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Musing on the thread I started re: a car for our 17 year old, I was reminded of my own - somewhat different - first car buying experiences. Mainly as it was with my own cash! I didn’t pass my test until I was at Uni.
Ford Escort Estate MkII 1300L. Repained in two tone ‘Turd Brown, Mud Brown’ motif with what I’m suspecting was a brush in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. The engine was very tired, the wipers didn’t work, the heater would occasionally blow warmish air into the car some 10 minutes after starting, the doors dropped on opening and everything was manual. Most electrical stuff kind of operated occasionally if it wasn’t raining.
On a good day it’d do 70 although your teeth would be rattling and the wheel bearings would be howling.
It cost £400 in 1987. I had it a year before it was stolen/recovered with a few dents. Insurance paid me £400 and I sold the remains to a mate for £50.
Sadly no picture.
So what about the rest of you then? I can’t say I miss that car but it was brilliant to be independent at last.
17, Mini 1000
17. 1L Mini van. Would be worth a fair penny now.
Ford Fiesta Popular MkI cost about £900 it was numb 950c engine but it was Ok as my first car to learn in, it blow the cylinder head soon after I passed my test going to work one day.
21
Bright yellow ex-council transit
18
1.8N/A diesel Fiesta. 98000 miles on the clock and had 240000miles by the time we finished with it
Renault 5 in a metallic green colour - 1300, with a 4 speed gear box with a very long gear stick, finding gears was always a challenge. I didn't take lessons till after Uni, so it would have been 1986 before I started to drive - car Reg RPC50X. Rolled it's way round corners and it had no acceleration!
11 or 12. mini van.
thrashed round the farm. last time I saw it, it was rotting in the corner of a field where it had run out of petrol several years prior...
18. 1.3L mini sprite. Bought for £1350, sold for £1400 4 years later. Got 3 responses with the ad on the first day, should have asked for more. MOT checker indicates it is still going.
Ford Escort MK1 in yellow. 1.3l with coated metal steering wheel, vinyl seats, and a dent in the boot.
I was 18 and it cost me £300.00
If you drove through a puddle the solanoid would get wet and the car would die. 😀
Easily repaired and most bits available from a scrap yard.
bought: fiat 126, I was 20. Only vehicle I've ever spun on a public road. Truly diabolical heap in every way. Still loved it though.
17, mkIII ford escort 1.0 with a knackered gear linkage so there was no gate on reverse.
I really wanted a Renault 5! Stupidly bought the first car I saw. I should have taken one look at that paint and started running!
24, and it was an 1100cc, 13 year old Mini. It was written off 12 days later when I was hit head-on while stationary at traffic lights. Didn't really get time to work out how good the car was. Replaced with a (even older) 1275 Midget when I eventually got the insurance.
I cycled mostly, or took trains/buses. Living in London, that made sense.
I had passed my test at 22 - driving really wasn't a big deal.
My old work oppo lived in London all his life and never bothered to get a license. Now in his 40s, he reckons he’s too old to learn.
Good to see the trusty early Ford Escorts so well represented.
I lent my first street legal motorbike to a mate who somehow contrived to bury it under the wheels of a lorry. Only had it 3 weeks!
18, Brand new Peugeot 306. My parents must have been mad. Having said that, although I had a lot of near misses, I never crashed or damaged it. Did get a few points for speeding.
34
Diesel Mondeo estate with the rear bumper held on with gaffa tape
Think we paid my SiL £250, and got about 35,000 miles out of it before it finally coughed its last.
I was 17, she was a silver Ford Capri mkIII 1.6 Laser only a couple of years younger.
Good times were had, although I was too naive to give her the care she deserved. I went to uni and she rotted away in the garage until given away for nothing.
34, my mum's old '89 Polo (in 2003). Had if for 4 years then got an Amazon.
Now on a Smart Roadster, love that car.
Thanks for the handy list of website security question answers, everyone!
My first car was a 1977 Ford Fiesta 1.1L in Arizona Gold. 13 years old (the car, not me) and 35K on the clock. I ran it into the ground then sold it for more than I'd paid for it.
1981 Pontiac LeMans like this one, but with 4 doors:
I was 16, and the car was 7 years old. It had no serious issues until I blew the motor when the accelerator stuck to the floor. It had an 8-track tape system that meant I had to carry my small portable cassette player with me so that I could listen to The Police at full blast.
One of these, though it wasn’t in this condition. My father rebuilt most of it but died before completing it, which meant the rust on the sills and boot were still pretty crumbly and the hood had holes in it.. the drivers carpet would also soak any water in (which I never figured out where it came from, but could have been from anyone of a 100 places. I sold it pretty quickly, because it was bloody horrible to drive, I drove it through Uni years, so 19 at the time. I got a company car as soon as I left Uni and I got shot of the MG and got one of these, which was chuffing fabulous ..
