Car / Motorcycle - what did you have first.

[Darling]

What was your first legal form of motorised transport, Car or Bike.

Mine  was a Yamaha DT50M, learnt a lot of road craft on bikes before I passed my car test at 19, had a full bike license at 17.

still have a bike but no time to ride it, also it seems the rest of the population in the UK seem to have their mind elsewhere when they are driving in their tin box, either on the phone, eating, or have ears phone/buds on, they seem to concentrate on everything else then driving their car.

Having a fast bike now does not seem as tempting as it once did, had the current one  over 10 years now and i doing think I’ve put more then 5,000 miles on it and half of those were done by Snake Charmer as well.

 

[UltraWomble]

Tomos A3M Disco

 

[mk2_craig]

Car first, passed test a week after my 17th following as many hours intensive learning as I could cram in. Back then (1995) moped entitlement was automatically granted but I never used that until into my 30s, bought a friend's Yamaha Neos scooter and wobbled around on that for a while until I sprung for a CBF125 and did the light bike test, then a year or so later gained the big bike licence.

Currently going through a powered two wheeler drought since offloading my Triumph Sprint before it started incurring big bills.

[sporty-shite]

Had an RD80LC that I bought cheap with front damage.  Rode it till I passed my test, then kept it alongside my first car, a Datsun Cherry coupe. 

Sols it because it hardly got used after I got my car, then pooled the money from that and seeling the Datsun to buy a Mk1 Fiesta 1300S. 

Bonus pic of me on my 17th birthday,   just before going out on my first legal ride. 

 

[LightBulbFun]

11 hours ago, Darling said:

What was your first legal form of motorised transport, Car or Bike.

erm... 

I mean this IS autoshite, you cant be so specific like that!  (I would not be surprised if someone on here had a Thwaites 1 Ton dumper or such as their first road vehicle...)

[JJ0063]

Peugeot Vivacity 50cc!

[GR8 PL8 M8]

Car first at 17 (modern Polo jobby), 2 years later I impulse-bought a wee little 50cc Honda Zoomer and passed my CBT soon after. I had an enjoyable year puttering about until an oncoming van turned across me and knocked me off, totalling the bike and breaking my wrist. 2.5 years later and I haven't fully recovered from my injuries, I'd love another little bike but I'm not sure if I'd be able to ride one without a disagreeble level of pain/discomfort.

[Floatylight]

I also had a DT50 from 16 until I passed my car test age 17.

Used to do 25m a day on it, most of it on the limiter, still only cost £1.70 a week for fuel tho..

[warren t claim]

In the pre ANPR days of the mid 80s I rode one of these when I was nearly 15 until I was 16. Going legal at 16 even with pre '77 unrestricted AP50s and FS1Es felt like a massive come down.

[Rustybullethole]

First legit fully paid up and on the road was one of these. Micron spanny and sucking air through the crankshaft seal for more speed.

 

[Barry Cade]

First "bike" at 16 was a Honda MBX50.. First legal car on the road was a hand painted Cavalier mk1 2 door, which got turned into an Ascona...

[Soundwave]

My first vehicle was my VW Beetle, way back in 2004.

It looked like this (minus the obnoxious watermark)...

 

Then, by the time I passed my test it looked like this...




Over time it gained some 70s kitsch, like this...



... alas, it also gained a lot of corrosion. It came off the road in 2010, but I couldn't bring myself to part with it. It's still midway through restoration, and currently looks like this:

[tom13]

Yamaha Jog R was my first bike on the road. Was working at a motorcycle shop as well so I had an exhaust, rollers, carb and Blue Neons as you do. I did love it but it was slow. I actually had two Honda Express, the very early ones that I was going to put onto the road but they were even slower so I bought the jog from my brother. 

[Rustybullethole]

It’s all about the speed with 50,s hey. As an slight edit to my last post fully legit AR was in fact an 80.

[bangernomics]

Honda MT5 it was great until a mini him me head on.

