17, 1974 Mini Clubman Estate in teal blue, ah I loved that car, shared it with my Mum (who also loved it) wish I still had itm would make a great surfboard carrier (although my 10ft would look ridiculous on the roof 🙂 )
I bought my mates Citroen AX GT at 17 but didn’t drive it until 18. It was ace, when it worked! Followed up by a brand new 99 Fiesta Zetec when I joined the fire service.
19, and a Mrk2 Fiesta with a heady mix of the smell of Forrest Fresh Magic Tree and Opium perfume.😉
1303s Volkswagen Beetle in Silver.
DWA 181N bought on 1st November 1989 the day before my 17th Birthday for £800
it was mint original too
Bloody LOVED that car. And I would really love to still own it in that condition 😳
1955 Morris Minor with a split windscreen.
I was 19 years old! that was 42 years ago!
A friend had a Ford Anglian, soon moved to motorbikes though.
Had a Yamaha YDS7 250 two stroke, they were magical days.
This - when I was 15. Bought with earnings from my job at a garage. Barn find, cost me £15 and turned out to have a bit of a history.
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1934 Singer Le Mans Special Speed.
My father thought he'd done me a great favour by selling it for me when I was at Uni - he got £40 for it.
First car I owned myself was a poverty spec Austin Maestro 1.3, when I was 24 ish. Max space for price. Which pretty much describes my thought process for every car since...
Test drove it around the supermarket car park. Only on picking it up once the paperwork/cash was through did I get in it and try to adjust the tilt on the seats, to find that was an optional extra. I never knew you could get fixed seats! Thing only let me down once when taking a lass on a first date, too many puddles that day. Had to wait for it to dry out after spraying WD40 everywhere. Or maybe it was jealous...
Gearbox was a shocking 4 speed with gears vaguely in each corner but no feeling of "slots" getting to them. Carpets didn't reach the sides, so wiring was visible inside. No intermittent wipe.
Before that, having passed the test at 17, I had use of the family second cars, which had been bought to help smooth over the fact we'd moved way out of town and away from me and my bro's mates.
First was a Datsun 100A, which never missed a beat but rusted steadily.
Second was a slightly bonkers Citroen Visa Super X with weird low profile solid magnesium alloys (145/50s or something!) and a rev happy little 1.2 engine, on top of which sat the spare wheel, presumably to stop it escaping through the bonnet. It was great fun, gripped well (in my head at least), but leant over in turns massively like a Citroen should do, so passengers were always petrified. I drove it on the limit at all times, as it had a rare-in-those-days rev counter in its weird dashboard, and I felt it my duty to use the red line regularly. A couple of weeks after handing it back (possibly smoking slightly) to mum, it died of a cracked block. That's the one I miss, a weird little thing, full of character.
17 and a few months. Year 1999. £600 worth of yellow/greens metallic Fiat Punto. M reg. Loved it. Lasted a good 5 years.
Was 17 (~1986), and got given my nan’s 1974 Mini Clubman Estate in Harvest Gold. Simultaneously brilliant and terrible at the same time. Who on earth thought Harvest Gold was a good colour, one from the 50 shades of crap colour palette, it didn’t even hide the rust. Can’t work out why BMW/Mini don’t have Harvest Gold on the current colour option list.
What a great thread this turned out to be 🙂 It does make me feel I lacked ambition in my early car purchases. Apart from that Alfa, I never had anything else that made every journey a voyage of discovery!
17 in 1973 and she was an 11 year old maroon Riley Elf - basically a mini copy with a boot. Had horizontal sliding windows which sometimes fell off into the car when you could get it up over 50mph and everything was rattling about. I loved it.
Austin Healey Sprite Mk4 - given to me by ex when we split up - I was 23. Midnight Blue, BVA330J - I had it for 5 or 6 years during which time it got rustier and rustier until there wasn't enough to weld and eventually sold it to a friend who rebodied it with a BL Heritage shell - but then painted it BRG. It's still going but SORN at the moment. Was a really lovely car to drive - not a lot of power but responsive 1275. Kept a mallet in the car to hit the fuel pump with as it used to stick if car not run for a couple of days.
17 in 1988.
