Reply With Quote£500 for a white Vauxhall Chevette
They sell for £5-6,000 now
One of my granddaughters turned seventeen this week and her mam and dad bought her a cheap runaround from her auntie for £250 (great little motor) to learn to drive in.
It made me think what I paid for my first, my first motorbike was a Francis Barnett 197cc which cost me £3.10s when I was 15 and my first car was a Ford Popular sit up and beg for £30 when I was 16 quickly followed by a Ford Anglia 100e which cost me £50 and the seller who I knew included a good running Lambretta scooter in the deal.
Over the next few years a few more cars came my way and a lot of bikes, one bike I remember buying with a mate (we paid half each) was a BSA A10 with a double adult side car complete with a spare engine for £14, we cleaned it up and decided we would share it one week each at a time, he had it for the first week and on day one wrapped it round a lamppost, we scrapped it after that.
Those were the days :)
£500 for a white Vauxhall Chevette
They sell for £5-6,000 now
I’m 41 and when I passed my test at the age of 18, I was gifted a silver, J reg Ford Escort Ghia by my parents. 1.6 8v engine with circa 115bhp if I recall correctly.
I did some terrible things to that car. RS2000 side skirts, allows and spoiler. Colour coded the bumper strips with rattle cans from Halfords. White Lockwood dials, carbon effect gear shifter...
£950 for a 1985 B Reg Ford Fiesta Popular 1.0L, had one wing mirror, no headrests and no center console and had a manual choke...
Think the 1st years insurance was fire and theft costing a round £700 I seem to remember...
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Only because they were so rubbish there are very few left that haven't fallen apart, Vauxhall's version of the AllegroOriginally Posted by RustyBin5
£500 for a white Vauxhall Chevette
They sell for £5-6,000 now
£250.00 for a Triumph Spitfire, around 1971-ish. Hood was so poorly weatherproofed that you needed a raincoat on when you got into the car!
Eventually traded it in a couple of years on for a new Citroen Dyane which was all of £695.00! Fabulous car!
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£80 for a Suzuki X-1 50cc motorbike when I was 16 (similar to a Yamaha FS1E but not quite as good)
OK, it was technically a moped but to me it felt like a million miles per hour!
£1,500 for a 1982 1,500cc Alfa Romeo Alfasud Sprint Veloce Trofeo (in 1985, I think).
My first car was a Spitfire too (One of the last built - S reg I think, 1500). Got a bank loan and paid £900. While driving it home the exhaust fell off and the hood nearly blew off. Failed its MOT on almost everything. Life lesson and my second car was a 'sensible' option
Loved that car - I put 60000 miles on it with no issues whatsoever
£250 for a 1980 Cortina 1.6L in 1991, it was beige and filler.
Nothing in 1989- my boss failed a Datsun cherry on a tonne of welding and the owner said we might as well keep it due to the costs to repair. I spent around a week welding it up in the evenings and got it back on the road. I drove it for a about year when one day one of the dampers decided to make an entrance through the wing top and that was that. Great car mind, engine was a little 1200 and apart from a noisy fan belt you could barely hear it ticking over.
Followed by a Mk1 Ford Cortina deluxe I bought in 1990 for £25- wish I still had it now!
Last edited by Franky Four Fingers; 13th February 2021 at 12:49.
As an apprentice in the late 80s, I bought my first car, a clapped out MK1 Ford Escort from one of the others in the college class for £80, he was taking it to the scrap yard that day and I matched the offer they made. It still had about 8 months of MOT left on it, I ran it until it was due again then it really was time for the scrap yard.
Next came a Fiat 132 Miafiori for £70, that the head gasket blew on, onto the next change of car which was a Triumph Dolomite for £90. It took me a couple of years to even break the £100 mark for a car!!
All wrecks really but great fun and really happy times.
£125 in Dec 1975 for a Yamaha YAS1, 125cc two stroke twin, GNN51J. First job, take the front number plate off. Second job, get it to go properly. Third job, pacify my dad who couldn’t believe I hadn’t bought a oil-dripping British bike (like he had).
£329 for a Honda H100N motorcycle.
You win.
My first was a 3 door 1.6 vw golf mk 2 driver in black. Paid £3500 for it around 1997 aged about 22. Never needed a car before then. I actually really miss it. Such a solid car with weighty steering.
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First was a Lambretta 150 which cost me £50 in 1974 - traded in a week later for a CZ175. First car was a WV Beetle that cost £500 in 1976
250 Dutch guilders for an ancient Yamaha, which was a project.
Had fun with it for a couple of years, then parked it.