Then I bought a mini.

Then a van hit my mini.

So I bought a mk2 transit.

Thankfully that didn’t get written off.

[tom13]

20 minutes ago, Rustybullethole said:

It’s all about the speed with 50,s hey. As an slight edit to my last post fully legit AR was in fact an 80.

An express on the roads today would actually be dangerous. I think the speedo maxed out at 40. I regularly cycle on the roads as well so I know about going slow ha. 

[louiepj]

Yamaha DT50 MX at 16 was my steed. It came with a jack up kit fitted (longer rear shock and front shock spacers.) Aftermarket full exhaust and oversized off road tyres fitted. A school friend was an apprentice bike mechanic and with his help I fitted a big bore kit, bigger carb, oil pump mod and changed the chain and sprocket. 55 mph with good acceleration was what I achieved by playing with front and rear sprockets.
Also had a Suzuki CL50 Love as a run around and project bike.
First car was a yellow mini 850 with bright blue house carpet stuck in it that stank of perfume and gained the name tarts boudoir.


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[wuvvum]

This was my first motorised vehicle - an MBK Swing, bought new in late 1993.

That was a fantastic little bike, once it was run in and loosened up a bit it would buzz along quite happily at 40+.   It got nicked unfortunately and there followed three other increasingly cheaper mopeds, culminating in 1996 with the ex-French post office 1981 Motobécane AV88 which I still own today, and which I intend to put back on the road this year now it's over 40 years old.

[Six-cylinder]

I owned a moped before a car and needed it to get to my summer job as no buses would get me there for the start time. An emergency purchase I think it was £60 for a 1973 Puch MS50D with 3 gears on the twist grip. Very Similar to this picture.

[DavieW]

First bike was a Honda SS50 5 speed at 16, then a Honda CB125T twin cylinder at 17 before getting a Mk1 Escort 1100.

[wuvvum]

22 minutes ago, DavieW said:

then a Honda CB125T twin cylinder at 17

I had one of those - traded in a Yamaha RS100 for it with my local bike mechanic.  Brilliant bike, went all over on it (including from Norwich to Bristol and back at Christmas 1997).  It did burn a bit of oil though.

[Dyslexic Viking]

I bought my first car when I was 14 if I remember correctly. But my first that I could drive legally was a Tomos moped. In Norway you can drive a moped when you are 16 and a car when you are 18.

[Mudster]

Had a few field bikes including a yz125 which was great fun. First road legal transport was an MZ TS125.

Dont have any actual pictures as this was all before digital cameras.

 

This was followed by a Suzuki GT125 2 stroke twin which I passed my test on. Looked like a mini X7 and I was king with 15hp when others were restricted to a mere 12hp.

Passed my car test the year after passing bike test and got a 2 door mk1 Escort with 6 dial dash and bucket seats. Engine was so knackered it would do 55mph flat out.

[tul66]

First road legal bike was a black 1978 Suzuki GS550E around 1987.

First car was a red 1984 Lancia HPE 1600 around 1988.

Sample photos, long before digital cameras.

[Inca-mpetent]

my first vehicle was a 1992 Citroën  BX 14 in white, when I got my license at 18(hand me down from my dad, who still had it in his name because insurance).

Ran it for a few months, until it died 
the first vehicle in my name, was actually  the Rapido, which I got for free, from my aunt, because I got it running

[Missy Charm]

A Nissan Bluebird hatchback.  As an inexperienced teenaged driver I found small, slow superminis terrifying so went out and bought the largest car, in terms of physical size, that I could afford.  It was the polar opposite of the typical young driver's car, but was better in all sorts of ways such as being fitted with power steering and electric windows.  I had to learn to cope with the Bluebird's bulk, but that really paid off as the car's additional performance and presence on the road made it much more pleasant to be in than my friends' cars.  My parents quite liked me having a 'big' car too.  

