Your first car ...and its demise

I learnt to drive in my mum's mk1 golf 1.1 but the 1st car i owned was a mk1 fiesta 950cc in teracotta brown. Owned it for 6 months before the back end of a rav4 jumped out on me as i was changing the tape in the radio

 

My first car was a 1967 Mini , it cost me 6 and a motorbike petrol tank , ok it had no engine and i never fixed it or drove it but it WAS my first car
My first car i Owned and Actually drove was a mk2 Escort estate EME465V , lowered and with Revolution 4 spokes and lots of sideways action, i eventually crashed it while sideways... into a police landrover .. that took some explaining

 

In 2003 My First was an E, or possibly F plated 3rd 16v Mk2 in silver, sadly no pics anymore.

Bought it from a mate for about 1300, I murdered the engine but managed to find a low mileage KR for a couple of hundred quid, loaded it in the back of a van solo and brought it home (twisting all the braided injector hoses in the process) and had it fitted.

I also found a like new post-90 interior for it.

Dropped on Spax springs, Bilstein shocks.

G60 sized front brakes.

16" BBS Hockenhein 'style' wheels

Magnex exhaust

Post-90 bumper kit.

And 3 gearboxes in a year ha ha

Despite all that I could still say "yeah she's standard mate" with a straight face come insurance time ha ha.

What it really needed was a full bush kit! It was a total **** to move about at parking speed and would pitch and dart about braking or fast bends, that coupled with stupidly powerful brakes and no ABS meant you were kept busy.

It was actually really neat and tidy despite my best efforts and the shell was remarkably straight and had zero rust.

Made one of the worst mistakes of my driving life - decided after a year or so I wanted a VR6... I had 2k in cash, so I thought sell the 16v for 1500 so - bosch 3.5k which back in 2005 would just about get you a nice facelift 3dr VR6, only the 16v didn't sell in the first day or so of being advertised, which was about the limit of my patience back then so I bought the cheapest VR6 for sale on Autotrader. It was a total mess, rust everywhere, stupid ugly exhaust, 5dr and a very early model in flat red for 1700 figuring with another 1700 once the Golf was sold I could make a 'minter' out of it.

Finally sold the silver golf to another forum member, nice bloke, I forget his name, but I remember he fitted some poly bushes and transformed the way it drove - right up to the point he hit a pedestrian island in the middle of the night and nearly ripped one of the wheels off - there was talk about fixing it, but he never posted again so I guess it went to the great scrappy in the sky.

The VR6 was an even bigger pile of crap than I thought, the stupid exhaust was total homebrew and just welded up bits of scrap tubing, the suspension was a right mess and needed two meter-plus strips of the underside cut out and replaced to get it through an MOT, It HPI'd clear but it seems it was picked up with a fork-lift at least once in it's life. Spent all my money just making it road legal.

3 months later and an electrical fire caused the dash to go up at about 90mph, I managed to stop and get out, but it burnt to the ground - in fact the burns are still visible on the road where it happened 7 years later. That was the point I realised the 70 I saved on 3rd party only insurance over 3rd party fire and theft was probably a false economy. Ha ha.

After that came a brief affair with a sick MR2 before I gave up on 'old' fun cars and got a diesel Passat V6 Tdi that I had for 4-5 years before switching for the Honda Accord I've got now.

I'll get another Mk2 16v one day, once I've got a garage to keep it and don't ever have to rely on it to get me anywhere for anything than the joy of the journey - my luck doesn't extent to classic motoring for actual transport.

 

Good story Peejay.. I LOL'd at your 70 quid 'saving' - hindsight is a wonderful thing, very over-rated though, foresight is what you want!

Seems a bit of a recurring theme here in this thread, my first was a 1989 Ford Fiesta 1.1 PP in motorsport beige, can't remember the reg. Needed welding so was sold to fund a Renault 5, crashed it, fixed it and sold it. Cue Nova 1.2 8v, crashed it, fixed it and sold it.

Then came my 'new' car, 1999 Corsa 1.0 12volt. CKZ 5039 Lowered, TSW Stealths, exhaust and 55hp of fury! Handed it baqck to finance company when half paid off, 53k on clock and clean f**ked!

