What did you do your driving test in?

[Doctormop]

October 1989, an E reg Nissan Sunny 1.6 4 door saloon belonging to my driving instructor, a brilliant lady who had only just started working for herself, she had also been in the same year at school as my Mum.

[simmo]

Yellow mark two Escort and HGV in a Bedford TK

[srad34]

I learned in Fiesta 1.25 Zetec with two knackered alloy wheels**, after a 5 day driving course, never saw it again!

 

 

**Courtesy of my good self and traffic calming kerbs in deepest darkest Hull.....  

[Hertz]

Took and failed my first test in a 1993 Corsa.

 

Then failed again due to my dad not taxing or MOTing my mums Renault 11 1.7 TXE. That was embarrasing to say the least when I was sat in the car waiting for my instructor to walk around the car pre test only to knock on the window to say I had failed even before starting!

 

Passed 3rd time after the car was legal...

[quicksilver]

Beige 1978 Fiesta 1.1L in 2003 - passed first time and the examiner complemented me for driving such an old car so well My instructor had a Fiat Bravo 1.9 TDI but I never liked that car so I chose to do the test in the Fester.

[RichardMoss]

W reg Talbot Sunbeam 1.3L.  It was my dad's work car (he was a self-employed driving instructor!).  Orange over chocloate brown - like some sort of mechanised Jaffa Cake.

[Quintus]

Learnt to drive with the AA and test was passed in 1999 in one of their Fiesta Zetecs.

[Charlie Croker]

I passed in November 1986 in a C reg new shape Renault 5. Base model I think as it had no headrests or anything really.lol.

My instructor was a dude called Terry from Bill Ford School of Motoring in Nelson, Lancs.

I passed first time although i'm not sure how as I got 2 of my highway code questions wrong and I got real close to a car coming the other way down a narrow street.lol.

[Stroller133]

Passed Nov 96 in instructors N plate Fiat Bravo (or 'a' the 3 dr one). Thought it was nice and really easy to drive at the time. Foolish mate let me drive his mums J-reg Rover 216/220 around the local lanes later that day - it felt rapid by comparison!

[wackywacerwill]

A  few years driving experience in various cars meant I passed first time when I came of age in '95 and passed in a early 90's Rover metro knightsbridge which felt less of a proper car than my early 80's Austin version that was waiting back at home.

[burraston2006]

PLEASE say you have a picture of this car!

 

Your a lucky so and so for practising in a Rover Sterling. What I wouldn't have given to drive a Rover 800 before or even after passing my test. I didn't get to drive one until about 4 years after I passed my test when I bought my first Rover 827Si

Sorry I don't. If it's any help try to imagine a 17 yr old idiot in a met BRG sterling with grey leather interior,wood everywhere and elec everything. It was the big bumper 800series ( facelift from the original but did not have the grille they stuck on the front a couple of years later). I felt old before my time as all my mates were tooling around in mk3 escorts at the time.I also practised in dads volvo 240 which was a DL( Deny Luxury) provo spec which brought me back down to earth.

[overrun]

Passed in 2000.

 

P plate that purple, 5dr Corsa B nasp derv.

We used to remove the SOM sign so that it would crack 70 mph.

[Shep Shepherd]

A Nissan Sunny 'Sequel' special edition like this one on September 29th 1995:

 

[sporty-shite]

Beige Metro City with BSM. October 1988. What do I win?

[Stanky]

Took me three shots to pass my test in 2002/2003. The instructors car was a Peugeot 306 with a which was a pretty forgiving car IIRC.

 

First test I was massively nervous and had a go at shooting out onto a roundabout under the front wheels of a Rover 214, the examiner stopped me but I reckon I probably could have made it. 

 

Second test I got tripped up by the most pointless 'stop' sign at a crossroads. I never came to a full stop as visibility in all 3 directions is absolutely perfect and nothing was coming.

 

Third time lucky, I'm still baffled as to how I managed this as I pulled into a yellow box junction behind another car, the was stuck there until the lights changed to red, I went to go and he stopped me. He said

 

'The lights are red, you can't go'

to which I replied

'Yes, but I'm obstructing the junction so it was safer for me to go that stay where we are'

and he said

'Oh, ummm Ok then, carry on'

 

In retrospect there is no way I should have passed that time either, I shouldn't have pulled into the yellow box in the first place but I guess he realised that at least there was method in my madness and let me off. 

 

Interestingly* 10 days after I had passed my test I had driven 7 different cars on the public road, both my parents cars, my brothers car, 3 friends cars after they had got too pissed to drive themselves home 3 nights running and a friends mum's car after a disastrous trip to a garage in his POS chavalier which he;'d replaced the alternator in but failed to fit a belt, so it died about 12 miles from where we set out. His mum was with the AA so called them and pretended she was driving which was fine until they turned up and she realised that she would have to go with them. As he hadn't yet passed it was down to me to pilot her Rover 420i through Suffolk's worst ever* blizzard all the way to bloody Norwich. I was absolutely shitting myself! 

 

All character building stuff I suppose.

[JasperFoxx]

I passed in 2004 in a 2002 Corsa C 1.7dti. Horrid thing, sounded like a diesel generator!

[sheffcortinacentre]

learnt in my mk1 escort 1300 xl 2dr (would be worth a fortune now) & mk1 fiesta failed my test as on the day instructor arrived in a new sunny saloon (a reg) had an hour in it (couldn't get 5th), passed 2nd time still couldn.t get 5th (kept hitting reverse stop (but luckly traffic was heavy & could only just get enough speed for 4th).

[stuboy]

december 1993 aged 18 first time like all great drivers...

[Forty-two]

1st attempt was in a 205 diesel. Failed.

