Inspired by this thread about a lucky member who’s first car was an MX5 post pics of your first drive.
I’ll start, a 1978 VW Golf GLS (1.5 GTI wannabe) acquired when I finished Polytechnic and got my first proper job at 23.The perspective of the photo makes it look smaller than a Mini of the same era!
In retrospect it had a lot in common with an MX5,small,light and responsive with a notchy gearshift, but in most ways the Mazda is far superior!
Mods if this topic has already been started please delete or merge my thread.
My pic is a scan of a “proper” photo of the actual car but internet equivalents are equally acceptable!
I hear what you say about nothing else comparing to it.First cars are a bit like first loves, perfect seen through the rose tinted spectacles of nostalgia but often messy and troublesome at the time!
My first wheels was a 1968 Hillman Minx 1500 (Hunter shape) which I bought in 1980 for £275 - Needless to say not as nice as the one in the picture sourced from the internet…!
It was a load of rubbish. Every panel was rotten, brakes didn’t work, clutch had gone, locks broken, and only 9 years old. And someone nicked the mirrors when I parked it up in Glasgow.
First nice car was a 1991 Honda CRX HF purchased in Mobile Alabama
My first car was a five or six year old Mini 850. The previous lady owner had it fully-loaded with W&P nudge bars, fog-lamps (that often shorted out all the lights!), wood dash, sheepskin seat covers, vinyl roof with Britax fabric sunroof.
Despite the weight of all those extras it would shift along; although even at that age galloping tin worm had to be addressed for MOT.
All I did was add a Halfords radio cassette (which went on to several more cars) and take off the dog dish hubcaps for an “edgier” look - alloys were way out of the picture. Unfortunately after a last summer before Uni terrorizing the lanes around Epping I stuffed it in a ditch near Harlow on the way to a Young Farmers disco.
PS as I had polished and waxed it beautifully the weekend before said disco, I have never wanted to risk polishing any of my cars since!
93 L Reg Vauxhall Corsa B 1.4 SRI (8 valve). It wasn’t a bad spec, sunroof, heated electric mirrors and a massive 82hp, rated for 40mpg so better than the MX5 in that regards
Head gasket went pop after about 60,000 miles, that’s a mechanical failure you don’t hear a lot about now days.
You can almost see it in the background. (sorry got no better pictures)
Its a 1964 VW beetle, 4 speed GB, flat front windscreen - the model before this was with the split rear window. I bought it when I was 16 ish with a blown 1.2L engine and a silly widebody fibreglass kit, ripped it all out, stripped it to bare metal, fixed all rust and rebuild holes on the floor. Got it resprayed in cherry red but I left the original gearbox and silly of me I fitted a VW camper 1.6L engine. I finished it just in time when I was 18ish and was able to drive it legally in Cyprus. 1st gear was effectively not usable because If I did try accelerate in 1st gear I would be going sideways (uncontrollably, especially in the wet )
I still have it, but I need to change one of the cylinder studs as it broke.
I learnt to drive in my Mum’s Mini, and then I bought my own first car in 1984. I had wanted an old motorbike, but my Mum was totally against that idea (I don’t think she was too keen on having her only daughter hurtling around on two wheels?!) so I decided that the next best thing would be an interesting old classic car.
With the princely sum of £350 that I had saved up, I thought I would probably end up with an elderly Mini or Morris Minor, but I found a 1948 Morris 8 Series E, and bought that! I absolutely loved it, and used it every day. When I could afford it, I eventually gravitated towards old sports cars though, and have owned sports cars ever since!
My first car was a 1964 minivan which I bought in 1972. ASC282B (which I believe was Scottish reg, so it had been around a bit). It had a LOT of miles on the clock and was on borrowed time but I loved it for the independence it gave me. I was living out in deepest rural Dorset and it made a huge difference to my mobility.
I px’d it after 18 months for a Mk1 Cortina GT, EFX976D, which was like swapping a donkey for a racehorse but I’ll always have a soft spot for that little mini. I camped out in it at music festivals and went all over the country in it. You could get a Marshall amplifier and two 4x12 speaker cabs and a couple of guitars in it so it was perfect for an aspiring guitar player.
The garage in Blandford where I px’d it told me it had been bought by the sportsmaster of Bryanston School, the local public school, who had taken it off the road and used it for trasporting sports kit around the playing fields and to teach vehicle maintenance. That used to make me smile, after its hippy life with me, imagining a bunch of young toffs charging about the grounds of a public school in it.
Somehow managed to convince my dad as he was racing the green one at the time (can’t find a picture of it actually on the track…) that the best first car was a Porsche 924
Its always been a tidy example but a 19 year old me added the turbo front end and a 968 spoiler a 36 year old me refuses to grow up so has left it as a sheep in wolf’s.clothing!
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