So, how did your first car die?

[Pete-M]

The first car I actually bought was a 1961 Austin Healey Sprite. The 1098cc one that looks like a Midget. It was blue, had a new leather interior and hood, it just didn't go. Had to tow it home. Eventually sold it to a friend who put it in a lock up garage for long enough for the garage to be demolished. With, as far as I know, the Healey still in it.

 

There was also this, bought on 8/8/88 for £60.

 

 

Sold it to a local Escort nutter who broke it for the engine. I suspect the V5 lived longer than the car.

 

Next was a '71 Mini 850. The first of a line of many cars to die a painful death at my 18yr old car freak hands. The floor fell out of the poor mini, and it ran over a labrador on the M62. Which was unexpected. Killed the mini. Dog survived somehow as the SU on the 850 had issues and the thing probably wasn't doing much over 50 before the dog ran out.

 

Then there was a Cortina MkIV. With a carb issue.

 

 

This almost rust free old Mk1 I sold to a friend who got nicked for sitting in it outside his house fitting a radio. It ended up with scallies in St Helens, don't know what became of it, but I imagine it's dead now. The only car I've had nicked, and the next morning I got it back undamaged.

 

 

I could go on for hours about the old shite I accidentally killed. All bought for a few hundred quid at most, run on the tightest budget imaginable and subjected to levels of abuse they could never have deserved. At some point they all went sideways. A few spun, a couple bounced off trees, and a fair few suffered engine / gearbox / axle failure at my hands. Some managed the whole set. That burnt Cortina got through two axles, a cylinder head, a cam and two engine mountings in less than two months. The carb fire finally killed it completely. That pissed me off as it had the nicest Mk4 Ghia interior I've ever seen, and I'd just valeted it.

 

I've got a photo album somewhere full of the old buggers. I scanned it in but I'm buggered if I can rememeber where to.

[hairnet]

series 2 horizon in 1991 - only accident ive ever had

 

some goit in a golf gti decided to try a right turn (clyde) at a set of lights just as i passed his front grill

 

cue him raggin down the side of the car...........

 

ffs - bought a nice metro with the money tho............

[eddyramrod]

I could go on for hours about the old shite I accidentally killed. All bought for a few hundred quid at most, run on the tightest budget imaginable and subjected to levels of abuse they could never have deserved.

 

+1, Pete! Sounds exactly like an awful lot of my driving life.

 

First car I owned, I never got to drive on the road. It "needed work" which was way beyond my mechanical competence, but oh boy was it cool!

Yes, it's that photo again, my PA Velox, 969 NMB, and the 18-year-old Ramrod at the wheel. It sat in the back garden for six years before finally being dragged away for scrap in 1983.

 

While that gorgeous thing sat quietly rusting (at which it had already had rather a lot of practice!) I was offered a 1960 Austin A40... for free. It had been sitting around in a workshop that was about to be demolished, and there were neither papers nor keys. Obviously I took it, who wouldn't! I got it through MoT and drove it around for a bit, until the fateful weekend I decided to go to the Leeds Cruise. A 948cc A40 is good for 68mph, let me tell you! But you do need the M62 for the runup. That was the trip that killed the head gasket, and the poor little car was never the same afterwards. It sat in the driveway for a while after the MoT ran out, and was eventually scrapped. Bye bye, XPY 273.

[Lord Sterling]

Due to my rather small, yet potted history of car ownership I've had about 3 first cars:

 

1. K-reg Vauxhall Astra Cesaro

 

Didnt kill this one, it was already dead when myself and a mate chipped in to buy it, it was pretty chavved up with big wheels and a smoothed boot. The clutch was dead and the car needed at least a fair few hundred pounds to get it right. None of us who bought the damned thing had any money or even a licence, so it wasnt worth sorting the car out, we sold it for scrap.

 

2. F230TAR Ford Sierra Sapphire Ghia

 

Didnt really kill this one either. Somwhere in the hazy mist of late '04/early '05 I got given a Black Ford Sierra Sapphire Ghia. At around the same time I was just about to start a data-entry clerk job at Goodyear-Dunlop, so there I was, in a new Burtons pinstripe whistle, big mid-executive 80s transport and an office job to top it off. Could things get any better?

