I shared a Morris Marina 1.3 HLS saloon with my siblings, but the first car I bought myself was a Series 2 Land Rover
I was hunting through some old photo's at the weekend and came across this, my very first car must have been about 1965, I think I paid about £30 or less for it but it needed some work, ball joints if I remember correct and I sold it on and bought a motorbike :)
I believe it was a 95E ?
I shared a Morris Marina 1.3 HLS saloon with my siblings, but the first car I bought myself was a Series 2 Land Rover
I don't have any pics sadly, how stupid but I rarely took pics of anything back then.
It was an X reg MK1 Ford Fiesta in a kind of aqua green colour from memory. I do remember I paid £425 for it and turned out to be a complete money pit, not only that but I bought it as a 1 litre but discovered later it had a 1.3 engine inside. Good job my insurance wasn't called into play.
First car was a rover 216, g reg and back when cars used to start rusting after 3 years :)
SAAB 99 GL Reg. XFY122M. Triumph based 1850cc engine in it.
Peugeot 205 ‘Lacoste’
White exterior, VERY green interior. I wrote it off fairly swiftly, but they’re worth a reasonable amount now.
1985 Ford Fiesta 1.0 Popular (B122 FVK, weird how I still remember the plate) passed my test in 1993 and paid £995 for the car and £650 for the Fire & Theft insurance policy. It had no headrests, no parcel shelf and no centre console and you soon realised you'd forgotten to take the manual choke off when bus's started overtaking you lol...
Last edited by Martylaa; 27th October 2021 at 21:37.
I decided that my lack of success with the girls was due to my lack of wheels, so I saved up and bought 1958 Commer Cob van (with windows) 263 ARL from the local fishmonger.
It stank.
I even repainted it with Valspar inside to try to disguise the smell of fish.
The only saving grace was that the girls I was trying to attract also smelt of fish.
105E Estate for me ,67 reg . Easy to work on in the cold and wet but had 6 different engines over my ownership, each one a bit less smoky and a bit more powerful. Plus, disc brakes towards the end, for safety and cool negative camber.
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Citroen Dyane 4
1983 Ford Fiesta 1.1L that I bought for £600 in 1994. It was beige although Ford optimistically called the colour Dove Grey.
1985 Mini City E
B539NLR
Paid £200 for it. Insurance cost £500!
MK3 Escort 1.3L in fetching baby blue paint; four speed box and no rev counter, gutted!
A metallic green Fiat Strada. Loved it
Mini Pickup green. 1973. Kept a brick under the driver's seat. To start car; Make sure in neutral, put brick on accelerator, open bonnet and short the two solenoid terminals with a screwdriver. Put brick back under seat. Good times.
1973 Ford Escort in a rather trendy tawny brown metallic.
1965 Ford Corsair, dark blue, FYF 91C. With Zodiac wheel trims of course.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Vauxhall Viva SL, followed by 998 Mini, and Hillman Imp.
A 1972 Brown Vauxhall Viva USA959L
Bought for £200
1972 Austin 1100 which I bought for £100 when I was 17
1983: a 1976 Mk11 Escort 2 door in daytona yellow, 1100cc crossflow which I converted to 1300 pre crossflow because I was given an unused gold seal engine. Turned out to be quite a job due to the 1300 intake manifold and carb being on the other side of the engine to my 1100. So new cable linkage brackets, petrol pipes etc had to be fabricated, I'm sure I used a bit of meccano somewhere in there. Happy days indeed. No photos unfortunately.
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First car I owned was a 1989 honda CRX 16v in red. Bought it from a guy in Scarborough for £750. The exhaust was blowing so I put a loud stainless steel job on it. Destroyed the rear speaker enclosures adding 6x9 speakers into the original places but you couldn't tell once the covers were on.
Sold it to a guy from London for £1250 a couple of years later.
Still the best car I've ever owned.
A plum red 1974 Triumph Toledo 1300, which was passed down from my mother.
I transplanted the dash and clocks from a scrapped Sprint, including the three centre dials.
it was a slow old thing, but the view forward was much improved.
First car I bought - 1990 XR3i, with the RS turbo-style drop end spoiler and Cosworth alloys (all stock)…
Could barely afford to fuel it!
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1977 “S” plate yellow Renault 5. Bought in 1990, can’t remember how much but I do recall that the insurance was a lot more than the purchase price.
This. Zastava 750LE. Fiat 600 made under Fiat licence in ex-yu.
Apsolutely loved little thingie. I have a 1:60 diecast model on dashboard of Punto I drive today.
Mine, Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40 (1978) called Beatrice.