 

2nd attempt, 1990 Fiat Tipo DGT. Walking across the car park to the cars my examiner said, oh, I can see which is your car, pug 205 diesels seemed to be popular with instructors at the time. Comfy seats and the examiner was more interested in the car than my driving it seemed as he kept asking questions about it all the way round. He even laughed at the electric mirrors which were great for reversing around the corner! Passed with no issues, so my advice is, take a comfy car!

 

Class 2 HGV passed first time. That was in a four wheel ERF with a six speed box, never did get around to doing the Class 1.

[jbz2079]

1500 Special Allegro and a 49 seat Bedford Duple Domminant.

[dangerousdave]

mine was a 1992 Nissan micra  in 1995 failed first time examiner was rather large so couldn't use gears properly passed second time a different examiner never forget that day instructor let me drive it back to work told them id passed got showered in lemonade lol then they sent me straight out to local cash and carry in a 1990 merc 210 van with reverse box which was an experience and then had the most torturous week of my life mum and dad had already bought the car a 1984 mini 25 but was advised to wait a week till my 18th birthday for insurance reasons kept seeing my car sat there but couldn't drive it

 

then in 09 passed my class 2 in a y plate Scania

[JohnDeere]

James Scott school of motoring in Lincoln had a fleet of red Minis.  Started off on an E-reg and eventually passed the test on an F-reg - just at the time the Mini acquired zany stripy seats, head* rests and a chunkier steering wheel.  I saw one of them for sale soon afterwards on a dodgy car lot down the road - with the odometer recording rather less than it had on my lesson a few weeks before.   Fond memories of lessons in the rain when the instructor would jump out to spray WD40 in the points at the front of the engine.

[Cavcraft]

My dad's Cavalier Mk2 1.6SR, think it was VFV 252Y. This because my wanker of a driving instructor didn't show up in his Talbot Sunbeam.

[Guest Breadvan72]

Passed second time in 1989 in some Nissan POS, possibly a Sunny, having failed in 1986 in some sort of Toyota barge estate owned by my then mother in law.

[Split_Pin]

A Fiesta 1.1 L688MSF in December 1996. I remember that the car passed 100k during my time learning.

 

I also recall that this was a later spi 1.1 with 5 gears. It was easy to drive but I hated learning in my mum's slightly earlier J plate 1.1 which was carbed, had a manual choke and only 4 gears.

[drum]

A hateful little Datsun cherry of mid 80s vintage. My driving instructor also owned a filling station where I worked weekends. When it was quiet, I had to t-cut the tar spots off the cherry.

I passed first time in 1986 only a couple of weeks after my 17th birthday coz I is JohnnyAce.

 

When I returned home and told my dad he threw me the keys of his series land rover and told me to take some garden rubbish to the skip. Never has a boy been so chuffed taking rubbish to the tip.

 

I did a google image search to remind myself what it looked like and came up with spottedlaurel's flickr page.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7430965@N05/8214051997/

[Tetleysmooth]

My car driving test was passed in 1971 or '72 if I remember correctly.

 

 

To expand a little bit, I passed my HGV 1 driving test in 1976 in a Ford D800 with a 30-ish foot single axle trailer.

That took three tries though.

It was taken at the Chelmsford test centre. There was one instructor there who had a fearsome reputation for failing HGV learners, and guess what, I had him for my first two tests. The first test was pretty flawless apart from just rubbing a kerb, not actually mounting the kerb, just rubbing it, with the traier wheel. He failed me for that. Bastard. When I saw I had him again, I just fell to bits and failed again. When I applied for my third test, I put a letter in asking for a different examiner. I got one, a really nice bloke who put me right at ease and I passed.

The rest is history.

[Jimcit]

A 1998 Hyundai Accent Coupe in 'given up on life' green. It had about 240,000 miles, third gear was iffy to get in and the electric window sometimes needed a little help for the last inch.

 

He swapped it for a brand new white 2003 accent about a month after my test.

[Joey spud]

A 1981 Toyota Starlet RWD 1200,5 speed in black with orange/black checkered seats. (Top Gear school of motoring a short bloke called Ron who taught most of the young uns around the village).

 

To this day i have never driven anything with such a sweet 'snick,snick' gear change it was an absolute honey to drive with light pedals and steering and a forgiving engine (if you were in the wrong gear) even though it had mega miles under its wheels..

 

The examiner at the Gravesend test centre commented on how he allways looked out for Rons little Starlet in the car park.

 

A short while later a bought a 1 litre Starlet for £60 with a smashed screen and a mate and i drove it back up the A2 wearing a full face crash helmets so we could dodge the wind and lumps of toughened glass that were getting fired at us...

[martc]

Car - a dark blue miniMetro. The chain smoking instructor used to cary a seatbelt buckle to put in the slot to switch the seatbelt warning light off (pre-compulsory belt wearing) - he showed no intention of actually wearing the belt.

 

Bike - MZ TS125. This was the old fashioned figure of 8 hiding behind trees type test. Failed the first time as I locked the back wheel and skidded past the examiner during the emergency stop manouvre, I was doing 30mph at the time he jumped out. On advice from pals on the second attempt I was only going at 20mph when he jumped out. I put on plenty of front brake to dip the forks and headlight but was going slowly enough not to need too much force. The theory being that it is very difficult to judge the speed of a vehicle approching you, the slower speed gives you chance to brake smoothly but dipping the light adds the drama required for an emergency stop. It worked and I passed.

But not without an aguement with the Tester. When he asked the theory questions he flipped through the book and it stopped at a braking distance question (for cars) - I had no idea of the answer as I hadn't swotted them (as there are/was no braking dustance rules for bikes in the highway code). Argued the toss with the tester who initially held his ground but finally caved in and accepted it was not a suitable qustion to ask.

 

Sent using my fingers and elastrickery