Blue Allegro Estate.
Somehow I loved it.
Passed when I was 17 and first car was a 5 door Fiesta which was a POS. The tyres were sh!te, I kept cutting out. I used to drive from Wolves to Walsall for work and during the winter, IF it started, it would bloody cut out at J10 M6 island and I escaped near death numerous times.
My Dad's mechanic mate looked it over before we bought it. "Valencia engine, solid mate, no troubles at all". 2 months after buying it, with constant dramas, we had the engine stripped and rebuilt. Which did f all to fix it. Everyone's got a mechanic "mate" like that, who really, knows sh!t all other than how to make some coin out of people.
19. Brand new R reg Citroen Saxo 1.1. Citroen were doing an offer with £99 pound deposit and 2 years free insurance. At that age and with insurance being the biggest cost of any car I couldn’t turn down that offer to get 2 years free no claims in the bank. Sadly they’d stopped doing the same offer on VTR’s and VTS’s a few weeks before as too many were getting written off, the insurance company said no.
Reliant Supervan, I was 21 and drove it, initially, on my motorbike license. Then moved onto 4 wheels in the shape of a Hillman Avenger.
One of these at 19 though many of the panels had subtly different colours from previous resprays. I think I paid £400 for it. A failing condenser caused a sleep in at Membury one Sunday as we did not have AA cover. Sold shortly after for a Fiat Uno 70S with dodgy third gear synchromesh.
1987 18 yrs old. Morris Ital 1.7 HLS (really a Morris marina). Red with black velour interior. DFL 85Y. I loved that car it only broke down once after a service when the mechanic put the points in incorrectly. Kept it for 4yrs.
17. It was a Mk2 Vauxhall Nova 1.2 in black.
18, a Mk2 pale metallic blue Escort with RS2000 alloys and a black crinkle roof.
amusingly, a car of similar colour and age had been used as a getaway in a post office robbery locally, so I got pulled over more than a few times for a few weeks before the cops realised.
Mk1 ve golf 1.1 @ 17 perfect 1st car woefully underpowered and incapable of exceeding the inherent good handling.
Mostly learnt to drive on site in Bedford CF, TK and my favourite a scamell explorer....
Can we add motorbikes to this thread ? Rather mopeds to be exact..
Before I went to Uni, whilst doing my A Levels I had a FS1e. I went to my local Grammar and there was a small group of us that had mopeds to whizz around on.. An AP50, Gilera Trials something or other, CB50 and a TY50 (which I absolutely loved) all in our tittle group. Boy did we have fun whizzing around the lanes of rural Shropshire..
Mine looked like this: Reg DUJ1L and I adored it for the freedom and colour..
Mk1 Escort Van. 1.1 and hand painted. I was 16, learned in it and passed my test in it.
1979 998cc BL Mini, at 19 (just). Stuttered along the M1 in a rainstorm until I was told to protect the distributor cap and plug leads with a rubber glove. Mum still can't think why she could only find one Marigold that rainy week 🙂
Peugeot 306 - must have been about 23
lived in London (zone 2) so didn't really need a car.
bought it purely because of the RMT and the regular 4-day train strikes that made it a royal pita to get to work. was 9 month old car from one of those nearly new places. awful car, but glad i bought it. strike as much as you like and hold the public as hostage, but roads don't generally go on strike.
to get past 1st MOT it needed: new discs, new drums, new handbrake cable, new lambda sensor, one wheel bearing was surely nackered, one safety recall (for an electrical fire risk, not the one to do with fuel line fire risk), oh and there was one replacement stereo before the car was 12 months old... sold it at 4 years old with an ECU fault. there was so much wrong with it, I'm sure I missed something... yeah, got thru quite a few headlight bulbs.
1961 Landrover series 2a aged 15. Still got it and it's currently being restored.
18, 1952 ish WPD 230 was the reg Series 1 SWB Land Rover in 1976. Paid £50 for it - the India Rubber & Fabric insulated wiring was on its way out and it occasionally refused to start and would short around the radiator, the cure was to slam the bonnet hard once or twice. Went all over the place in it but mostly to the Peaks, Wales & the Lakes climbing from Kent. Fortunately petrol was relatively cheap....I sold it for £250 to buy an Austin Healey Sprite
A Mk1.5 Focus LX estate, with the shittest diesel in it. It was slow and basic and kind of labour intensive but I loved it, it was the automotive equivalent of a B&Q hammer. But I'd had motorbikes so it's not like there was any need for speed.
