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!

ooh didn’t need the code, well this, a 1956 Fiat 600 cost me £100 which I had to borrow off my dad, bought it in 1965 aged 17, it had an Abarth tuned exhaust. It pretty much fell apart due to rust which I later came to appreciate was prevalent with most Italian vehicles of the period, my next vehicle cost £7 10s an Austin A30. Lesson well learned.

17 years old. Bedford HA 110 van (or a Bedford Hallo van as it was listed in the newspaper when we later sold it), ex gpo.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/rdhVvR]Bedford HA 110[/url] by Jeff, on Flickr

The ladder rack had been taken off and the holes in the roof leaked when it rained. Dad had a 2l Carlton in which I learned then upgraded to a 3l Senator. When I compared the engine in that to the 950cc peanut sized jobbie in the van, it looked like someone had stolen the engine and replaced it with a hairdryer. Mind, the max speed also suggested that too. (*though I did get 3 pts for 42 in a 30).

it was great though, allowed me to get out and about and meet mates, get to work without relying on parents and so on. Once drove it from Wigan to the NEC to see metallica with 5 mates, back to Wigan via Ormskirk to drop some lads off, then up to Dumfries the next day to get some food at my parent’s caravan, on to Glasgow to watch Metallica for the second subsequent night, then back to dumfries to sleep. Actually had to sleep on the way back to the caravan so Neil drove while I slept which is of course when the police pulled us over…

Once got pulled over by the police on the way home from the Floral Hall Rock Night in Southport. I’d seen the roadblock and pulled into a side road to tell the lads in the back to calm down as having only two seats, I wasn;t supposed to have passengers. A police car saw me dive off the road and followed me. He was rather surprised to find 9 (yes NINE) lads in a two seat van. He advised me to drive carefully as I was the nominated (sober) driver and let us go on our way…

Sold it two years later and went halves with my brother on a brown 1.3l vauxhall cavalier saloon.

A 1984 Mini City 1000 that I got when I was 16.  My aunt had owned it from new but hardly used it, 27k in 15 years!  It had spent the last 5 years juat going to the MOT centre and back between tests (2 miles increase!) then the last 2 years before I got it in a hedge in her garden as she forgot she had it.  I was given first refusal on it when she died.  Did it up and learnt to drive in it.  Sadly the engine died after 3 months as it had spent far too long never getting warm so the block cracked between cylinders 2 and 3.  I kept it for another 5 years and even got a donor engine from a Metro for it but I’d moved on so sold it.  Regretted it ever since.  I checked a few years ago and it’s still registered, seemingly gets SORNed every October then retaxed every April.  MOT checker shows it’s still only done 40k and does about 1500 between MOT’s with clean sheets every time so I hope a Mini lover has it now.  If anyone knows who owns it I’d love to see it again and let them kn ow I’d like first refusal if they ever decide to sell it.  Reg was B132 BNY.

Late passing my test at 26. First car was a year later, 1992, it was a 1982 Renault 5 1.2l TR three door with a red velour interior and a four speed box and a very long gear lever. Managed to get two years out of it before various bits of the suspension snapped, not economical to repair. O to sixty in about three weeks but bags of character

Series 3 V8 long wheelbase safari was what I learned to drive in aged 13. My dad had a very liberal view to me driving it, So he sat drinking beer whilst I drove through towns, city’s and where ever I was told to go. More than a few times we trundled past the police my and my dad never flinched. Upgraded to a 110 V8 after a while and being left to use it without a chaperone. Looking back it was total madness on my dad’s behalf.

Finally got round to doing my test & passed first time aged 22 and bought a metro van for £1000 which was killed by being rear ended at a junction. Golf GTI addiction started after that.

Vauxhall Viv HC the two door SL model in 1988, JYD 277K.  19, £150, about £100 for odds and ends and the donation of an engine from a mate who had just build a kit car using Viva running gear.

It was a very bright yellow and had Rosstyle wheels.  Loved it, but my engine building skills were a bit lacking.  It lasted a few months, and then the engine caught fire.  I would have tried to get back to running again, but heading off to sea with the Navy curtailed my plans, and Dad said he wasn’t having a semi burned out wreck on the front lawn.

The only car I have made any money on.  Insurance company coughed up £350, let me keep it, and then I sold it for £300 to a bloke who had the time and skills to fix it.

D-reg Fiesta, 1.4 bog standard model with an XR2 body kit and pepper-pot alloys on.  Paid 300 quid for it in 1999.  It was crap, and was only saved from rusting to death by a seized engine a couple of years later.

19 – “W” reg Ford Fiesta Supersport. Bl**dy awful car really but at the time I thought it was the dogs.  It was 1991 and the car crime epidemic was in full flow. I couldn’t possibly have purchased a worse car, maybe if it had XR or Cosworth on the back.  They were literally queuing up to liberate it from my possession.  I had a two more Fords in the 90s but never again – every single one was broken into or damaged by cretins multiple times.  Never again.