[RayMK]

First bike (moped) was a brand new Peugeot BBCT, bought in Roermond just down the road from RAF Bruggen where we were based in 1967.  Using teenage initiative, I registered it on a German insurance plate and rode it around for 6 weeks or so before being pulled over by the Military Police.  Apparently, as a British Forces dependent I was not permitted to ride as though I was a German citizen.  I had to pass my BFG driving test, which I did a few weeks later.  The Peugeot is still with me. It was last on the road in the early 1980s.  

(Photo of me on the Peugeot at RAF Wegberg. Dad's Astral caravan behind)

My first proper* motorcycle was a CZ175, bought at F K Sharpe's in Lincoln in 1971. I passed my UK test on that so that my wife could ride pillion.  She complained about the lack of a heater, so I part exchanged it for a 1967 Reliant Regal 3-25. About a year and a bit later the Reliant caught fire  on the way to work,

(Me having a look at the aftermath the next day, with my brother) 

so I had to buy a proper 1st car.  I had just bought a new house and had a crippling mortgage, so the most sensible* thing to do was buy a brand new Citroen 2cv6 on hire purchase.  A quick rush around to pass my driving test so that I could pick up the car 6 weeks later was accomplished.  

There are photos on other threads of the above vehicles (except for the CZ).  I loved the CZ but did not take any photos of it.

Edit: The Peugeot moped was bought in Roermond but we had moved to RAF Wegberg which is about 10 miles further away from Bruggen.  

[djim]

as soon as I could after I turned 16 in 1993 I bought an RD50 not unlike this, except thrashed to within an inch, with a slashed up seat, dented tank and a centre stand that wouldn't, all for £250. It did have an aftermarket micron and my dad and I stripped and rebuilt the engine and sorted and painted it so it was a bit more presentable. It had no restrictions except the tiny capacity and after a fettle it would juuuust hit 60 with a tailwind. No actual pictures but it looked like a shit version of this. 

When I turned 17 I then sold it to mate, for a loss obvs, and upgraded to this RD125LC bought from John Riley motorcycles in Crayford for, I think £500 or thereabouts.

The custom work was mostly as it was when I got it but I did add the handlebars, seat cowl, the belly pan and the micron (it had some even more antisocial race exhaust on it with a massive expansion chamber but basically no silencer which really annoyed the neighbours).

This also got an engine rebuild after it seized at about 70 on the A20 at Ruxley which was a real brown trousers moment and I also fell off right outside my school attempting to pull a wheelie which resulted in the dent in the tank and a fair amount of embarrassment. 

A year later after I had dropped it a couple more times I scrabbled together enough to get the Renault 5 GTL Le Car in the picture below and it has been cars ever since. (the bumper was off being sprayed silver to match as they were ugly grey when this picture was taken. )

Naturally I now wish I'd kept them instead of selling them all for a loss but i did have a lot of fun. 

 

 

[georgeinabz]

Rd50m, with the restriction plate knocked out of the exhaust , geared up 45mph on the straight, decoke every few hundred miles was a pain in the backside , also never realised about JIS screws so they got all destroyed

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[Jerzy Woking]

42 minutes ago, georgeinabz said:

Rd50m, with the restriction plate knocked out of the exhaust , geared up 45mph on the straight, decoke every few hundred miles was a pain in the backside , also never realised about JIS screws so they got all destroyed

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Every secondhand Jap bike I saw in the 70's had an Allen bolt replacing the "made of cheese" screws. They were very much not made of cheese if you used the proper screwdriver.

First two wheeler at 16 would have been a Mobecane moped (one of about a dozen I had). I learnt very early on the filing out the ports was a bad idea.

Passed my bike test just after my 17th bithday, and my car test a few weeks later.

First car was a terminally shagged and rotten 1967 Rover P5 V8. Had to scrap a few weeks later, as the whole floor was rotten and the autobox didn't want to do anything. Next car was a 1963 Consul Cortina with RS four spoke wheels and a furry dash.

Mercifully no photos (did the average 16 year old own a camera in 1975?).