First car you remember

[Cavcraft]

One of these that my dad owned...

 

[Jim Bell]

A 2 tone blue Hillman Hunter estate. Paint job cost more than the car.

[Cavcraft]

/\

That was my first car. Though it was only two tone because we painted the bottom half with white emulsion paint.

[junkyarddog]

Mk1 Ford Cortina 4 door saloon in white,

still remember it clearly.

 

It got traded against a '69 Singer Vouge estate in dark aqua metallic.

 

A few days later the bobbies called at the door,

asking about the 'tina as it was on some waste ground after being stolen and vandalised

 

Think I was 5 ish.

 

The old man still drives a Ford

[martybabes]

The first car I remember was my Dad's white Ford Squire (100E type estate car Reg No: NVJ582) which he used in conjunction with his being a Master Butcher.  This was followed by a blue Singer Gazelle estate, and this had a white swoosh down each side.  Later, when home deliveries were curtailed (thus obviating the need for an estate car), he had a red Ford Corsair V4 GT (the first car of his he allowed me to drive, albeit very rarely), and then a blue Triumph 2000 Mk 2.  Later cars were modern shite which of course, on here, we don't talk about!

[dollywobbler]

I think my earliest memory is screaming in the back of a white wedge Princess with brown velour seats because I'd just cut my head open. I was only two, but you apparently remember trauma quite well. I certainly remember being held down while some poor doctor tried to sew my head back together. 

 

The earliest non-trauma memory is of the road workers bouncing my dad's knackered Mk1 Escort estate up onto the pavement so they could resurface the road. That must have been 1983 or 4, when the car was ten or eleven years old. Another memory of that car is my dad struggling to get the screws out for the rear light to change a bulb. I got him in trouble when I asked my mum why daddy was saying sheeet when working on the car...

[spike60]

Victor FB, about 1967 when we went to Scotland and Pa hit a Corsair head on on a blind bit of a single track around the loch while going to the pub. Relax, no lasting damage, he still got to the pub.

[Richard]

My earliest automotive memory is being taken to hospital with a burst eardrum in a family friend's Hillman Imp. I've since discovered that a burst eardrum isn't really a big deal so there was probably no need.

[quicksilver]

Mentioned this elsewhere but the first car I remember is my dad's Talbot Alpine Rapier - gold with beige/brown velour seats I also vaguely remember his Vitesse convertible as a car but mostly as a chassis and a pile of bits in the garage. He took it off the road when I was 2 and stripped it down for restoration but it never made it back together so I must have a good memory for cars. Pity I can remember old useless trivia like that but I can't remember important things that happened last week.

[fordperv]

the first car i remember as a small boy is my dads avenger, custom 2 tone blue over silver which he put a modified essex 3.0 with triple weber carbs, that thing sounded like the heavens opening when it was provoked and went like stink, i was reduced to tears when a speeding taxi driver crashed into it while it was parked pushing it into our neighbors cortina estate destroying both cars.

[Lord Sterling]

Earliest memory was my Dad's Renault 14TL in Gold, similar to this one:

 

[Ghosty]

1996/7: dad's white Capri 1.6 Laser.

Never got a ride in it AFAIK

[Sudsprint]

Earliest memory was my Dad's Renault 14TL in Gold, similar to this one:

 

The lift to school looks an unforgettable experience… 

[Partridge]

I'm glad he moved on to the Rovers and gave you a taste for them, Lord 14TL doesn't flow so well.

[MrBiscuits]

When I came along Dad's wheels would have been a '69 Hillman Hunter (in gold with hand painted black roof). The first I remember was an 'M' plate Datsun 120Y, coupe in red.

 

Strongest memories are burning my legs on the black plastic seats in the summer, and getting my finger caught in the passenger door.

 

Also remember Dad adding a fairly deep black tidemark before selling it to a couple of skinheads circa 1986.

 

Next came a 1980 Lancia Delta 1500..... I think I know where my odd taste in motors started.

[wuvvum]

My dad's 1975 Marina 1.8 estate, resplendent in Harvest Gold.  He bought it when my brother was born as he'd decided a Renner Six wouldn't be big enough for a family of four.  I don't actually remember travelling in it, but I do remember examining the reversing light in a car park and wondering whether it was automatic or had to be switched on manually (I don't think it ever worked in the time he had the car). 

 

It was a dreadful old heap, and he got rid when it broke down in the fast lane of the M4 on the way to Devon.  He replaced it with another Renault 6, which I remember going with him to the dealer to buy in 1983 - I wanted him to buy the ex-demo 11 which was also there (I thought the wrap-around rear screen was cool), but he decided to go for the cheaper 6.  He kept it for five years - by which time there were five of us, and we all fitted in with no problem - before selling it to a neighbour and upgrading to an A-reg Mk1 Astra estate.

[Taff]

one of these

 

 

with the seats folded down and me, my kid brother and a border collie called Doog (after Wolves centre forward Derek Dougan) for company

 

happy days

[2MB]

A  1983 brown Lancia Delta 1500, that was full of huge rusty holes at five years old. My dad still says it was the best driving car he's ever had

[Steviemillar]

Earliest clear car memory for me was when my old man had a Humber Sceptre 1725 Bader, GYJ282F gold with BVR that he bought just as the oil crisis struck, good move Pops! My mum hated it as it always used to stall at the end of our street causing both my younger sister and I to burst out crying as mum tried to restart the thing.