Gave it to a buddy of mine after his nasty divorce. He still has a lot of (cheap) fun with it.
£23 for BSA A10 ...watsonian sidecar was got for ree
£250 on my 1975 British Leyland Mini 998cc. Such a fun little car. 84mph flat out with a fair tail wind. Used to burn out the points every 300 miles and cost £5.00 to brim the tank with leaded petrol. Those were the days!
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I got my TY50 for my sixteenth as a hand me down from my elder brother, paid £145 for a Suzuki GT185 the following summer (1980) and £350 for a T reg Chrysler Avenger estate off my mates mum in 1985.
It’s atomising really, that 35 years later an old runabout is still so cheap!
£700 for an X Reg Beige Ford Escort, soon fitted with XR3i Alloys & bad boy speakers and amp, used to think it was the ultimate pulling machine, I think back and think what a twat.... :-)
About £400 for a mint RD50MX, in black.
Sold it 6 months later to buy an RD125LC, in Marlboro racing colours. K&N filter, micron. Ring-ding-ding!
Couple of grand for a FIAT Punto 60. That was 2003...
£4 for a Raleigh runabout with a snapped frame
Brazed it together, ran it for a month then swapped. It for a cat that I called part-ex.
£45 in 1974 for a '62 Triumph Tiger Cub T20sl. Which was replaced after 6 months or so with a 1 year old Honda 250K4.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
C reg mini mayfair automatic it cost me £200 to buy out the relatives of my Nans estate after she died and then cost me £900 to insure the thing lol. I genuinely loved that car took me everywhere at a top speed of about 82mph which I’d try and hold regardless of corners etc because it took so long to get it up there.
£300 for a MK4 escort 1.3 hcs.
Went through a similar modification programme as was mentioned above.
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First was a Datsun Cherry 100A - free from a relative in the trade. Bright orange but it was cool as none of my peers had a car at the time.
After that, plenty between £200-£500 quid including a 1600 Laser Capri, Fiat SuperMiafori. Cost about the same to insure as to buy.
A few that never really got to run properly - Spitfire; Lancia Fulvia; Beetle etc.
The fabled X1 ! Mine was £75...first road bike - fitted drop handlebars, micron, bigger jets, still would only do about 35mph but could go anywhere I wanted independently !
Ford Capri, orange with black vinyl roof, £150!
Hahah! Looks like we had a similar experience and lesson!
I bought a Recaro seat for mine and the mechanic who fitted it struggled to find a bit of the floor pan to bolt it to that wasn’t rusted!
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£100 for a Kawasaki KC100 when I first got my provisional license.
£10 for a Lambretta Li150.
As soon as I was 17 got a Triumph Herald for 50 quid.
Cheers,
Neil.
1987. £70 for a burgundy(ish) mini clubman that needed work for the MOT.
I got it running and drove it work all proud as punch only for it to fail to start when getting back into it at the end of my shift much to the howls of delight from my work mates.
I did the obligatory minilite wheels and fixed back bucket seats (no one got in the back from that day on, it was just too much of a squeeze past the seats) but ultimately, you can’t polish a turd, and I absolutely bought a turd.
Now my second car was a gold 1.2 Opel Kadett coupe and I loved that thing. Taught me how to drift doing 20mph around a wet roundabout. Hours of fun.
first bike, yamaha fs1e (fizzy) 50cc i was 14/15 swapped it for a bsa airsporter. rode it too school a fes times, left it a mates back garden.
Fun thread!
My first was a Citroen Dyane 4. Exactly like this one:
In 1978, I paid Hfl 450 for a 4 y/o Dyane. And it was a nightmare. Bad starting, oil consumption. Nowadays, a 4y/o car can still be considered 'new(wish)'. I had that car when I joined the army. The distance between my house and the Army barracks was 60 km. It needed a can of oil on every trip. I started the car every Thursday evening just to be sure that it would start on Friday when I went on leave. There was a soldier's workshop on the barrack's grounds where we (soldiers) could tinker with cars. I needed that more than I wanted...
About a year later, the front brakes failed. And getting that repaired was an investment: the brakes on a Dyane were situated on the 'inboard': inside the engine bay, on the drive shafts. Repairs were expensive. I didn't have the money. My mother needed groceries and I offered to drive her to the village. She noticed that the brakes were 'iffy'. With my birthday coming up, I asked her for money as a gift to get the car repaired. She said nothing. Later that evening she told me that my father and she had been discussing this. And that they would help me get a better car: 50% birthday gift, 50% loan. I got 1978 Honda Civic to replace the Dyane. That Honda was a wonderful little car!
