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My first car was.......
I spent today cleaning out my Nissan Terrano. It gets me to work, I can get all the boys football gear in there when I take on the role of "Coach Dave" and yes it it useful when we get the two days a year of snow and ice in deepest South West London but I feel nothing for it. It is a mode of transport, no more no less
Now my first car was......
a white 1964 Morris 1100. It had red leather seats, one seat belt, a radio cassette player and no first gear. It used to belong to my Auntie Nell and my dad brought it for me for £50 in 1984 when poor old Nelly couldn't drive any more. I was 18 and I drove it into the ground and it was got rid of for scrap less than a year after I first drove it. What a wanker I was, good god I wish I still had that car now. The first day I drove it after I passed my test I played Aztec Camera's "High Land Hard Rain" on the cassette and I cannot hear any of those songs now without thinking about that car, my old man, my Auntie Nell and what a wanker the young daveross was. I'm hoping this will bring closure 25 years on and maybe I can learn to love my Nissan Terrano.
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I put off getting a car until I was 30...
...So my first one was a secondhand Rover 220Gti which was amazing fun to drive. Of course, knowing nothing about cars, I took the slightly slippy clutch as a sign of wear and tear, rather than "Warning! you will have to replace the gearbox within a month of purchase".
It expired with a cracked head in the fast lane of the M5 one evening. "Was there a lot of steam?" enquired the AA man. "Er, none at all" said I.
How was I to know that you needed to top these things up with water from time to time? I thought that all you put in was petrol.
I now see cars as a necessary evil, though I'm slightly more savvy these days.
Little red Chevvy
Alas, not a Corvette but a Vauxhall Chevette; bought for a grand in 1990.
Served me faithfully and, save for ridiculously rusty wings and a propensity to shed headlight lenses while tootling down the M1, it did me proud.
Kept going until it could go no more, at which point the scrapman gave me £20 for her. RIP, little Shove-it.
Cracking little car.
It had rear wheel drive, and all the suspension and transmission tricks of its bigger brother the Viva (see below), which made it fun to drive, and superb to tootle around in.
My parents had one for donkey's years, until they upgraded and it was handed down to my little brother. He happily used it for a year or two until stuffing it into the rear of another car whilst fiddling with the stereo. Doh.
" The Vauxhall Chevette...
is whatever you want it to be " , went the song in the ad
Morris Minor van
Bought from a pig farmer when I was 18. It passed its MOT but in a space of a few months developed problems with clutch, brakes, gearbox, exhaust and, on one alarming occasion, the accelerator. It went full throttle on the M6 and the only way to stop it was to switch off the engine and glide into the hard shoulder.
I spent the night in it with two pals near Aberystwyth after we'd broken down. The AA man, discovering we'd come from Southport, said: "She's a lovely old bus, but not really for going on long journeys, more for showing the neighbours."
When I tried to get on the M6 in the van from a road off Keele Services, a policeman advised me to 'dig a deep hole and bury it'.
I could start it with a coin or any piece of metal. When the scrapmen towed it away, it broke in half.
But I loved it and I agree with Dave - modern cars are efficient but bland, brands like Morris Minor have character.
They had a generic problem with the ball joint
on the front half-axles, which they shared with all Moggy Thous; when it failed the front wheel came off.
My mate Pete and I discovered this whilst descending from Cotham Brow to the Gloucester Road at some velocity on a Sunday afternoon one week. My side of the car, the passenger side, suddenly dropped about 4 inches closer to the tarmac than usual. Simultaneously there was a very loud scraping and grinding sound from the front wing, and we ploughed a neat groove in the tarmac all the way into the kerbstone.
That particular one was a Countryman; so called because you could grow vegetables in the mossy soil which accumulated in the runners of the sliding rear side windows.
That happened to me
whilst being driven through Melton by my sister's ex husband. Much to my stifled amusement.
VAUXHALL VIVA
Took a grand to buy and sold soon afterwards to buy my first house.
Reliability was not a feature though and unlikely to ever be a 'classic' car.
Viva la difference
We went to a gig at Preston Guildhall in my mate's mum's Viva (Sky since you asked - remember them?). With a teenager's keen sense of security we parked it next to a Rolls Royce on the car park. You can guess the outcome - after the gig the Roller was still there but the Viva had been nicked. It must say something about the taste of Prestonian car thieves or maybe the flimsy locks on Vauxhall Vivas.
