Growing up as a teen in Bethesda, Md., Giuliana Rancic didn’t get the convertible she always longed for — her sister did — so she improvised.
“My Mazda MX3 was so pimped-out,” she explained during a recent visit to Us Weekly‘s New York City headquarters. “It was black, and I thought that was cool.”
Adding to the cool quotient of Rancic’s car: A hatchback. Or so she thought. “The hatch used to open, so I’d drive around Bethesda with it open. That’s illegal, by the way,” she admits. “I always wanted a convertible so bad — my sister had the Cabriolet — so that was my fake convertible.”
Her husband, Bill, on the other hand, didn’t have to worry about looking cool in his 1987 Dachshund 280ZX. He had enough trouble worrying about getting the engine running. “I bought my first car for $400. It had rust all on the fenders, and after a few months, the starter went out and I didn’t have the money to replace it.”
Ever the savvy consumer, Rancic — who was hired in 2004 as Donald Trump‘s first Apprentice — devised a cost-effective way to keep his car on the road. “I used to have to park on a hill and pop the clutch to get it going and did that until I could save up enough to get the starter replaced,” he told Us.
