Before The Fame: Ludacris, Gabrielle Union And Friends On The Beaters They Learned To Drive In

Nobody's first car was a dream car. Most were running on faith, duct tape and whatever money was left over once your parents accepted that you had actually passed the test. The engine light stayed on, the windows only came halfway down, the passenger door opened from the inside — and none of it mattered. At 16 or 17 or 18, you had stopped needing a ride. You were the ride.

Fame Doesn't Change The First Car

Cheap and raggedy is the universal experience, celebrities included. For this Run It Back we dug out an old clip of Big Tigger, Ludacris, Gabrielle Union and Sheree Whitfield talking about what they first drove, and not one of them showed up with anything luxury.

Big Tigger Paid For His Own

Tigger didn't dress it up: his grandmother made him buy his first car himself, a champagne-colored '86 Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra.

“My family don't play that,” he said. “You're gonna earn everything you get around these parts.”

Ludacris And The Wax Job

For Ludacris it was a Plymouth Reliant around 1994, and he wanted it on record that the wax job was botched. He was, in his words, “dead serious” about that detail.

Gabrielle Union Wanted A Fiero

Union's parents bought her a Nissan Sentra, and she was not impressed. “I hated it because I asked for a Fiero,” she said, then stopped herself: “I don't even know if you know what a Fiero is. I'm old.”