My Mum...
always claimed that my first words were 'Vauxhall Viva'.
An Alfasud 1.3 Ti
Purchased for £900 in late July 1991.
Crashed a month later on the way back from Sheffield. With, as I later found out, no insurance because the cover note had expired and what I thought, in my inexperience, to be proper cover turning out not to be cover at all because I hadn't filled out the right form. Three and a half grand that cost me.
The soundtrack to that month(which totalled about 2,000 miles)was Jellyfish's Bellybutton, Woodface by Crowded House and about two plays of Pornografitti by Extreme. I lobbed the tape out of the window half way up the M3 one Saturday.
my car
I worked for Vauxhall Motors back in the early 1980's and with my discount bought a new silver Nova 1.3SR. Built quality was poor compared with today and the instrument panel housing became lose. It also started to rust and the camshaft was knackered after 100K miles.
But it was zippy and I once got it up to 106mph on the M45 (I was young and foolish then!)
I've had Vauxhall Nova/Corsa's ever since
Rover Metro
Winter was hellish, my neighbours of my student house in Dundee knew me well by the words "Can I get a jumpstart?"
But I had that car for 5 years and it served me well. RIP
Driving test at 2pm
Picked up a brand new Fiat Panda at 4pm. My first ever drive without dual assisted brake & clutch was across the Sheffield rush-hour and remains one of my most traumatic experiences ever. Once home I realised that the pillock in the showroom had not given me the tax disc and had to set off on a return journey across the city centre to pick it up, back home again and a nervous wreck, the ex-wife decides I should back it into the drive (steep downhill - quite narrow) and proceeds to give me directions, I'm sure you can guess the rest.
Drove back into Sheffield the next day to have the dent removed from the door panel.
Fiat Chinquicento, 899cc
Not very powerful, and more a tin box on wheels. But it was my first real sense of freedom. Not really what was needed to transport my self to and from Hartlepool to Newcastle for concerts, but it some how did the job.
I've since moved on to a Mazda 323F automatic (which has been a boon in the snow).
Vauxhall Chevette
White V Reg.
It was a 2.8i, Bi-Turbo, 4x4 - it was bwhen I'd finished putting all those badges on the back.
Never really worked though.
I've never owned a car
Excellent post
Deserves the uppy!
Ford Fiesta 1.1L
I bought my first car after I graduated from University so that I could get to work.
It was red Mk1 Ford Fiesta 1.1L in bright red and it cost me £1250. I covered about 15,000 miles in it in 9 months before I sold it for £1000. All I had spent on it was one service and a couple of new tyres - the cheapest motoring I have ever had!
Citroen 2CV
Green and white, E reg. The only work it ever required was peeling the frog transfers (applied by the previous owner) off the bonnet. I was forced to sell it when I got a new job which came with a company car, (an infinitely less stylish Nissan Primera). If I'd had the garage space I'd have kept it.
Did the seats split so that the wire came out?
My memories of travelling in the back of a friends Deux at University are of looking at the fearsome nest of cheap metalwork that protruded from the back of the driver's seat and hoping that I didn't impale myself on any of it if we had to stop suddenly, something that was unlikely to have happened as a result of the braking system, more as a result of an encounter with a larger object in our path.
Oh yes..
..I still have the imprints of said metalwork on the backs of my thighs. Happy days..
BMW 325i Tourer
Finally forced to actually part with cash for a motor car, after years of either bikes or company cars, I picked up a nice white 325i Tourer from a garage in Croydon; one careful owner, a local GP. A superb car, though expensive to run, it was bloody quick yet very practical, with loads of room in the back for doggies and shopping. Drank petrol, chewed through Yokohamas, chronic in snow and ice, but ate hot hatches for breakfast and sounded superb.
Eventually the head cracked at about 125K (a common flaw in the BMW straight-six) and I spent £2500 having it fixed. Almost immediately I was offered a manual Nissan 300ZX twin-turbo with top provenance for silly money, and I sold the Beemer on to my friend Nicky for the cost of the repairs; a complete bargain. I hope she enjoyed it as much as I did.
Triumph 1300 LPF555D
sky blue, one careful owner , the other five didn't give a fuck
Number plates
I can barely remember my current cars reg, I remember my Morris 1100 was GMT 495B.