 

After a couple of months in to the job as I was nearing the end of my temping at the firm, the car really started to give up the ghost, it started idling badly, overheating in heavy traffic. The MOT and eventually tax ran out, it needed alot of work and money spending on it. I was out of money and the job was no more, the pinstripe whistle was hung up and the car was driven to the scrappy. I took the wheels off as momento of it. I still have them:

 

Not actual car, though exactly the same:

 

 

3. F852COG Rover 827Si

 

This Rover 827 was my first real, bought, paid for, all-legal car:

 

I bought this car from an old guy in Boston, Lincolnshire. LPG equipped, fast and smooth, great car. It wasnt what I wanted (I wanted a Sterling with all the toys) but I grew to love it. I'd set about reverting it back to how it should look as I had the TWR Rover 800 bodykit brochure. Took off the aftermarket alloys and mk2 bonnet.

 

Sadly in mid '08, on the way to a job interview I crashed it, a young lady was pulling out of a driveway and didnt see me:

 

 

With some help I set about replacing the damaged bits, but it was never the same again. Eventually I sold it to someone who wanted the gearbox and engine.

[Negative Creep]

Vauxhall Nova Swing, like this one except white

 

 

I killed it after driving into the back of a 4x4. Although the damage was fairly minor it never ran properly after that and kept cutting out. Most likely coincidental but I couldn't be bothered fixing it so was sold on and seemingly scrapped very soon after. I do have some great memories, and some not so proud ones involving some truly stupid driving but I only have 2 photos of it, and both have been double exposed so you can barely see the car

[Albert Ross]

Summer of 1984... driving home to Slough from Mevagissey in my absolutely wonderful 1965 Hillman Super Minx EFN 636C.(Hepzibah) Around Bristol, after refitting the dynamo in Bodmin..... I noticed a flickering light. It flickered for a further 30 miles until it became a permanent light. Well... it was the oil pressure light. I had let it run low, and it lost oil through combustion..... I killed the crank and left it at a garage where the AA towed me. I rang them daily asking them to make certain not to dispose of it.... then it became weekly, then monthly, until I had a phone call. They had changed hands, and there was an amnesty. If I could shift it before the week was up, they would charge no storage. I was on it like a bullet. My mate Brian, (Ex Irish Guards, nearly 7 foot tall) suggested I give him £20 to go recover it, and take him out on the piss when we got back. DEAL! We (me and my bloody good mate Rajen) piled into Brian's Rover P6 V8S..... towrope in boot. We got to the garage, accepted that I had to sign a disclaimer stating that I accepted bits "might" be missing... Turns out it was to the contrary. There were two spare wheelsm not one, and someone's suitcase on the back seat.... (women's clothes in it though!!) Left THAT there. So, back onto M4, sat around 65-90 mph!!!!!!!!!

and gritted my teeth.

I have never been so pleased to be pulled over. We were left at a service station. I then located a very pleasant recovery driver with an empty load bed. He rang his boss who agreed to £12 from Newbury to Slough. Hepzibah got home that night. I washed and polished her the next day, then removed the engine, stripped the crank, got it ground, replaced the bearings and recircled 2 rods!!! I then took it to work to await the MOT preparation, and it got vandalised.... including some cunt throwing a handful of dirt into the rocker cover. Wankers. I traded it for an Austin 3 litre! Drove that to Nottingham without MOT or insurance, in convoy with a Citroen DS23 Pallas. Also no relevant docs on that, and we NEVER got pulled. I got pulled the next day........ slapped wrists, and told to stay off the roads until I had paperwork in order. I did as I was told, as got pulled up by the same Policeman. He was impressed when he read the paperwork. He even shook my hand. Poor Hepzibah though. I do miss her. Azure Blue with white strips and Stainless trim.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Didnt kill my first car but had to rebuild it after hitting a bus of all things ,

I sold it in 87 where it sat on a drive til last year

 

 

In its hay day on Blackrock sands in 86

 

Its demize , 20 odd years sat outside with a leaky sunroof in N. Wales tends to kill cars

 

That's sweet -I'm partial to a Gimp and especially a Stiletto/Cal Coupe.

 

I had an Imp in 1986 too. RNK243D was a dark green 875 Imp Super with an utterly mint body but the usual borked engine. Paid 20 quid for it with another 1973 Imp for spares. The engine was shagged in that as well.

However, I found another one locally - a 998 Sunbeam Imp Rallye HOJ818D, a 1965 built car that was originally red but had been painted blue. It was bodily fucked and wouldn't start, but I gave £50 for it, swapped the engine over...........and it went like a rocket. I swapped over all the special Rallye bits, added some Konis, Cosmic alloys and hooned it about for a bit. I sold it to some weirdo, and never saw it again - until 2005 when I found the sad remains in Gordon Passey's scrapyard. Rotten as a pear and with all the running gear and interior removed. I nicked the 'H' off the bonnet as a souvenir.

 

 

My lasting memory was how much better it was than an 850 Mini.

