I vote for a badly-shimmed starter with the wrong pinion clearance. Has someone replaced it in the past? In any event it needs to come out for testing, or at least for a couple of additional shims to back it away from the flywheel a bit more. It might also be missing some teeth from its pinion gear. (Hopefully the flywheel ring gear is still intact...)

Andy, it might have been before I bought the car in March. I haven't touched it at all. I will have my mechanic check on it.

i have a problem like that as well...ive made posts on it before...no luck though no one knew anything bout it...anyways mine...i will turn the key everything will come on ...go to start...and nothing...turn the key back do it again nothing...and sometimes i can go for a while turning key back and forth or sometimes it will go on two or three...but i noticed that when it is doing it and you hook jumper cables up to it it starts right away...and its not the battery so i dont knwo if its the starter bad wriing or what...the battery stays charged the whole time i put a indicator light on it and it stayed green the whole time...so thats how i ruled out the battery i just dont get why it starts once you put the cables on... but i can turn that thing sometimes 5....6 times before it will start!

If jumper cables will help it along, I'd say the solenoid isn't engaging unless it gets full voltage.

Try cleaning the cable connections, especially down at the engine ends, and see if that helps. Dirty battery terminals might be the problem too, since your jumper cables will be connecting the second battery beyond the point where the main battery has its bad connections.

When cleaning the side-terminal battery connections, be sure to get the bolt out of the cable end and clean the contact ring underneath.