What was your first car?

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Dark Blue 1960’s Ford Anglia 105E. Hit a parked car on a bend showing off in the wet.
It folded like a cardboard box slowed me down for a couple of weeks though.
 
1960’s Ford Anglia 105E

We had an Anglia similar to the one below in bright yellow i still think they are a great looking car today.



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My dad bought me 1988 Toyota Corolla Liftback when I was a 4th year medical student in 1993. When I moved out of hospital accommodation in the summer of 1996 all my worldly possessions fitted into it.
I traded up to a Saab 900 turbo 4 years later, which was the first car I bought myself.
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From my early teens bikes were my first love; from mopeds to the super bikes of the late 70's/ early 80'.
My first 'tasty' girlfriend ended all that.
So at the age of 24 my first car was a 1971 Dodge Challenger.
White with a black vinyl roof (remember those?). It only had the baby V8 318 cubic inch (5.2 litre) but with a set of headers and exhaust exiting in front of the rear wheels it was the biz at the time.
Wish I still had it.
I looked it up on the DVLA website and it's still on the road.
Vanishing Point, what a movie!
 
Baby poo brown VW beetle.

My father influenced the decision. He thought he was making me safer by getting me to buy an underpowered car. But he basically bought me a death trap. Beetles don't do well in accidents against 4wd and big sedans. Fortunately I never had an accident in it.
 
Mitsubishi Colt. Bout it for £100 in 2001 and it only had 3 gears 😂
 
R reg 1976 Triumph Dolomite. Unfortunately the 1300 not the Sprint. Chocolate Brown with a black vinyl roof. Ex BP Sullom Voe staff car and was quite the shed.
 
73 Ford Falcon. 6 cyl, 3 speed column change in a fetching 70s shade of brown/bronze, similar to this V8 model...
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A 1982/3 Vauxhall Cavalier 1.6 GLX hatchback. It was in some horrid orangy brown colour (bit like rust) with a matching interior. Horrible car. Bought it privately and not long after it started randomly cutting out, not ideal when it happens on the outside lane of the M4, managed to coast onto the hard shoulder. It had an early form of electronic ignition but still a distributor, coil etc., breakdown people suggested the coil and some electronic module attached to it so replaced that, car started and on my way. That's sorted or so I thought until it broke down again a week or so later. Trip to the scrappies to get the other half of the ignition system, i.e. the distributor, that seemed to sort it.

Few years later it failed an MoT on emissions, garage suggested the valve stem seals were leaking, few £100 later, got an MoT, except now lot of white smoke from the exhaust, should have kicked off at the garage but they brushed it off as something that would sort itself (it didn't). But I was young and naïve so just decided to live with it. Of course now it was burning several litres of oil for every few thousand miles, eventually that took its toll and it blew a hole in one of the pistons. More expense for a recon engine but at least it was running well now.

Automatic choke and carburettor on it were a PITA, flooded the engine quite a few times, always fun on a cold winter morning, spark plugs out, leave it a few hours and try again.

At some point I also drove it into the back of someone on a roundabout, usual inexperienced driver syndrome thinking I was the next Nigel Mansell, more cost (3rd party insurance), new wing, bonnet and front end (body parts were cheap for it at least!), and increased insurance 😭

It was sort of ok for a while after that but the tin worm started to attack it and it usually needed something or other welded for the MoT. I'm sure there were many other niggles over the years. Starter motor started sticking and I'd had enough of it. Got a 1989 BMW 325i, was like night and day, such a nice car to drive.

Kids of today won't know the struggle of owning crap cars. There's not much on the roads nowadays that won't comfortably cover 150k miles or more without any major issues so long as they are maintained. Also everything has engine management, fuel injection, no carburettors / chokes to mess around with, and safer too, decent ABS brakes, airbags and so on.
 
Well, my first car was a Lada Riva 1.3 Estate in cream, pretty much identical to this one, was not at all cool back in the day!

My first cool car was the XR2i, the pic is the actual car, loved that thing...
 

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In 1979 an Opel Kadett. For £50 with 1years mot . And a nocking engine.
Drove it for about 10 months until engine failed.got £15 scrap metal
 
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