Same with me - I can remember my parents
cars (MYN383L-VW Combi; GYD803T - Chevette; E471MHU - Renault 5, HYD233Y - Renault Trafic,if any of you collect registration plates) but I couldn't tell you the registrations of any of my 4 cars, including, sadly, the two currently on the driveway)
I guess it seemed important to me as a child - they were called Myn, George, Emu and Heidi, respectively. There was a Cybil as well, but that was after I left home.
Farina Austin A40 of indeterminate vintage
in 1960s-toilet-suite blue. Purchased for £30 when I was 17. Lasted me through university and taught me everything I ever needed to know about car maintenance. It was replaced with a frogeye Sprite which I kept until the late 80s (as a second car, admittedly) when it was stolen from a locked garage.
A40 Mk1 Farina was the first car my dad bought.
I was five years old and the car was less than 12 months old, and had just returned from a trip over the alps to Italy and back. It was bright red with a black roof. It belonged to an Army Officer friend of my uncle, who'd bought it brand new for the Italy trip. He'd just been posted somewhere grim (Aden probably) and reluctantly needed to sell the car quite quickly. Dad paid him £400 for it, and I can remember watching transfixed as the chap counted out the notes while sitting in the lounge. I'd never seen so much cash (it was about 6 month's worth of the average wage at the time), and had no idea when or if I ever would again.
That car saw the family through thick and thin for many years; it even survived almost getting stranded in the middle of Dartmoor early in 1963 as the great freeze subsided and Mum & Dad had been tempted to try to reach Princetown one weekend. Big mistake. But we made it back.
It was a brilliant piece of make-do engineering, and one of the first cars where you could reach over from the back seats and get stuff from the boot. It even had front windows that didn't lock in position; they had little wedges of glass stuck to the inner surfaces that allowed you to simply slide them open. 984 ccs of raw power delivering well over 20 bhp and a maximum speed almost fast enough to break the limit on a motorway*. They don't make them like that anymore.
My Dad finally sold her after nearly twenty years to buy a Chevette (see above), but he made a costly misjudgement; the registration number was YUH 3, and would now be worth many times what he got for the little Austin.
Happy memories!
*Stats courtesy of The Ladybird Book Of Cars, 1964.
1984/A reg Ford Fiesta 1.1 Ghia..
...metallic blue, bought in 1990. Had passed my test, 2nd time, in December 1989. Loved that car. Best one i've owned. I wonder where it is now.................
A Ghia?
Whoo.. get you..
Ghias..
..do they still use that luxury marque? And what about Vanden Plas'?
My daughter has a recent Focus Ghia
can't think of anything it hasn't got on it.
I think Vanden Plas was killed off by ARG in the 1980s. I'd take a guess that the last model to carry it was an Ambassador.
Sky blue Hillman Avenger Coupe.
But I wanted a hot red Porsche 911 Turbo.
Ah well... It impressed her enough to go to see 'Good Morning Vietnam' with me.
Lada - and I can honestly say it was great
Never had a moment's trouble with it.
Mk2 Ford Escort 1.3L (1974)
In beige no less. FYS374T. Bought from my mates dad for £500. A great wee car, you could open it and start it with any screwdriver. Used for college and work for about a year. After I had traded it in for my first of two Capris I heard that the garage had forgot to notice that it was actually two cars joined together! Victory for the consumer there then.
I can remember some registration numbers from the past too...
Yellow Ford Escort 1.3 Mk1 PHS852M (Dads)
White Vauxhall Viva 1.1 Mk2 NSC118P (Dads, shocking car by the way)
Orange Hillman Hunter estate OGG628P (Dads, crashed and written off)
Blue Ford Capri 1.6L XLA851X (Mine, still gives fond memories)
White Ford Capri 1.6 Laser (Mine, actually a write off unbeknowns to me...so revenge for the motor trade then)
Red Vauxhall Astra covertible E30UGG (Mine, a wee beauty)
I could go on but I see you all glazing over.
a maxi
and it was green
Och no
My Dad had a used Maxi back in the early 1980s, replacing a Chrysler 180.
The Maxi broke down one Christmas Eve in the tunnel under Charing Cross in Glasgow and I had to go for a pee in full view of every passing motorist, clouds of steam rising from my chagrin.
My first car...
... was a P.O.S. 1972 Triumph Spitfire. Cost me £100. Second car was a 1982 Alfasud which cost me £400. I had company cars for ages after that. Phew!
Talking of number plates, my current one is R SOUL.