During that time I bought an AlfaSud 1.5ti off a friend..
Then... another Alfa.. and so on...
Age 17
1.3 Mk3 Escort Popular - like this but mine was blue and and the little rubber spoiler (which made it go faster of course!)...
[IMG] 
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..had the obligatory ===ESCORT=== sticker in the rear window and a stick on Garfield too! 🙂
23. Caterham 7.
Post university, and by the time I bought the Caterham, I'd had a 1.3 Mk2 Astra Estate and 1.8 Sierra Chasseur as company cars. Sold when we needed the deposit for our first house.
God, I miss that Sierra.
Not mine but almost identical. Bought it as a student when I was 22.
23.
Rover 214SLi.
It had the best BHp per tonne/insurance cost of any motor I could afford. 😆
21
Hillman Imp in 50 shades of blue.
16 and a biege 1971 Mini Clubman with a hard saved £200. Did it up a bit before passing test, lots of spotlights, nudge bars, a pod on the dash with 4 extra dials in it, chrome trim, etc, you could open it and drive it with a flat head screwdriver. Saw one the other day, can't believe how small they were!
23, after a couple of years driving my dad's Landy 110.
A Proton Persona 1.6XLi, cost £200 and lasted 12,000 miles. 1996 model, had independent rear suspension and four disc brakes, a 318i of the same vintage didn't!
88 90 2.0 10v, cost £200 when I was 17.
I've never actually owned a car; numerous bicyles and motorbikes though. I taught myself to drive in about 1974 on the dirt foundation of the M40 motorway between Thame and Stokenchurch in a Mk1 Escort van owned by Gleesons, for whom I was working as an engineer's assistant. It took me a week to pluck up the courage to change up to second gear, which opened up a whole new world of speed to me.
Vauxhall Cavalier MkII - about a 1988 job with a 1.6l engine and 4 speed 'box. It was utterly rubbish... and old... and unreliable. But it was mine and it was ace!
Age 22 I think - sometime around 1997
It looked a bit like this... but much shonkier... even back then!
A horrific 1L Austin Metro Mayfair when I was 17. Was stolen whilst at work in Oxford, replaced with a 1.3 Escort Poplar in white (just like the pic above).
Both cars were utterly terrible, but I had them again in a flash.
21 and just about to graduate I bought an 11 year old Triumph Spitfire 1500. Owned it from 1989 until 2008 having rebuilt it during that time.
I think I was about 10 - original Fiat 500. Went 50:50 with my old man.
Ended up restoring it when I was about 20 and sold it. Bought another about a month later to restore, it's still sat in the back of the garage 🙁
17 - Renault 5 Campus Prima 1.4 1995 in red.
17 years 3 days.
Mini Piccadilly in Jewish Racing Gold, I think my dad bought it as a joke.
A little later than most at 23, but despite being really into cars I didn't need one. First car was a MK2 Golf GTi 16v. The insurance was horrific, but I loved it.
17
The awesome Humber Sceptre ..I loved that car,but spent more time fixing it than driving it .
17 or 18. A Vauxhall Chevette 1.3L, in what was once silver. Enhanced with wire mesh, filler and smoothrite. My Dad sourced it for me - £50 in 1988 (beat the seller down from £70). Someone had tried to hotwire it and pulled the electrics out which my Dad (being an aircraft electrician) fixed.
Sold for scrap in 1989 when it failed the MOT (wire mesh and filler instead of metal door sills) and the clutch went.
17 1959 Land Rover, perfect learners car (if you can drive that everything else is easy)
One of these, only in a nice 70s maroon colour. I was 18.
I didn’t own a car until I was 32. When I was 16 I had a Yamaha FS1e moped, and a series of bikes after that until a SMIDSY nearly cost me a leg and my job. After that I got a Suzuki SJ410 which I kept for a few months then went onto Landies.
Mk3 diesel eccy. Just kept on going. Reckon I was 21.
20yo
Mini 1275GT - 1981 - big bore exhaust, outsized carbs, stiffened suspension, complete hooligans car. MOT check says is was last on the road in 2007. For me it expired when I bent the crankshaft, mechanic said he had never seen that before.
I was 17 and car was a Singer Chamois (variant of Hillman Imp). It cost £25.
Great car for learning how to handle a car as it switched between massive under steer to sudden spins.
Some truly fab cars here. And some shockers somewhat predictably. A mate has a Cavalier like the one up there when I was at Uni. We didn’t have any street cred but I’d still rather walk then get a lift. It was canary yellow.
I had a MKIII escort after my first car died and then an AlfaSud (I think). The escort was brilliant and boring. The Alfa was mad and rusted as I watched.
