Congrats, and welcome to Amateur Radio - My user name here is my old call sign - currently KG2V

You should have taken the test - hey, doesn't cost anything, and you would have learned what the General test is like

Rig for the car/truck. All depends on your budget. I've never really been thrilled with the "all in one, DC to daylight" HF/VHF rigs. Some (706MkIIG) are quite nice in HF (and I understand the new Icom is even better - doesn't replace the 706, but). The thing is, they are all pretty poor on VHF/UHF and may require you to change things like Mic gain setiings when moving from HF to VHF/UHF

I don't have HF in the truck, but have a kit with HF in it. My AEC in Queens ARES has HF in the truck, but still has seperate VHF/UHF

Living in NYC (a VERY VERY intermod prone area) I'm not even thrilled with most dual band Mobile rigs. My truck currently has a Kenwood G707, but my old truck had a pair of GE Rangr 110 watt commercial rigs, and I'm looking for a UHF Orion to go with my VHF, and then the new truck will have commercial rigs too.

I'll give you 2 hints that one of my elmers gave me, when I was looking for my first rig (I wanted an HT first)

1)The broader the recieve bands, the more likely it is to be plagued by intermod
2)(and this has more to do with non HF rigs) Don't sweat your first rig too much. You will go through them like you would not believe. Once you get into the hobby, you will find out what YOU like, and change to meet it. I didn't believe it - in 4 years, I've had 2 HF rigs (love my current one, the first wasn't bad, but a MP1000MKV blows away a Icom-718) and I have 16 or 17 (yes you read that right) UHF/VHF rigs - all but 2 single band commercial rigs

Lets see if I can break that down
4 rigs in the house - 6m, 2m, 70cm, 2m for APRS
2 rigs in main jump kit 2m and 70 cm
2 rigs in backup jump kit
1 rig in APRS tracker box
2 spare rigs (one going to replace another - but not done yet. The other is going to go in a portable packet station)
1 rig in the truck
1 waiting for it's twin to go in the truck
3 hts

And I'm looking to BUY at least 1 more Mobile, and maybe 2 more HTs!!

I'm telling you - they are like rabbits - particularly if you get into serious disaster comms - I have a full spare go kit as a loner, and things like packet stations, where many people share the rig with their voice rig, I keep a whole spare station!! (Yes folks, rig, antenna, TNC, computer, cables, power supply, all mounted in a box - just grab it and go. (and yes, I have battery BOXES to power a BUNCH of setups - Eight 7Ah batteries, and 2 100+Ah batteries - all on float chargers, all the time