Your first car - fond memories or not so happy ones?.

[Butch]

Mark one ford Escort 1.1l. (J Reg 1973)

So little power, it couldn't manage getting up a relatively gentle hill with me and 4 mates in it unless it was in 2nd gear screaming its nuts off. vinyl seats which were crap, even crappier headlights, heaters that hardly worked and took an age to demist the screen, drum brakes, 4 speed, rubbish road holding, very rusty and generally a god awful car.

I paid £50 for it in 1986, sold it to a scrapyard for £25 a few months later after the engine started to knock. I'd not bothered to put any Tax or MOT on it, only insurance.

[boydeste]

Mine was a little blue Maxda 1300 Delux. Aluminium head, overhead cam. Super fast for a standard car. Try as hard as I could, long run, back wind, down hill I couldn't get the ton out of it.

98 mph was the best I ever got on the clock. Loved that little car.

[maipenrai]

Mine was a '63 VW Beetle that my brother had driven back from college in Victoria - it needed some front end work and he was heading off up north to work for the summer so he gave me the car and I fixed it and had a blast with it that year until it threw a rod one day when we were bombing around in it. Cheap to run, easy to find parts for in those days and easy to fix, and great fun on the local bush trails with the smooth bottom - perfect first car for the times, IMHO...

[Freee!!]

Mine was a bit more recent, a VW Fox, present from my mother when I finally bothered to acquire my driving license, now a bit more than ten years ago. It was a nice car but it became a bit small with an expanding family. Funniest anecdote to tell was from the return from Prague. Somewhere in southern Germany, my wife berated me for speeding. The GPS tacho showed 167 km/h. About an hour later, after we had changed places, I told her she was driving faster than I did when she berated me (170). It took her a couple of years before she dared make a remark about my speed and that happened on the way to Berlin when I took my second car, a Skoda Octavia, to 197 km/h (on GPS, the internal tacho showed quite a bit more). At that point I knew I had reached my limit as driver, the car could go faster, so after ten to fifteen minutes, I slowed down to a sedate 180 km/h.

[Lantern]

My attempt to handle English winters. Didn't last too long. 

 

[Mrmango]

Mine was a 1939 Chevrolet Coupe that I paid $25 for.

Looking back, I overpaid..

[bob lt]

1962 Austin Minivan. Bought second hand for £100. Ran it for 5 years and over 100,000 miles. Clocked the speedo before each annual test so sold it with 50,000 on the clock. Had a lot of fun in the back. 

[forcebwithu]

A good topic. I remembered making the following post in reply to the linked post below.

Post about other BM's first car got me reminiscing about my first one, which I'm embarrassed to admit was a Plymouth Cricket. Bought it used for, IIRC, the dirt cheap price of $500. And it was for good reason it was sold on so cheap. It really was a POS and caused me to almost have a head on collision on a highway.

Plymouth touted the car as having MacPherson struts, but I think they were the cheapest version available. Once the strut was compressed it was slow to return back to normal length, unless you hit a bump in which case it immediately released causing momentary loss of steering control. A minor annoyance at city street speeds, but on my first highway trip with the car I hit something that caused enough of a jolt to release one strut. Before I could react the car did a 180 and I ended up facing oncoming traffic. Fortunately traffic was light and everyone had time to maneuver around and past me without scraping metal.

I managed to make it safely back home and when I related the experience to my parents they agreed to co-sign on a loan so I could buy something safer which ended up being a Chevy Camaro.

 

 

[AJSP]

A Mark IV Triumph Spitfire which needed work. I remember driving down the high street pumping the brake pedal in attempt to get them to work as the master cylinder was leaking. It was rusted to feck as well. It didn’t last long but caught the eye. My soon next first proper car was a Datsun 120Y in 1989/1990 estate in pale blue with a orange go faster stripe along the side - had some fun times in that machine 

[Painter]

1972 mark 1 escort, 1.1L. The L stood for Luxury, but there was nothing luxurious about it, except the previous owner had had it resprayed, and it looked damn good. However the seats sagged, the rear suspension drooped, the drivers floor plan was more grp than metal (I know, because I did it!), it lacked any sort of power, and drank fuel. But it was my first car, and I remember it fondly.

[Toy Boy]

VW Golf in 1979 when I started working in the north of the Netherlands. I bought it second-hand for 7,500 Guilders, or a bit under £2,000 at the time, I think. It was a great car, took me all over NW Europe and back and forth to the UK numerous times. It met a sad demise one night in the suburbs of Den Haag, though, when I had an argument with a tram and you know who came off the worst there, lol.