My Bro has a 2CV as well. His ace mechaning skills somehow increased the petrol consumption to that of a Chieftain tank. Which is why we had to push it home four miles one day 😉
There was something fab about early cars. Now knowing if it’d start or if it’d get you where you wanted to go. Every journey requires the spirit of adventure 🙂
17 when I bought my 1981 Austin Mini Metro in metallic black
bought: fiat 126, I was 20. Only vehicle I’ve ever spun on a public road. Truly diabolical heap in every way. Still loved it though.
Snap didn't manage to spin mine thou.
Got it at 17 an used to drive to school, looked at an original 500 first before buying the single lady owned baby porsche.
Hillman Imp @ 17. Bought off my brother for £150 by my aunt. He bought himself a Capri.
I smashed the Imp up checking out a girl on the way to work. Valuable lesson!
I was 17 and car was a Singer Chamois (variant of Hillman Imp). It cost £25.
wasnt the engine int that a pump engine or something not origianlly designed for a car
19 years old, 1992.
Jobby brown Mk2 Vauxhall Cavalier 1.6L.
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Bought it from my Uncle for £400 and it cost me another £1200 insurance third party. 😳
It came from the Isle of Lewis and as such was a rusty piece of crappiness with none of the door locks working...becuase they had never been used!
Sold if 4 months later for £500 with only 3 cylinders working!
Loved it too much...
My first car, when I was 18 was a Mk2 Escort, 1600 Ghia X, 4 door with a black vinyl roof with square headlights.. It cost a whole £100 and managed to get it sideways on the drive home from picking it up.. I also got banned from driving, tbh it probably saved my life and others! On the motorway you could watch the fuel gauge move, not as bad as a 2.8 Capri, but definitely still noticeable.
The floor was rust, I found this when trying to jack it up and the jack went up, the car did not. The heater matrix leaked, the windscreen leaked and the radiator leaked. The brake master cylinder had a leak, so you HAD to pump the brakes for them to work. Anything under 35mph and it would start to overheat. If you went round a corner at normal speed it would lean on to its bump stops, anything faster and it would zigzag out of a corner, hitting the left bump stops, then the right, then the left... I fitted a stereo, but it only worked if you shoved a 3.5" floppy between the fascia and stereo.. Funny thing is I mentioned this to a friend and he had the same stereo, we worked out it was his stereo, 10 years before we knew each other.
But... It was my first car and I loved it, it was red, actually it was near white when I got it. With a lot of sweat and T-Cut it was bright red by the time I scrapped it!
Like this:
I had a magnificent Rover 216 Vanden Plas EFi at 21, like this one (in tasteful Oyster Beige as well). Amazingly all the electronics worked, and the engine was pretty gutsy compared to the 900cc Renault 9 that I learnt to drive in. The steering was unassisted and heavy. Not a bad car but succumbed to the demon rust and was scrapped.
wasnt the engine int that a pump engine or something not origianlly designed for a car
Don't think so.
http://www.imps4ever.info/tech/engine.html
Had the engine out a few times though to fix clutch and gearbox issues. Support engine underneath, take off rear bar, undo some bolts and push car away from engine. Very easy engine removal.
Tundra green mini 998. PCG231P. Bought for £200 at 18 from a friend in a garage (was a trade-in). I ran it through university. Happy days chugging up and down the M4/5 Devon to London and back with my sister# and our all belongings.
#Officially wife for the purposes of RAC membership - which was used rather often, usually by her. It did break down once in London when I had the comment "didn't I see this car last week?" - which was a new one on me!
17, a talbot samba rallye like this one, cost £700 I think
What seems to have changed is the car that 17 year olds seem to expect these days.
First car £25 Singer Chamois
Second car £75 Marina Coupe
Third car £400 Rover P6
All went way more expensive after that point but was happy with the cars at the time
20
Mini Mayfair 998cc in silver, with Sprite alloy wheels and a leaky sunroof with much gaffa tape applied. The car would have been 14 when I acquired it.
1995 I was 19. V reg, 1979 fiesta two tone Brown/cream. Cost me £125 and £450 for insurance 3rd party fire and theft!
Bag of shite it was.
I was 23 and bought a 1971 MG Midget 1275cc for £500 - off a work colleague like the one in the photo, it was a basket case and it took me about 6 months to get it running / MOT as it needed a fair bit of welding, new gearbox and clutch, new suspension bushes - it was semi-tuned with a highlift cam, bigger carbs and a straight-through big-bore exhaust. I resprayed it Ferrari Rosso Red but because it had a different tyre at each corner had an alarming ability to go sideways. The clutch bearing went one morning and it sat on my drive for 2 years before someone offered me £100 to take it away....
What seems to have changed is the car that 17 year olds seem to expect these days.
