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Sh!tboxes/bangers for first cars…

I learnt to drive on a small private rd by the house I grew up in!...my mate had a 1300cc Austin Allegro 🤓, I remember when you put the handbrake on the back of the car seemed to raise up about a foot 😂.
Used to use loads of cars then depending on what folk had available in the family etc...also a MK1 ford transit pickup 1972 model with the round headlights!.
A Chevrolet 'stepside ' pickup like Clint Eastwood used to have... used to do about 8 miles to the gallon.
A Toyota Celica 1675GT.
Hillman imp.
Ford Capri 3 litre manual 😎.

All in a very short space of time...times were so different then, you'd pop into local insurance broker & change insurance over for a £5!!.
 
Escort, Daytona Yellow, bought it for 40 quid, had it resprayed, spotlights, alloys, the full Monty.
My old man wrote it off driving it pissed (alky) when I was away from home, decided he was taking a short cut through the local park and found a big tree , b******d 😡
 
My first was a Mini from the late 60's. Had to carry a can of WD40 everywhere because the distributor was right behind the front grille so whenever it rained water got in there & the engine cut out. Fitted an after market rain shield but water still got in, and now there was a rain shield that made it difficult to get to the distributor and get some WD40 in there. 😖
The gearstick was a long, springy metal thing so I was never quite sure what gear I was putting it in, and there were 3 or 4 linkages between it and the gearbox, any of which would occasionally come off its splines.
Then the radiator sprang a leak - try changing one when there is NO room to get your hands in there. I've always said it was TWO Minis - my first and last !

My second car was a Mk1 Cortina 1600, but not the Lotus Cortina. The engine was great but the fuel pump was a mechanical one on the side of the engine, so after going far enough that the engine was hot, the fuel in the pump would evaporate after stopping and it could easily flatten the battery turning the engine over long enough to refill the fuel pump, so parking on a hill was vital.
Like many Fords from that period it was also a rot box, and the mirrors were mostly for looking behind to see what had fallen off !
 
My first car was an MG Magette ( looked like a mk2 Jag) . When my mate had a look at it he said to me, he can’t sell you that it’s got bald tyres. Took it back to the dealer and said “ my mate said it’s not right “ . Where’s the bill of sale lad , so i produce the bit of paper with a stamp on it complete with signature and he wrote something on it . There he said, that will sort you out. He had written “” sold as scrap “. Yes petrol was cheap by today’s standards but you could also get 8 pints for a pound
 
My first on the road car was a Ford Capri 1.6 GT XLR MK1.

Cheer Black then primer grey for the rest of its days.

I was driving in Asda Chadderton car park in 1983 ish and as I came down the ramp and turned left I hit a trolly and my drivers wing was hanging off. It was rotton.
So a pack of bungee straps was a temp fix until it was was replaced with my Spitfire Mk4 N reg.

Them were the days.
 
My first car was a Moggy 1000 van, great little van, brakes used to fade so you had to pump them a few times before they came up.
The engine was rather knackered & it finally expired one winters night coming home from a job in Grays, it was rattling like a good un with clouds of smoke coming out of it. Got me home & in the morning there was a puddle of oil under it.
 
Morris Marina with go fast strips, a nail but a car never the less, at a time when lots had push bikes I felt like a King and got the girl!!. Fist bike was a Garelli Tiger Cross, for a 50CC it flew and smoked SS50, AP50s, till it seized, no one told me it had to have oil mixed with the petrol, ah the good old days , the best of times!!!
 

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    1 Morris Marina 1.3.JPG
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I’m bit younger than you guys, mine was a F reg Orion 1.6L, had the 2 tone Galaxy blue paint like the Ghia, it awesome having a 1.6 when my mates had little 1.1’s. Was traded in after a year for a P plate 1.4i Mk6 Escort 👍
 
First car was an Austin A35 in grey primer paint, as an apprentice engineer it was a struggle to afford to run it . Did an evening job at a petrol station on the pumps, in those days the attendant filled up the car. So I would fill cars and if I had no car in would go round and empty the petrol which was left in the pipes. Would get quite a bit in a late evening. It was a mix of all the different pumps but ok for a banger
 
My first car was a Moggy 1000 van, great little van

With the unmistakable exhaust note. My father had one and as a painter n decorator he fitted shelves along the sides to carry his numerous tins of paint. I used it when on leave from the Army, bombing around the country lanes. Downside was I kept rupturing the skins inside the paint tins until they got so thick my Dad had a word. It was the only vehicle I have driven without indicators, the B pillar had preformed cutouts for the arm indicator but never done. The van was bought new
 
My first car was an act of desperation in an attempt NOT to be given an old allegro that my mum had.
£75 worth of Talbot Horizon
An unbelievably clattery engine, but they all had that.
It had the old Simca engine if anyone remembers those.
Sounded like a cement mixer full of spanners.
It was a 1.5 and those were quite rare. So when the gearbox failed a previous owner had fitted the only one he could find which was from a 1.3, he made it fit somehow.
As a result it accelerated like a stabbed rat but ran out of revs at about 65 mph, and reverse didn't work.
So you either had to find an uphill sloping parking space or stick your leg out and push it backwards.🤣
That thing certainly gave me an intensive lesson in DIY car repairs
 
metalman said:
My first car was a Moggy 1000 van, great little van

With the unmistakable exhaust note.
Click to expand...
Whiiiiiine,,,harrumph,,,,whiiiiiine,,,, harrumph 🤣
Anyone over a certain age can identify a Moggy accelerating while blindfolded.
The weird trombone parp noise they make when you change gear😁
They stopped making those the year I was born but there were still loads on the road as I was growing up.
 
First car I owned was a Wolseley Hornet that my Dad was going to teach me to drive in. Some TW*T wrote it off while parked outside the house.
First car to drive was a Triumph Herald 13/60, it was a wreck but I loved that car.:love:.
Can't remember how much I paid for the Hornet, but the Herald cost me £80 in 1975.
 
Fiat 127 with a big dent in the side panel and a heater that didn't work. I'm 6'5" so had to hammer the seat rail flat to allow the drivers seat far enough back that I could get in. Meant there was zero distance between the front and back seats 😂
 
vw polo 1.4 tdi £30 a year road tax ran it on bio fuel / diesel

mercedes c250td 2.5 litre 5 cylinder £500 ran that on veg oil 10p a litre usued to smell of roast potatoes oil was from the local pub got a few batches from the fried chicken shop smelt like KFC on the way to north wales

Mazda mx5 1.6 eunos fun little car

ford transit connect cracking van 1.8tddi engine slow buts it's bobbing on for 20 years old now & still going countless fishing trips , house moves etc just a handy thing to have


if anyone is looking for cheap motoring have a look at those Peugeot 107 , citroen c1 , Toyota aygo's japanese engine £38 for a service kit , £20 for a tyre , £20 a year road tax 66mpg about £40 to fill the tank & the lowest insurance band can be picked up for less then £1000 👍
 
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