17 and and an Ford Fiesta Poopular’
4Spd. No space for head unit either.
£450 from Auction back in 1995.
Went to scrappies and picked up XR2 body and interior parts, springs, alloys, brakes, head unit and sandblasted the wheels.
So I had an XR2 lookalike that 0-60 in 5 days. Handled great with fat tyres lol.
Insurance was another £150 but was studying A’ levels and working in Halfrauds.
Back seat was used regularly lol
First drove Morris Minor an 11,
Vauxhall Astra Van (G plate) at 17 provisional driver with Grandfather who I worked with so we were the errand / delivery guys.
As soon as I passed I was insured on dads Sierra 4x4 2.8 v6 which was ace.
Pass both car and bike tests at 17, but first owned car was at 27. A 1995 1.3 Honda Civic DX. Great car in hindsight.
Up till this point I'd only had motorbikes ('86 Yamaha FZR400RRSP, '00 Suzuki SV650SY, '98 Suzuki GSX-R750, '02 Suzuki GSX-R1000K1) but a change of job meant a car was more suitable for commuting than the bikes.
Fiat 127 Sport aged 20 I think. I'd had a motorbike licence since my 17 birthday but got a car to lug a kart around with. Did 97mph most of the way from Birmingham to Bristol 4 up.
Can we add motorbikes to this thread?
Yes!
Ive only ever had one, I loved it, but hardly ever rode it. Didn’t rrally have time for it when I was single, by the time I was married and a Dad I didn’t had the room. Add that to the fact I’d occasionally ride it at 120mph or more in shorts and t-shirt meant I was probably better off without. I plan to get another for my 50th.
Guess I was about 22 or so. I got a mate to give me a lift to buy some leathers, I had a drag bike. Gray made a stop to look at a Challenger he was interested in, the bloke had a manky 67 mustang in the corner of the garage. I started it and had to have it.
A D reg Micra. 1 litre engine with an auto box. Had a stunning brown velour interior. Cost me £1300 and was written off after a couple of years when someone hit me on a country road
First car was a Citroen AX GT Sportif (1990) in 2000, I was 20. Lasted about 6 months, replaced with a mint AX GTi, miss that car.
White Fiat Uno C146 WLC, circa '91..? Gear lever broke after two weeks of ownership. Engine was bulletproof, just the car rotted away around it...
Mazda 323, EDD 680T, got me through Provisional driving and the test itself at 17 in 1989.
Not sure you can do it now in your own car but I did my test in it and was greatly helped by some tape on the rear hatch that I put there to help with that pesky 3 point turn, reversing around a corner and parking bits of the test?
A green citroen ax 1.0 l , at 18. A tin bucket, but looking back it was so simple with no bells and whistles, which some would probably like now.
First car was an tank like Audi 80, bought for £50 and lasted almost a year. Sold it for £1 as it needed work to pass the MOT. I was 28 at the time, previously I'd had several motorbikes.
First motorbike was a Yamaha TZR 125 at age 21. Learned a lot about mechanicing with that bike lol!
Orange mk2 Escort 1300 sport when I was 17, purchased for £50 from my next door neighbour. I loved that car but it was stolen about a year later.
Nissan Cherry, once I'd finished uni and got a job so I'd have been about 22. It died when someone did a u-turn in front of me on a dual carriageway. That hurt quite a lot.
Mk1 Escort. The start of my Ford love affair. I was mid 20s and ridden bikes up til then.
18. Helios blue MK1 golf GTI. Cost me £2000 at the time (1990's). Great fun to drive, terrible lights and brakes but for a quick car was surprisingly cheap to insure at about £800 third party fire & theft. My old man was not happy about me spending my student loan on it 😀
Wish I'd never sold it 😔
Quite a late starter at 26 when I passed my test. First car was a Y reg Yaris T-Sport. Loved that car!