Had numerous company cars in-between, some got crashed some didn't ... lol.

Then HDZ 8418 1990 More door GTi 8v, did a few track days in it and changed it from std runabout to slightly better looking and lower run-about. Bought a 2E engine for the swap but got myself an Oak Green 16v H81 XUU before completing it. Sold all the 8v engine bit's I'd gathered and went 16v. Changed the KR to ABF, them emigrated to USA and sold it.

Now got F589 BHG, 2.0 16v mk2 with circa 180bhp and soon to be bald tyres lol.

 

My first car was a 1976 Mini Clubman LBW 91S in brown, with a brown interior. First thing I did was get it resprayed into a Ford Transit Blue with a white roof and got some reverse rim steel wheels on it. I drove it for 1 year before I got my license with my mum and ste-brother in the passenger seat, then another year while I was at uni. The short trips kept killing the battery with a dynamo and no alternator, so I had to push it down the hill outside our house every morning! Then speed bumps destroyed the exhaust every other month.

The end came when I received 2 A4 pages of MOT failures! So I stuck it on the drive and someone offered me 350 for it and I bit their hand off! Didn't even haggle. lol

 

Mine was an '82 mini NCW 828X for 250. At 6'4" the first thing I did was fit a 10" steering wheel and seat extender brackets so I could fit in the damn thing. Threw loads of cash at it on chrome bumpers, grill, 10" x6" GB alloys, Yokohama 008.

My neighbour re-built it as it was running on 2 cylinders, my dad had a go at respraying it and did a fair decent job. I filled it with rockford fosgate and alpine with an old 18" cinema sub... Sounded great... Then when a year was up, looked for a car that didn't give me cramp driving to work. Sold it on and bought an XR2i!! (2k to insure a corrado VR6 was way too much back then).

Loved that mini.

 

1991 Ford Fiesta 1.6 Sport (J694 BCJ) back in 1999. Great first car which i kept for a year and then sold it on to my brothers mate who promptly drive it into a wall and wrote the poor thing off. I still look back fondly on my time with it.

 

F reg Polo Formel E saloon for 350 loved it! and drove it into the ground until it failed next MOT..

 

Citroen AX 1.0 "Dimension" M763 MAB, bought for 300 with 12 months MoT, driven hard for those 12 months (as in thrashed to within an inch of its life). I hate Citroens, and I will never own another one, but I think everybody loves their first car, no-matter what it is, and I will always have a soft spot for the AX. In my year of ownership it suffered one failed brake cylinder, and one snapped handbrake cable. I don't think I ever opened the bonnet, and I certainly didn't wash it, a bird poo'd just under the reach of the single windscreen wiper (Factory std), and eventually it weathered away completely!

Got in it to go to work one morning and it stunk to high heaven all of a sudden, bought a new magic tree to try and solve it, but then found the carpets completely soaked throughout. They had probably been like it for a week, before I found out what had happened. Sitting watching TV one afternoon, and my neighbour came and knocked the door saying I really should move my car, went outside to have a look, and my usual parking space (and my car) is under about 2ft of water, I jumped in, started it up, and reversed it out. It was summer 2007, and we had some major flooding round our way, so I guess the drain I parked over had flooded before, and thats how my carpets got soaked! I didn't even notice until the damp smell took over! To dry it out I wound the windows down for a couple of weeks, I tried adding shake and vac to get rid of the smell, but it formed some sort of weird paste that I never got out of the footwells.

When it had earned me my first years no claims, I drove it around with "FOR SALE 50" and my phone number in the window, and after a load of t0ssers offering me 20-30, some idiot actually paid me 50 for it!

 

I had a Pug 106 1.1 that I bought on the day I passed my test in 2003 R312RVU did me well for just over a year. I stuck a set of alloys on it, think I had a choice of about 4 different styles because it was 3stud, sadly couldn't afford Compys for it and some lexarse lights.
Bought a 106 GTI to replace it, that lasted a couple of months before a tree jumped out at me

 

My first car was destined to be a rusty Rover 200. Whilst I was grateful to be offered a car fortunately it did a headgasket during my uncles ownership meaning it never made it's way down the family chain lol

I set my sights on getting a classic Beetle, completely oblivious to the sheer amount of work it takes to keep a classic car on the road and indeed how handy I'd have to become with the spanners rather rapidly! Broke all the rules, bought the first one I saw and had my offer of 1k accepted. It was a bit of a mix match car but was actually pretty solid so I lucked out bodywork wise (anyone who's owned a Beetle will know they like to disintegrate just about everywhere). Remember being disapointed it had a 1200 engine instead of 1300 (difference is about 5 BHP lol, a lot when you're 17!).

