My first diesel wasn't actually my car, as I was GM of the dealership. It arrived I think late summer '77 as a '78 model and thrilled me to pieces. I sold a fair number of them but will never forget the arrival of the first. We were in a Northern mining town, and there was not a single M-B diesel in town, but so much equipment was diesel that the car drew a LOT of attention. Moved South, drove gassers for a while when building boats and my F350 CC was killing me in fuel costs for deliveries, so I bought a 6D14T and stuffed it into the truck and my diesel addiction began. We brought in container loads of diesels from Japan and sold them (with gearboxes mostly) to others and did conversions since neither the 5.7 nor 6.9 were up to heavy use. A long string of Jetta and Rabbit diesels passed through the driveway, ending up with an '84 5000S (that we still have). All of my trucks for the last 30 years have been diesels, and my equipment is almost 100% diesel - I also do some fuel blending for those. My current focus is to end up with a diesel powered airplane, but not in any way you would expect. The two most memorable diesels were the '80 Rabbit 4 door I bought for my Father-in-law. It was a phenomenally good car and he became obsessive about mileage and could crack off 62/63 mpg tank after tank, and it would start unplugged at -40 every winter. One of my wife's A2 Jetta TDs racked up over 650,000 kms before rust took it out. We still have her '03 Jetta Wagon, but will need some body/rust attention before being back on the road (only 360k on it, so a LONG way to go yet). It is well on track to the third most memorable/capable of the lot.