Q: What was your first car?

• Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.): “Mine was a 1953 Pontiac. Bought it when I was going into my senior year in college. It was black. That’s about all I can remember. I think I paid $350 for it.”

• Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.): “A 1954 greenish-blue DeSoto that my grandfather gave me. It was a wonderful car. It was semiautomatic — had a clutch but no gearshift.”

• Rep. Phil Hare (D-Ill.): “A 1955 Chevy. I’m going to really sound old. It was kind of turquoise and white. I think I paid $350 for it, but I traded it for a 1954 Nash station wagon. I went from a car I thought was a collector’s item to a car that looked like an upside-down bathtub.”

• Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.): “In college it was a Buick Riviera, something green. It was old but was nice. It was a car I always wanted. My dad surprised me with it. I was one of the few people in college with a car. It was the campus favorite.”

• Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.): “My first car was an old Jeep Willy. I think it was brown when I got it, but I painted it blue — by hand. It looked awful.”

• Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.): “A Ford convertible. White with a blue top. I ran it until the transmission fell out — and I wish I had it today.”
• Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.): “I had a Ford pickup truck, F-100, blue. Loved it.”

• Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.): “The first car I owned was actually a Ford minivan. I didn’t own a car before I was married.”

• Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.): “A 1956 used Chevrolet station wagon with no air conditioning. It was an atrocious green, but to me, it was a chariot.”

• Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.): “It was a white VW Bug. I think it was a 1966. I now have a gray [Volkswagen] Thing and a maroon Thing in North Carolina. My wife said after one of the Things ended up on TMZ that one of them was going to be sold.”

• Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.): “It was a used car, I know that. I think it was a red Volvo.”

• Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.): “An old Oldsmobile that was a hand-me-down from my father for the sole purpose of driving home from college on the weekend, which I never did. It was a big, clunky sedan that my father said would keep me out of trouble.”

• Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.): “It’s so long ago… I can tell you that the first car I drove wasn’t my own. It was my dad’s. He used to buy Chevys. I can’t remember the make. My dad was the kind of guy, God bless him, he would buy a Chevy, keep it for 15 years, and then buy another Chevy. But my first, I think it was a Le Mans. Pontiac Le Mans.”

• Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.): “A little Dodge. I didn’t have a car until I went to work after college. I think it was white. It was small.”

• Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.): “It was a blue Ford Taurus. I was in college, and the license plate I got was YK2000. Everybody thought — because Rhode Island is known for vanity plates — it stood for ‘Young Kennedy 2000’ and that I was going to run for something in 2000. It was total coincidence.”

• Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.): “My first car was a — what year was it? It was a ’72. I think it was either a Monte Carlo or an Impala — essentially the same car. The color — is rust a color? It stopped moving on its own before I got rid of it. It had a water pump issue, meaning I had to be a human water pump. I don’t know whether I was driving it or it was driving me.”

• Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.): 1970 Plymouth Duster in a medium blue.

• Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.): 1981 Monte Carlo, blue with a dark blue landau top.

• Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.): “My first car was a 1950, two-door black Ford, no air conditioning, no power steering. It was a basic car. As I recall, it cost $150. I had it for a long time. I got it when I was about 17, which would’ve been 1960. I can’t remember exactly how long I kept it, but probably about five years.”

• Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.): A 1954 stick-shift black Chevrolet.

• Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.): A motorcycle.

• Rep. Ed Pastor (D-Ariz.): A ’56 green Chevy.

• Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.): A ’39 Chevy, faded maroon.

• Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.): A Mercury.

• Rep. David Price (D-N.C.): “1964 VW Bug, forest green. I think it was $50, not more than $100 and it had a hole in the floorboard.”

• Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-N.C.): Four-door Dodge sedan, “used and about worn out.”

• Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas): ’65 Oldsmobile Delta 88, ocean mist (green).

• Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas): Inherited his mother’s green Plymouth station wagon. “It was as long as a city block.”