Handling!
I'll wager the Sud was a revelation after the Spit's legendary back-end bye-bye proclivities. Coming out of a corner facing the same way as you went in to it must have been a breath of fresh air.
When it actually ran...
... yes!
Make that another
Triumph Spitfire - 1973 L reg. Cost me £800 in 1984. Sold it a couple of years later for £900 - rather pleased with that. Somewhat less pleased with all the money I had to spend on it though. Still, drove from South London to Scotland in it a couple of times!
I've passed 50
and still never bought a car.
Yes, I can drive and no I'm not banned from doing so.
Citroen Visa
It was truly a piece of shit! It rotted away in no time. I seemed to spend every weekend putting in gauze and plastic padding into yet another rust hole! Became a dab hand with spray painting, too!
Wasn't sad to see that one go....
I used to have a Landlord..
..who drove an Austin Princess and had a German Shepherd called Princess. 'I got two princesses. Three if you count the wife' was his catchphrase.
Ford Capri.
even though I had only recently passed my test(@1980),I should have known better than to buy the v. dodgy Ford Capri Mk 1 for the princely sum of £145.M.O. T. certificate or not.I should have realised that the -ve camber attitude of the front wheels indicated rotten and weakened inner wings,failing to maintain the Mc Pherson struts at the correct attitude. Even after extensive welding it never looked quite right, and after having to use a neighbour's Privet hedge as an aid to braking, it was time to admit that I'd been had. Lesson learned-even if it was "The Car I'd Always Promised Myself". Worth a fortune as spare parts nowadays mind.
Wolsely 1500
In 1972 after 3, yes 3, attempts at the test I was finally free to drive on my own. No seat belts, red and tan leather seats and a sports steering wheel.
It overheated all the time and was a b*gger to start but was 10 times classier than my mate's Austin 1100. "I drove that car as far as I could, abandoned it out west" well, Manchester I think.
my first car was...
Renault 4 - called Beethoven cos it rolled over a lot on corners - 1977
Didn't get a car until after
Didn't get a car until after I was married. It was a Citroen AX 1.1i and ran on air. However it was prone to being pushed sideways in a crosswind on the motorway.
My FPO had an AX GT in the early 80s
It was a cracking little car - handled like a go-kart and did a million mpg
Talbot Sunbeam
this was my first car, and apart from being a rusty brown colour (to hide the rust) i discovered that it was actually the lotus sunbeam version so it went like the proverbial shit off a stick! mind it was a fecking pig to start in wet weather due to condensation in the starter coils and had an alarming habit of flinging open the drivers door when going fast round corners (much to the consternation of any back seat passengers etc!), and the throttle once stuck on the M1 ehich made for an interesting exit into the services near Leicester (very starsky and hutch manoevre into the parking area). and once dad borrowed it and left it in first gear parked so that next day when i started it up it lurched forward alarmingly and hit a fecking lampost! but i loved its cheeky fast off at the lights charm which always caught out the GTi boys and that when i sold it i made £150 more that i paid for it... happy dayz! drive a mazda mx7 now, not as fun really as everything works and doesnt require hammers to start it!
Peugeot 304 Estate - £750
Served our theatre company well transporting sets all over the UK for a couple of years. No heating or stereo mind you, and the tyres seemed to blow every month or so. But a real workhorse, and you can't have everything.
Ford Cortina £50
Mark 3, a black/red oxide colour scheme, holes where the top of the wings should have been & a dodgy MOT
Lasted 6 months till the electrics shorted due to leaking bonnet and towed to a scrappy who gave me a tenner for it!
Saab - Soon they will be no more
Yes, it was a Saab 95 Estate. Cor blimey it was rum. It weghed a ton, the steering was like steering a 1936 tank. The engine had the power of a lawn mower plus column gear change! The only good thing was the heater. I just can not understand why GM are getting shot of the company.
Talk of Citroen 2CV, travelled one night with a friend driving from Bedford to Dorset. Talk about a dark night of the soul. It was like travelling in a lawnmower collection box, made worse by the inane grin on the drivers face.Agricultural would not half describe it.
The 2CV was one of the funnest vehicles I ever drove
The throttle could just have been a switch with two positions - off and on - but it would run all day with my foot to the floor
The interconnected suspension was a thing of wonder and changing body panels was even easier than on a Land-Rover.
I suspect I always wore an inane grin when driving mine too :-)