He traded it for a demo Simca 1100 WES186L in turquoise that he owned until 1980 and I can remember the rear quarters being mega rusty even then. He then had a blue 1972 Mini replaced by a Marina LE Coooop.

During his Simca tenure, my old man was working away from home and he & my mum thought of getting a second car. I do remember going with them to view a VW Variant Wagon and a Triumph Herald 13/60. Neither were bought.

My old man working away from home resulted in us moving to where he worked in 1977. My first memory of arriving at our brand new bungalow in the Simca was our new neighbour having a brand new black Capri MK2 2.0S PAH900R. This may well be the reason I went on to own nearly eighty capris since*

 

* I've been cured for three years and counting.....

[UmBongo]

My dad's Corsair, or rather my dad lying underneath the car fixing it, whilst it sat on the drive most weekends.

[UmBongo]

...and further to the Corsair anecdote.

 

We had to hire a brand new MK3 Cortina in a gorgeous yellow colour to go on holiday one year.

 

I think it may have been 1976 as the weather was hot, hot, hot.

[privatewire]

A 1950 something Humber Hawk my Grandfather bought at Glasgow car market in about 1963 then gave to my dad. Someone had re sprayed it in Matt Airforce blue that had the texture of Sandtex masonry paint.

[Hertz]

Probably my Dad's Marina Coupe TC. Got a pic of it somewhere...

 

Edit - Here it is! What good taste Pops had back in the day.

 

[Twiggy]

One of these, my Dad`s first car, bought in (methinks) 1951 when I was five... it lasted all of six weeks before the chassis cracked. Reg no BCJ 284.

 

[AndyW201]

Earliest one I can think of was Pa_201's tartan red mk1 Mini. The thing I remember most is that it had a one piece flip front, Herald style.

It didnt last long, with me making it three kids in the family, he traded it in for a HA Viva. I think it was the posh SL90 as it was (pogweaseled) red with a wide side flash in white, and the fancy stainless wheel trim/hubcap thingys. I remember he didnt have it long before the rear tyre burst at low speed turning into our road. I was sat in the back wondering why the car was driving funny.

Then came the first decent car he had since getting married and having kids,etc. YWW 159L, was a three year old Avenger 1250 deluxe in white. I was only about 3, but I remember going with dad to pick it up (from the old Auto Trade over at Cargo Fleet IIRC) and going to pick mum up from work in it. For an early Avenger it was immaculate and in really good order and we had quite a few years out of it. Although it was quite well tide-marked by the time it went...

[AnthonyG]

A 1970 or 71 (J) maroon Austin 1800, maroon with a red interior, my dad's car. Although some of the interior memories would probably also be of my mums Wolseley 18/85, grey with red interior also.

 

The Austin was known as Viking as the registration began with VKG, and the Wolseley Sappy as the registration began with SAP. A Chrysler Avenger auto we inherited from my grandmother in 1980 was Wilbur due to WLB or similar.

 

This naming convention more or less ended with the prefix plates (and possibly me growing up!) the only memorable three letter combo on a car they owned after the mid 1980s was POM on a D plate Volvo estate.

 

Other early memories include a neighbours yellow Cortina Mk3, as yellow was my favourite colour, and a white Triumph 1500 which replaced the Wolseley. My mum got in this one day, with me in tow, and was puzzled when the key didn't start the car. This was because we were sitting in a car which was a identical twin, but not ours, which was about 3 cars down the street.

 

Luckily the owner who was obviously not far away saw the funny side of a strange woman attempting to 'steal' their car. Good thing it wasn't a Ford, otherwise the key would have probably worked.

[DS20]

One of these beauties*.  London E2, mid-1984.  

 

 

[Stroller133]

Probably a Yellow Reliant Robin Estate. N- reg, which is early enough to come with the 750cc engine. I can't let it be said my old man wasn't ambitious - he aspired to getting a powerful* 850 engine in it. By the time he'd obtained the whole engine and built it up, he had not got a Robin any longer!

[Inspector Morose]

Mk3 cortina 2.0 GXL in bottle green. Dad used to manage foundries for a living and so the company car was king. Supplied by Patrick Motors, who I later (years later) went to work for in his car museum for a while.

 

Change of marques led to the, then current, white mk4 being collected and replaced by an all black princess 2200HLS. The guy who collected the cortina was killed in a motorway pile up half an hour after collecting it from the house.

 

Black princess was replaced by a 2.0HL Princess2 (DVP601V) with a small gap filled by a harvest gold land crab with green vinyl interior.

 

Mothers car was a blue Toledo (CAB547N) which she gave up around 82 after she chucked dad out for sewing his oats in other fields.

 

The bus service outside our house at the time I was about 4 or 5 used ex midland red Daimler Fleetlines with dual door Alexander bodies. We also regularly caught the bus to Bilston which used ex Coventry Bristol REs. Then to grandmas on an BMMO S23

 

The earliest accident I can recall involved a Marcos 1800 crashing into our garden wall when I was about 5.

 

I have no idea why I'm into old rammel.

[mouseflakes]

Austin A60 van (was our 'family car', meaning my brother, myself and the dog would spend journeys sliding around in the rear)