Went through plenty of adventures with it. Ones I can remember off of the top of my head include:

- Having to scrape the inside of the windscreen in winter time covering the entire interior in frozen ice everyday.
- 4 up, a weekends worth of camping gear stacked on the roof, the worst weather possible for bugjam and the entire floor filling up with 2 inches of water whilst driving.
- Clutch cable snapping whilst driving. Drove the car home bump starting it out of every junction for 40 odd miles praying I didn't hit any heavy traffic!
- All electrics dying in the middle of a very busy roundabout during rush hour - had to get out and push the car.
- The rear wheel coming off at 60 mph and having to throw the car onto the grass verge whilst still learning to drive in it lol:





At the end of the 4 year relationship I regretfully sold it on after spending god knows how many hours and much money on it. It had a lightly breathed on 1600 engine when it went and was a pretty tidy example. Even though it was a complete nightmare I loved that car, lots of memories and lots of lessons learn't from it!

Next owner sold it on shortly after buying, wish I knew what happened to it.

 

Might still be on the road, or at least in existince. Tax was due in May 2012

 

I would like to think so, I do keep an eye out for it on various forums and at shows but have yet to see it again. Hopefully it's in good hands.

 

Ford Cortina Mk3 in yes Olympic Blue, MUT 362P (it was only 2 years old when I bought it)had a spate of 3 accidents in a 24 hour period the last of these which completely totalled the car folding it nearly in half (and if you have seen the steel work in one of these gives you a clue to severity of impact!!)

 

Just so you know....it's back on the road after a full restoration....I bought it middle of August this year & it has a massive following with at least 2 clubs wanting it for next year's Classic Car show at the NEC....now nicknamed Jimini Cricket because of the number plate, it's back to brown & looks ace :-) If you want pics, just let me know :-)

 

Learn to drive in my mum's 850 mini van ( later given it as spares then quite bit later stripped and scrapped it) first car bought was an 850 mini saloon as a project, first car on the road was a 1 owner F reg mk2 Cortina with around 68k on the clock for £50 back in the early eighties, kept it for a few years and sold it for £200 to an old boy down the road it died when it was 25 years old due to needing welding gutted wish I bought it back.

 

1972 Austin 1300 Van Den Plas auto - WCJ 232 K. Bought by my parents for me...... then they asked me about paying them back the £500. Felt the bees knees for changing the crossply's to radials (155 x 13's), and putting a graphic equaliser in it. This would've been 1981. Got a set of KC Daylighters which were great, blinding rabbits and searing the grass verges with their brilliance, except about three minutes later when it fried the multi column switch and I found out about these things called relays. Sold it to a mate coz it wasn't the best car for 'jumping' over the railway bridge at Doleham Halt, just outside Hastings. He welded up the subframe I snapped attempting said 'jumps', then promptly ran out of talent ad wrapped in around a lamp post in Peasemarsh. It really was an awful car, but the leather and real walnut interior was quite nice - for its time.

Gaz

 

JAN299W

A truly awful Vulva 345DL. About 20BHP of beige 1.4L rear wheel drive ferocity, with the sought after turd brown interior.

About 20 turns lock to lock, my mate thought it was broken as the wheel kept whirling round and round.

Having a trans-axle should have helped the weight distribution, but it didn't help the handling as it would get out of shape at every wet bend.

It had a sticky float valve so would often die a few seconds after setting off, I used to hit the engine with a block of wood I kept for the purpose and then it would run fine until next time it was parked up.

Still, had good brakes and heated seats, and won it's final airfield race against my mates, so not all bad! Split for parts then scrapped when I couldn't bear it any longer.

And I sold the reg for more than I'd ever spent on the car