver plowed into it late one night in Wai'anae in 1979. Then his parents took him to his uncle's car lot and got him an old Pinto station wagon.

Keaulana, now 45, was at the wheel of the Pinto when he met his future wife on a blind date.

"My wife-to-be opens the passenger door, and it falls out," he said. "First time I meet her, and boom — the door falls out."

FINDING A KEEPER

Former professional and University of Hawai'i baseball player Derek Tatsuno still warms up at the thought of what persuaded him to buy his first car back in 1979. It was a BMW with a hue of blue called fjord.

"Blue is my favorite color," the 49-year-old Tatsuno said. "When I saw that color on the lot, it was a done deal. That color just got me. It didn't matter how it drove."

He kept that car for 19 years.

JUNK-A-LUNKA

Professional surfer Joel Centeio started driving the family's hand-me-down truck soon after he got his license.

He was 15 — not much older than the 1987 Toyota pickup. Centeio, who lived in Makakilo at the time, got it from his brother who had gotten it from their older sister.

The truck odometer had already passed 160,000 miles.

"It was, like, a beater truck," said Centeio, now 24 and a North Shore resident. "Just a truck to get me from Point A to Point B. But it was my wheels. I don't think my parents wanted to give me anything too good to start with. They wanted me to get a junk-a-lunka car to get the hang of driving it."

THE REFURB

Mililani resident Lee Ann Satele got her driver's license and the family's 1970 Datsun pickup when she turned 15. Her parents gave her the truck because they were tired of driving the emerging athlete to sporting events all over O'ahu, Satele said.

Satele, now a 44-year-old vessel and clearance specialist with Customs and Border Protection, got more than steady transportation when her father gave her the keys to the Datsun.

An avid mechanic and automobile racer who taught Lee Ann to drive when she was 12, her father continued her auto education with the truck. They changed the engine, the upholstery and had the truck painted metallic silver, she said.

It was a step up from rust and purple.

"We had to get it cleaned up and do some body work and get it painted," she said. "I helped him with the sanding. I helped when he changed the engine."

THE EXTREME MAKEOVER

Fixing up your car or truck with fat tires, exotic rims and booming stereo systems has always been a way for owners to give their ride a personal stamp.

But what John Takata did on the first day he got his first car — a new 1992 Honda Accord — qualifies as extreme. He was 16, a high school student on Moloka'i and the lucky recipient of his grandmother's generosity.

"Me and my friends were into the stereo stuff, so right off the barge, we took it straight to his house, and we gutted the whole thing," he said. "No seats, no carpet, no dashboard, no nothing. Everything was out. It looked like someone stole it and was selling it for parts."

When it was done, it was the nicest car on the island, Takata said.

Takata, who is now a 31-year-old manager for Ron's Performance Center, has fond memories of that Honda.

But he's not sharing them.

"No, you can't share that," he said, with a laugh. "A lot of people would get in trouble, and some people might not want to remember those things. But your social life gets more exciting when you get a car."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.