[trigger]

Vauxhall Nova Swing

 

My first car was also a Nova Swing, this one in fact.

 

My first car, Vauxhall Nova 1.2 Swing by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

I never killed it though, I fitted new rear arches and a plate on the door then sold to it my hairdresser who ended up scrapping it due to rust.

[tonedepear]

This Rover 827 was my first real, bought, paid for, all-legal car. It wasnt what I wanted (I wanted the moon on a stick).

 

efa

[Negative Creep]

Vauxhall Nova Swing

 

My first car was also a Nova Swing, this one in fact.

 

My first car, Vauxhall Nova 1.2 Swing by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

I never killed it though, I fitted new rear arches and a plate on the door then sold to it my hairdresser who ended up scrapping it due to rust.

 

 

We could have lorded it over ordinary Novas with our rear wipers and passenger door mirrors. Mine even had a sunroof, which didn't even leak

[Rusty Pelican]

However, I found another one locally - a 998 Sunbeam Imp Rallye HOJ818D,

 

 

My lasting memory was how much better it was than an 850 Mini.

They are so much better than a Mini ,

A genuine 998 Sunbeam Imp Rallye would fetch at least 10 grand now , possibly a lot more depending on condition , I know of one Singer Chamois Rallye but NO genuine factory Hillman ones that the public could buy.

A genuine 998 "ex works " rallye Imp with history such as driver and events used in like the monte carlo rally is £50.000 plus ( there are three known i think ) .

Heres the most famous genuine factory rally car FRW 308C , Corgi did a model of its sister FRW 306C

 

 

The only image I can find of the Corgi with the reg number showing

 

[trigger]

We could have lorded it over ordinary Novas with our rear wipers and passenger door mirrors. Mine even had a sunroof, which didn't even leak

 

Yours was better then mine then, no sunroof or passenger mirror but i did have stylish cream and brown seats with a brown carpet, Groovy!

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

However, I found another one locally - a 998 Sunbeam Imp Rallye HOJ818D,

 

 

My lasting memory was how much better it was than an 850 Mini.

They are so much better than a Mini ,

A genuine 998 Sunbeam Imp Rallye would fetch at least 10 grand now , possibly a lot more depending on condition , I know of one Singer Chamois Rallye but NO genuine factory Hillman ones that the public could buy.

A genuine 998 "ex works " rallye Imp with history such as driver and events used in like the monte carlo rally is £50.000 plus ( there are three known i think ) .

Heres the most famous genuine factory rally car FRW 308C , Corgi did a model of its sister FRW 306C

 

 

The only image I can find of the Corgi with the reg number showing

 

 

Is that the one Rosemary Smith rallied?

 

HOJ818D had an oil cooler and bigger Strombergs - and 1000cc on the logbook.....which I sent off to DVLC as scrap when the shell was chopped up. It was rotten though.

It had the slotted engine cover which, if memory serves, I painted the correct green at work (VAG bodyshop) and fitted along with the obligatory square number plate.

I had no real clue what Imps were about as I was into Minis in a big way. I bought the Green one because it was mint and 20 quid, and saw an earner. My Dad picked up on it straight away though, more his era.

I think it would do about 50 in second gear and it really did go well - 1300 Escorts and 1275GT Minis were easy to keep up with.

 

I sold it for £450.

[Pillock]

VW 1303S. 18,000 miles in a year, barely any maintenance aside from a barrel and piston set to take it to 1641cc.

Ended up with a frilly floor and the body had been silicone sealanted to the chassis, the framehead was rotten, the C pillars were holey as were the wings and it was becoming increasingly unreliable. The wipers packed in during rush hour, something was draining the battery....... I left it at the garage, they gave me a rundown of the problems and a cost to fix, no way I could afford it so I spent an afternoon robbing anything I could (including the engine), and the shell went to become something with a Hotpoint label on it.

[John F]

Mk 2 Ford Escort 1.3L 2-door, VBR 820R... Bought for 580 quid, in fetching two-tone Ford Laurel Green and Stratos Silver, with a TR7 spoiler bolted to the boot to ensure it would do a squillion miles per hour (97 flat out, in reality). This poor car died a slow & piecemeal death at my hands.

 

Firstly I lunched the rear wheelarch & quarter panel exiting a car park... being young & naive I filled the whole thing out (badly) with wob, it must have been a couple of inches thick in places. Then I smashed the offside front valance into a low wall and bunged a load of wob at that as well. Then I narrowly missed hitting the front of a double-decker bus whilst racing some random bloke in another Escort, but the other Escort managed to hit the front of the bus AND my offside rear quarter, and had to be cut out of the wreckage. Even I could see that no amount of wob would 'mend' the buckled rear quarter, but with the smashed light cluster taped up I continued to use the car whilst waiting for the insurance pay-out.