My first car was an Audi Coupe 5 cylinder, paid £1995 for it back in 1989 and sold it 6 weeks later for £1700. The buyer paid in cash, the car was taken to Ireland and that night I slept with £1700 cash under my pillow
My first wheels were a BSA Bantam 125, cost me £19. Fortunately my dad paid, that was in 1967.
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£180 for a Yamaha FS1E-D.
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NSU quickly £10
Fantastic - my Dyane 6 was exactly like that one!Fun thread!
My first was a Citroen Dyane 4. Exactly like this one:
In 1978, I paid Hfl 450 for a 4 y/o Dyane. And it was a nightmare. Bad starting, oil consumption. Nowadays, a 4y/o car can still be considered 'new(wish)'. I had that car when I joined the army. The distance between my house and the Army barracks was 60 km. It needed a can of oil on every trip. I started the car every Thursday evening just to be sure that it would start on Friday when I went on leave. There was a soldier's workshop on the barrack's grounds where we (soldiers) could tinker with cars. I needed that more than I wanted...
About a year later, the front brakes failed. And getting that repaired was an investment: the brakes on a Dyane were situated on the 'inboard': inside the engine bay, on the drive shafts. Repairs were expensive. I didn't have the money. My mother needed groceries and I offered to drive her to the village. She noticed that the brakes were 'iffy'. With my birthday coming up, I asked her for money as a gift to get the car repaired. She said nothing. Later that evening she told me that my father and she had been discussing this. And that they would help me get a better car: 50% birthday gift, 50% loan. I got 1978 Honda Civic to replace the Dyane. That Honda was a wonderful little car!
Sorry you had such trouble with yours, mine was brand new in 1971 (could have been ‘72...) and loved to bits, which may have resulted in it being incredibly reliable and a real joy to own. Don’t think anything went wrong with it over a term of about 60k miles, including a couple of trips to the SoF, and only needed regular servicing at not a lot of money.
Was gutted to sell it, but needed the dosh to upgrade my Honda 400/4 motorcycle to a Laverda 750SF2... this was around 1976
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A few hundred for a Vauxhall Nova.
That was before i learnt that Vauxhall are ####
£1200 for a Mk1 VW Scirocco 1.6 GLi in Dragon Green round about the end of 1987.
What a fantastic car to drive... when it worked! I had issues with exhaust, battery, distributor cap, clutch cable and brakes. The last one was fun, the progressively failed on the way back from Manchester to Dewsbury meaning that I had to use a combination of engine braking, handbrake and vigorously pumping the brake pedal to stop - the first time on the motorway was “interesting”, I drove more slowly the rest of the way home.
I sold the car and realised it had a footprint on the inside of the windscreen (ahem).
I loved that car.
Cheers,
MarkC
I remember as a young lad phoning the insurance company for a quote on a Mark 2 escort RS2000.
The lady on the phone asked if I was sitting down, wondering what she was on about I replied yes. Then she told me £1400 fully comp! In 1986 that price was more than the car was worth! I ended up with a 950 Ford Fiesta, I can’t remember the price.
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£90. It was a Honda SS50 (gold tank lol) The seller wanted £100 but knocked off a tenner.The year was 1979.
Passed my test in 1979, and paid £225 quid for a J reg Hillman Imp.🤔
Mini 850 van bought before my test for £100, passed in 1985 and insurance was 10 times my gross wage at £360. Is insurance more costly now Prorata? Followed by
Marina Van
Transit Van
Fiesta Van Mk1
Escort 1.6d van, no turbo and my first diesel
Freight rover crew cab tipper
Nissan Cabstar, my first new commercial in 96
Nissan Navara cyprus import
Renault traffic SWB
Renault Traffic SWB
Vw Transporter DSg
Fiat doblo LWb Current
For the cars
88 Audi 90 2.2 in 92
90 Ford Orion Ghia i
90 Mercedes 190 E
Vauxhall carlton CDi
Mazda MX6 Coupe
Subaru Impreza Turbo Terzo, my only brand new car ever
Vw Golf Gt Tdi 115
Jeep Grand Cherokee
Astra 1.6
Honda Civic CdTi
Porsche 997 C2
Bmw E92 Coupe 330d
Bmw F31 330D touring
Mercedes w124 E300d
Volvo 960 Estate
Bmw E39 530d
Bmw F11 520d touring
Jaguar X350 Super V8 Current
Volvo V70 D5 Current.
In an amongst,
Husky 500
Maico 500
Honda Cbr 600
Selection of 250cc gearbox karts.
£800 for a Renault 9 TLE in 1991. A155PFC
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