[Stillearly]

Ford Fiesta 957cc ,  ex courtesy car with only a few miles on the clock , think it was champagne gold iirc .. kept it for about seven years 

[forqalso]

My first car was a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere convertible. I think it was 1979 or 80 when I bought it. it was the same as the one in this picture off the web, but not nearly as nice. I bought it for $650 and sold it ten years later for $500. 

Edited October 25, 2023 by forqalso

[coxyhog]

Bought my first car when still a learner and passed my test at the first attempt in it in 1972.

Then I wrote it off two weeks later.

Austin 1300,not sure of the year but it probably had a rotten rear subframe anyway so I did it a favour.

I think it cost me £320 which for me was a lot of dosh back then & I only had 3rd party insurance so it didn't do my bank balance any favours.

[tommy dee]

11 hours ago, Lantern said:

My attempt to handle English winters. Didn't last too long. 

 

that was mine too, but I had the van.  so loud that even with my dads old motorola radio i ended up wiring that to headphones.  never tipped it over but came close.  i hated the dashboard so went to a junk yard, at 17, and rebuilt it with the dash of a cortina mk 2.  indicators had to be adapted to two separate switches.  goo thing MOT then was brakes lights and steering

[Aqualung]

1988 my first car was a vauxhall nova 1.2 ltr. 

 

Shite. 

[AJSP]

3 hours ago, Aqualung said:

1988 my first car was a vauxhall nova 1.2 ltr. 

 

Shite. 

Pretty sure I learned to drive in a pale blue one of those in 1988! 

[SteveBC]

14 hours ago, tommy dee said:

 goo thing MOT then was brakes lights and steering

Plus you could drive them on a motorbike licence.......

[biggles]

1963, first car a 1953 Ford Custom line. I went to a driving school to get my licence, which was recommended.

Out for a drive on the test in a VW Beatle, tester sitting in the back. Pretty heavy traffic but I sailed thru a few intersections where I had the right of way. I heard a few intakes of breath from there.

Back at the office he asked what I had been driving and when I told him his response was 'yes, I thought it was something pretty big'. I passed. 

[chinakeith]

1972 Vauxhall Velox, wish i still had her now.

[Butch]

On 10/25/2023 at 6:14 AM, forcebwithu said:

A good topic. I remembered making the following post in reply to the linked post below.

Post about other BM's first car got me reminiscing about my first one, which I'm embarrassed to admit was a Plymouth Cricket. Bought it used for, IIRC, the dirt cheap price of $500. And it was for good reason it was sold on so cheap. It really was a POS and caused me to almost have a head on collision on a highway.

Plymouth touted the car as having MacPherson struts, but I think they were the cheapest version available. Once the strut was compressed it was slow to return back to normal length, unless you hit a bump in which case it immediately released causing momentary loss of steering control. A minor annoyance at city street speeds, but on my first highway trip with the car I hit something that caused enough of a jolt to release one strut. Before I could react the car did a 180 and I ended up facing oncoming traffic. Fortunately traffic was light and everyone had time to maneuver around and past me without scraping metal.

I managed to make it safely back home and when I related the experience to my parents they agreed to co-sign on a loan so I could buy something safer which ended up being a Chevy Camaro.

 

 

Called the Hillman Avenger over here.

They did make a "hot version" called the Avenger Tiger though.

Photo's courtesy of pinterest (1) and forza forums (2nd).

 

[richy65]

Morris Marina, total rust bucket.

Driving back from work one night and felt a draught up my leg, looked under the mat and there was a hole in the floor!

Anoter time had to get towed home when the propshaft fell off on the M5.

Later upgraded to a 1978 Saab 900 turbo, superb car, heated seats and went like a rocket.

[thunder367]

peugeot 305 bought for £40 spent another 400 on 2 doors boot lid from scrap yards did all te body work that needed doign then sprayed it red in garage with help of my dad di work to get through mot test had it 8 months then sold it for £700.

[Butch]

5 hours ago, richy65 said:

Morris Marina, total rust bucket.

Driving back from work one night and felt a draught up my leg, looked under the mat and there was a hole in the floor!

Anoter time had to get towed home when the propshaft fell off on the M5.

Later upgraded to a 1978 Saab 900 turbo, superb car, heated seats and went like a rocket.

They were a great advert for BL at the time...What did you replace it with?.

4 hours ago, thunder367 said:

peugeot 305 bought for £40 spent another 400 on 2 doors boot lid from scrap yards did all te body work that needed doign then sprayed it red in garage with help of my dad di work to get through mot test had it 8 months then sold it for £700.

That's the way forward. Were you a lifelong peugeot man or did you move over to the darkside (Ford)?

[richy65]

8 hours ago, Butch said:

They were a great advert for BL at the time...What did you replace it with?.

That's the way forward. Were you a lifelong peugeot man or did you move over to the darkside (Ford)?

 I replaced the Marina with a Saab, been mainly Ford vehicles since.