 

Its final demise came when I lent it to a mate to drive to his bird's house in Hull – the oil light had apparently also died during the rear-end shunt, and it ran out of oil on the motorway on his way back. A week later the cheque arrived from my insurance, and off to the breakers it went.

 

I thought this would be the end of the story, but a couple of months later I saw a red Escort with a familiar-looking green & silver offside front wing. I stopped to have a look - sure enough, there was the wob-filled dent in the valance where I'd hit the wall

[AnthonyG]

I've never killed a car - My first car (a 2dr Mk4 Cortina 1300L) was sold to a neighbour who says it's still going, despite the DVLA saying it hasn't been taxed since I sold it to him - he ran it for at least a couple of years - and the next, a '79 Pug 504 Ti, went to a Pug 504 specialist when both the fuel injection and power steering went and my dad refused to subsidise it anymore, the specialist probably exported it, complete or in sections, in about 1994.

 

I wrote off my first company car, a purple Nissan Micra Shape, when it was about 6 months old - just checking on the DVLA, I see R733 XKU was exported in 2010 so someone obviously bought it from the salvage auction and put it back on the road .

 

My firm said it needed a new shell, which was unavailable due to the 'new' facelifted Micra launched in mid 1998, but the tiny kink visible in the roof which was the only obvious sign of a twisted body shell probably pulled out with a proper jig set up. It was a rear-ender on the M25 (My fault ) probably did kill the L reg Xantia I hit though .

[jnoiles]

 

I had one of these for my first car. That's not actually mine but mine was the same colour and spec and it lasted about 7 days. I was being silly on a dirt road. The oversteery fun around a corner was cut short by a sudden increase in loose dirt leading to a slide leading to a 4 wheel sideways drift into a ridge at the edge of the road leading to an airborne moment that was abruptly cut short by a large tree trying to occupy the same space as my B pillar. Ooops.

[blakey79]

1991 Rover Metro GTA 1.4 in BRG

 

80000 miles, 3 door with sports interior, fantastic handling, and to me a special car bought for £2000 back in 99.

2 Months after passing my driving test drove to Ireland, that was an experience....

 

The 1st drive after passing my test maxing it out to 110 MPH, then perfecting my wheelspins in the train station car park.., finding that you can have carry out the Karma sutra in the back, and the revelation that you could beat your mates 1982 Cavalier CD Saloon to 70 Mph.

 

I loved my Rover, 18000 miles in one year, 1 clutch, numerous tyres, Dubious accesories, experimenting with hubcaps on or off looks, then pretending that you'd taken the car to Santa Pod by writing with the white pen Race numbers on the back window,,,, who was I fooling... Laid to rest on the folks drive for 3 years, put back on the road for 3 months but was never the same, left in the garage for another 8 years, sold on 2 years ago for £37, and I couldn't bear to see it go, my da told me that I owed him £37 as the Metro damaged his fence when it was towed away, the old girl didn't want to leave I thought, and mentioned to my Da, no you twat you left the handbrake on all that time and the brakes had seized..

[ProgRocker]

My first car - the '79 Mini posted in the 'Orange' thread - didn't die as such but I probably should have sold it as 'spares & repair' rather than get a new MOT for it at a cost of £240 (welding mainly) and then selling it.

[HillmanImp]

I gave my Imp to my girlfriend who ran it for a few years until she sold it to some chap who was going to 'do it up'. Its never been seen since.

 

Its the one at the front. Incidentally, the one behind was a right minter. Its MIA too though.

 

[jonny69]

I killed my first one into the back of a Citroen Saxo. Obliterated the Saxo, but classic Fords were pretty much worthless back then so it wasn't worth fixing.

[nigel bickle]

My first car (-post Driving Test) was an ex ambassadorial 6 door Cadillac -1964. Black, tatty, huge. Trolley jack'd (broken suspension) from the Chilean Ambassadors residence onto my Dads drive -next door

 

Quickly cobbled, sufficient to pass a ropey MOT (much easier in those days). I painted it Candy apple green -all the rage then, & swanned around Surrey with my mates on the weekend. At around 8mpg i couldnt afford to run it without help.

4 months on -and bored with being a bus driver i sold it to an acquaintance with stern warnings about the aged crossplies, length/handling & limitless power.

 

2 days later he stuffed it through McDonalds window in Epsom -having booted it on the nearby roundabout. Didnt get to the the resulting shambles ,but I was told it made a big old mess.