Oh I don't know about that, in 1995 when I was 18 I announced, very loudly to my Step-Dad that I was going to buy a BMW 6 series, not any one either, I was going to have a M635CSI as I'd just read in TopGear mag or something that as they were all about 10 years old at this point they were 'only' £10k (about £20k in today's money) oh and it had to be Dark Grey or Black and a later, dechromed one.
I was earning about £300 a month at the time stacking shelves in Tesco after school. How he didn't breaking down in tears laughing at me I don't know.
I thought about it for about 6 months, didn't do anything of course, but spent every penny I made in the pub thinking about it a lot and decided I'd probably over-estimated my affluence a bit and should think about something a bit more modest, at least to start.
The next 6 months were spent thinking about Porsche 944s, but only an S2 (but ideally a Turbo) they were about 6k a the time... I was still earning £300 a month.
Might be part of the reason why I didn't own a car until 23, by then my income had risen up to my falling ambition and I got the Golf.
wasnt the engine int that a pump engine or something not origianlly designed for a car
Not exactly but close. It was a Coventry Climax unit (brilliant engine when properly cooled - which it wasn't in the Imp). It was used powering a portable pump used by fire brigades.
At 21, just married, bought mrs_oab and I this car for getting to mountains and her to learn to drive in.
1986 1.1 Fiesta Popular
17 (but I bought it a couple of years earlier to do up), 1959 Morris Minor. I stress this was only in the late 90s, I'm not that old! Was a bit different as all my mates had novas and such.
Learned to drive late because of an average upbringing so first car was a 320i company car.
W**ker to wizard!
alanw2007
I had a magnificent Rover 216 Vanden Plas EFi
Funnily enough, I remember going to a motor show with my dad back in the day and sitting in one! We were impressed 😆
Rover 216 Vanden Plas EFi
There is one over the road from us, in daily use...
I passed my test at 17 and my first car was a Triumph Dolomite Sprint in Mimosa yellow.
What a great car from a fun perspective when it was running properly. Went like s**t off a shovel but needed 2 feet on the brake pedal to try and slow it down again.
The overdrive gearbox was a thing of beauty at the time.
Had 2 more of them over the years and wish I still had one....
B reg Fiesta XR2 - Red - loved that car. I was 20. Couldn't really afford it but I didn't care. Sold it when I went to be a student.
Nissan 100nx 😎
Oooh! Dolly Sprint! I had a white one, I loved it. It was curious in that one side of the car was bolted together with imperial stuff and the other side was metric! Loved the driving position, went quickly, except round corners and I rebuilt it many times and thanks to Triumph Tune, did lots of fun stuff with it.
it wasn't many first car though, about my third. My first, at 17, was the family hand down Hillman Super Minx, which was already on its second engine and gearbox with panels of differing colours 😃
18 in 2013.
A '96 Peugeot 106 1.0, 4 speed. Dog slow, built like a crisp packet, and I loved it.
I was 20 and at Uni. On the back of a summer job I bought a 9 year old 1.6L Capri in Beige for £600. Thankfully no photos exist. Sold it for £600 12 months later when I left uni and got a MK1 Golf GTI. Talk about chalk and cheese.
21: Vauxhall chevette (shuvit) £100 of my dad.
I hadn't a very silly MK11 escort. Yellow, rs2000 front end, pinto engine, a huge k&n filter,relatively massive rear wheels and zero mechanical simpathy (or knowledge for that matter). My Nan gave me £800 just before my 17th and I bought it off a mate.
Positives:
it taught me what to do when you've been "a bit silly" with the throttle.
it looked cool
negatives:
Mate hanging out the window on washway road coming home from Manchester manually operating the wipers as the connector had broken. Again.
i bump stared it for the last six months I owned it and put one side of the drivers seat through the rusted floor. Shoved a jack under one side so it was level so fixed that.
the rear tyres were so big and the suspension so shot that if you opened the boot you could see the wheels.
i ignored all the essential mechanical issues and spent all the cash is had getting it resprayed an even brighter yellow and tinting the windows. It died shortly afterwards.
God, I was a dick.
18. Bought a 1986 Mk3 escort 1.3 Laser which i think was just a special edition to get rid of the last 4 speed boxes. Ocean Blue, big spotlights .... and that's it. Saw it maybe 10 years ago running around Aberdeen with different coloured wings and the spots missing from it.
Datsun 100a f11 and I was 17, cost £200 and £450 to insure it!
17 Ford Anglia. A poached egg had more power. Reg 1377AT
Mine was a cut&shut MK3 Escort 1.3L that stank of curry every time you put the heater on, leaked when it rained so you had water sloshing about the footwells when you drove. Was an awesome car.. not because it was awesome, but because it gave me freedom. I went everywhere in it, usually full of mates, did alot of things for the first time in it. Awesome. Needed constant maintenance just to keep it running...and it never ran that well. Kids these day's don't know they're born.