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All our yesterday's. Now probably mostly rusted away.
Sent through the ether by diddling with radio waves
A green Morris Minor van, RVY241G, handed down from a grandparent. First car with my own money, a silver Fiesta Supersport for c£1700 (FCU634W if I remember correctly). I thought it was very cool but in reality it was anything but super sporty.
Last edited by deepreddave; 28th October 2021 at 07:44.
My first car, as many Italians, was a Fiat Cinquecento. Was not mine, but my sister’s , who never used it. It was 1974, and the excuse was a holiday with a bunch of friend in Sardinia.
Little used in town, Florence is better in a scooter or motorbike or for cycling.
Peugeot 205 Lacoste in 1989. Before that I used my mum’s MG Metro for a few months.
I absolutely loved it - it was based on the 205xs but done in white and green with Lacoste badging and interior with exotic extras like central locking and electric windows. It had a sporty 1.4 engine, and handled superbly- as all 205’s did.
I followed it up with a 205Gti after a little while.
There are no Lacoste’s currently on British roads, but I’d be sorely tempted to buy one if one ever popped up.
If anyone here has a 205Gti I’d love to see a post from them.
So clever my foot fell off.
Midnight Blue 1974 Austin 1100
Vauxhall Chevette, I can't recall the model or engine, just that it kept on braking down.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
great thread for the security robots
Dark Green Morris 1000 - Reg No. 66 TMM
Paid £15 for it in 1969 from my uncle, use to change the big end shells once a month as I couldn't afford a re-build.
Finally got the cash together to pickup a Gold Seal engine from the local scrap yard, had 2/3 years running from the old girl until she was consumed by the dreaded tin worm.
RIP. Doris.
Sorry about the crappy pic, the only one i could find of my first.
We're writing 1997, eastern Hungary, i was 17 when i got my first car, a 1969 Fiat 850.
I bought it from a gipsy musician, who had bought it from a guy who used it for rallying. If nothing else, this should've been a huge red flag, but hey, at 17 all one wants is a cool car, eh?
It was tuned to squeeze out 80hp from a 850cc engine, impressive. Everyday use, not so impressive.
The flywheel had been grinded so it would rev better, the downside was that the idle rev was gone. Take your foot off the accelerator and the engine dies. So had to learn to work with two feet on the three pedals (left foot braking with the heel while clutching with the toes).
Oh and the gearbox needed swapping in the first week of ownership, but even the replacement one (which was still better than the original) lacked the first and second gears, so had to start in third gear every time. Imagine how annoying it was when i had to stop. Sometimes i didn't stop for pedestrians and shouted "sorry" out of the window
While my adoration for vintage watches will live forever, I think I'll stay away from classic cars forever, especially Italian ones.. I've been driving Hondas and Toyotas ever since :D
Talbot Samba in '93, A reg i think it was. Quality motor, passenger door had a habit of flying open on roundabouts if the passenger didn't have the 'knack' of closing it properly
An "Alfa Romeo Alfasud Sprint Veloce Trofeo"
It was a great little car!
Cortina Mk1. It was yellow with purple flashes down the sides. The engine finally blew up on the moor road to Whitby 😁
205 GTI (1.6) in gun metal grey. I think the first year insurance was around £1k which I had to pay monthly. I only kept it a year, I should have kept in longer!!
I showed my first car, a 1972 Austin 1100, above. However I inherited my grandmother’s Morris Minor in 1985. It had sat unused in a garage for 9 years because my grandmother died in 1976 and my grandad didn’t drive. He died in 1985 & then it came to me. By then I was working & could afford to have it restored. 36 years later & I’ve still got her.
Shown below is the car on it’s 60th birthday in 2015. Below that is a photo of my dad, aged 17 in 1959. He failed his first driving test in the Morris. Somebody had told my dad that the examiner at some point would tap the dashboard with his clipboard & then he would have to do an emergency stop. So my dad was all keyed up for this moment. I should also mention that there was another guy in the back who was assessing the examiner in the front. What happened next was that the examiner started to explain the procedure for assessing the emergency stop by saying “in a few moments I’m going to tap on the dashboard like this……” That was as far as he got because my dad put the anchors on at this point. The examiner hit his head on the windscreen & the guy in the back ended up in the front. I don’t think my dad got the chance to finish the test.
Escort Mk2
1.3 pop
Navy blue.
KOE 826P
October ’86
Blew the engine up on the M5
coming back from camping in Taunton.
We were singing to “Electric Dreams” at the time and
Whenever I hear that track now it takes me straight back
to that camping trip.