[Shep Shepherd]

My first car in March 2000 was G606SKR, a 1990 Ford Fiesta 1.1LX three-door on a G-plate with all kinds of heady factory fitted options such as metallic paint (Magenta Red - very classy), electric windows, central locking and electric tailgate release. It previously belonged to my father, who had owned it since 1996, although I used it daily and looked after it during his ownership. It was a GR9 car, and despite it having done 147,000 miles, it would have carried on for ages in my stewardship if it hadn't been written off after being rammed in the side by a truck in July 2000 on the A2 just outside Dover

 

According to the DVLA, it made it back on the road for a few years, somehow acquiring a 1600cc engine along the way

 

The vehicle details for G606 SKR are:

 

Date of Liability 01 05 2004

Date of First Registration 31 01 1990

Year of Manufacture 1990

Cylinder Capacity (cc) 1597CC

CO2 Emissions Not Available

Fuel Type Petrol

Export Marker Not Applicable

Vehicle Status Unlicensed

Vehicle Colour RED

[barefoot]

WJU26S - a Vauxhall Chevette 4 door GLS - not destroyed, just sold too soon and too cheaply.

 

It was nice, but my home/dodgy/cheap mechanic told me that it wasn't worth putting through another MOT (at 6 years old) TWAT.

[jakebullet]

1961 swb land rover. Taken out by a giffer in a micra who came out of a side street at warp factor 9 and rammed it under the passenger door. It was pushed sideways into a lamp post, which stopped the roll I guess. I was going to rebuild despite only having 1 straight door left, but the chassis also got kinked.

[Charlie Croker]

My first car died a horrible death. It was in 1986 that bought HFV 594S a 1978 Mazda 323 in silver. It did me well for 3 months.....it was abused beyond belief during this time.lol.

It's end came one night when me and my then girlfriend were flying down a country lane and met a brand new Sierra coming the other way. Needless to say both were written off and my ego was dented too.lol

[bigstraight6]

This was my first car back in May '85.....

 

I didn't kill it, in fact it was 100% reliable in the 6 months or so I owned it, the only problem encountered was when I forgot to let the handbrake off prior to a drive across Dartmoor and cooked the rear brakes Had some great times in this old bus cruising around town with 5 mates aboard, much classier than the Minis/Escorts/Vivas they were running! Wish I'd kept it, but I had my head turned by a customised 105E Anglia and sold the Zody to a chap I worked with at the time who did manage to blow the engine up after a couple of months due to oil pump failure, he had the engine rebuilt and sold it on and that was the last I saw of it.

[UltraWomble]

My ADO16 Austin 1300 died at the hands of a bin wagon that reversed into it.

[Supernaut]

In April 2010, I bought this as my first car:

 

 

It was Peugeot 306 XLdt. It had 156k miles on it when I bought it, and it had just failed an MOT on a track rod end and the handbrake adjustment. I paid £300 for it. It also had a lot of dog hair in it.

An afternoon's fettling and cleaning, and it sailed through its MOT.

 

 

In August 2013, at 179k miles, it made a horrible clattering and a big BANG when I was driving to work one morning. It ended up being collected from the side of the road by a hi-ab.

I converted it from a Lucas to a Bosch fuel pump and injectors, and had it running 24psi of boost on veg oil. It went like fuck! Probably contributed to it going bang, though.

 

I still have a number plate from it.

 

That little bat hanging from the mirror still lives on in the Mondeo, although it may get moved across to the BMW.

 

 

 

 

That 405 in the background was my mate's. It's probably what convinced me to get an XUD-engined car. It was running a homebrew twin-tank system so he could start it up and shut it down on diesel, while running on veg the rest of the time. It also had an absolutely ace purple velour interior.

[AMC Rebel]

My first car was a van.  Ford Escort Mk1 8cwt WTL 844K. I didn't manage to kill it - bought for £150 which was the proceeds from sale of my Benelli 250 2c, sold for £90.

 

My mate, who is actually the best mate (and all round person) in the world, and I (mostly him) welded two new wings and a new front panel on it. It had multiple replacement rear doors from the scrapyard as I slowly upgraded them to ones with less and less rust.

 

The engine drank and leaked oil. I had a new clutch, new front struts and all sorts of other stuff - some I did myself - for example I hired a trolley jack once and changed the rear brake shoes!

 

Neither of these two is me - one's a web designer and the other one was working in the dole office last I heard.

 

 

 

Sold to a bloke from an advert in the paper - first to view offered me £30 but I was pleased I said no as the next chap and I settled on £90. Lived until 1984, by which time I was driving a Mk2 Cortina 1600E.