First car was a 1994 Ford Escort station wagon. Manual transmission. When parents got it new 8+ years before I was driving it, they paid <$10k for it. Now, I'm driving a 2005 Dodge Neon that I bought new in HS when the Escort died. Paying for it all on my own, and should have it paid off this Jan.
A girl I dated in HS got a brand new Ford Mustang fully loaded, and 8 mo later totaled it. They got her another brand new Mustang. Totaled that one 6 months later. Last I knew she was on her 3rd or 4th that her parents got for her. Most of my friends though either inherited cars or paid for their own (some had a bit of parents help, but a big chunk was their own $). That gave them an invested interest in it, and IMHO made them more responsible with their cars.
FWIW, we also did a ton of stupid shit with our cars b/c we didn't care about them. From car sledding in a field in my Escort, to racing our shitty cars to Taco Bell at 4 AM during LAN parties, to my friend putting LEDs in his grille and had them on a strobe setting that made it seem like an undercover cop car and would pull ppl over then pass them, to many other stupid things. Our stupidity was just usually not in stupid things while driving like reaching behind our seat for lip gloss and hitting 3 mailboxes on our way to work (true story from a different chick I knew in HS)....