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First car memory for me was being allowed to steer a 1961 Almond Green Morris Mini into the garage while sat on my dads knee,later followed by steering a 65 MK1 Cortina while kneeling on the seat with dad pushing it. Have a pic of that somewhere,need to find it... First unpleasant car related memory was dad picking up a brand new 1972 Datsun Sunny 1200.He made a bad decision in leaving me sat in the back seat while he went somewhere.Getting bored with the wait i chewed a load of vinyl piping off the back of the drivers seat ! I was not a popular little lad that day and i still haven't been forgiven ! First proper drive was in a kermit green Daf 33 round the garages at the back of my grans aged about 11,private road of course... Edit found the pic in the Tina
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I've got a couple that stick in my mind. I got the HotWheels King Kuda car when I was about three or four, it was the first car my aunty ever bought me. I told my Dad that I wanted a real one, but he thought it would be impossible to get one... Fast forward forty years, Dad and I were collecting my '68 Plymouth Barracuda from the docks! The other memory was from around the same time, we were on holiday in Devon, and Dad and I were walking across the campsite when we came across this mk2 Cortina, in full seventies custom style, louvres rear window, Wolfrace Slotmags, Red light on the back axle, faux Tiger skin seat covers, and of course, chain link steering wheel. I thought it was awesome, so I asked Dad why he didn't have a car like that? He said it was because he had us guys instead! That made me feel sad, and I decided there and then that even if I had children, I would have a cool car too. But Dad said that wouldn't happen, it would be one or the other! Again, fast forward thirty odd years, picking up my first child from hospital where she was born in my Mustang! I wonder what my kids first car related memories will be?
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I was born in 1970 and my 1st real memory was my Dad's Zephyr 6 - Bench seat, column change etc. He loved it but someone crashed it in the RAF base in Odiham where he worked back in 75. That was replaced by a Triumph Herald that was curse word! Then came my favourite car he ever had - A fern Green Corsair 2000. I WILL own one some day!
ffwd 45yrs to now - Of the 100 or so cars I have owned since passing my test in 1987, the only one that is/was unmodified in some way is my current 5.0l V8 CL Merc. (Well, not counting the 18" Mono-blocs)
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96 E320 W210 Wafter - on 18" split Mono's - Sold :-( 10 Kia Ceed Sportwagon - Our new daily 03 Import Forester STi - Sold 98 W140 CL500 AMG - Brutal weekend bruiser! Sold :-( 99 E240 S210 Barge - Now sold 02 Accord 2.0SE - wife's old daily - gone in PX 88 P100 2.9efi Custom - Sold
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mexicansteve
South West
Posts: 683
Club RR Member Number: 31
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I asked Dad why he didn't have a car like that? He said it was because he had us guys instead! That made me feel sad, and I decided there and then that even if I had children, I would have a cool car too. That made me chuckle ^^ I used to get really annoyed at for sale ads saying they were having a kid so could no longer drive a Beetle or whatever. I've calmed down now. I really don't think I can pinpoint a particular occasion for liking cars, I'm not overly hands on, just a bit of tinkering which comes from my Dad who would take any car to a garage to change a bulb! But he always cherished them and remembers most of the vehicles he's owned, as does my Mum. I still drive the very car my folks bought in '74 when I was 7 months old, and clearly remember spending much of my youth in the boot for travelling as I was the last of four kids (maybe a capri was a bad choice). So I guess it is that car that did it...or the batmobile with plastic flames sticking out of the back! I'm going to see them today after asking them to sort out any car related pictures from my childhood, maybe that will throw some light onto this.
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BeQuietandDrive
1989 Bedford Astra Van
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mgmrw
Part of things
Posts: 701
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Was on about this to my wife at Christmas. 2 things:
1) plonked in front of WRC on TV at age 6 ish, watching the blue & yellow Michelin badged escorts fly about in the mud, promptly succeeded by L555 BAT plated impreza.
And
2) aged 12-13 I got into RC cars. Quick ones. Carbon chassis, tuned motors, building & racing them.
They took over my life until aged 16 ish when dad bought me £350 if mk3 fiesta.
That was it,never looked back. If I'm awake I'm thinking about cars. Modifying, driving, buying. They're my "happy place".
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I can remember being upset when a grey 1100 with red interior was sold - I was about 3 or 4 I think. Following that I can remember sliding around on a stool in the back of a few HA Bedford vans when going out. My main lasting memory is going down to the salvage yard for late write offs to repair. Then them being delivered on the big lorry often followed by a new shell. I guess the first one of those I could remember was a metallic green 6 cylinder Princess reg POJ (I think) a few months after they were first released, some strings were pulled as shells weren't officially available yet at that point and one was diverted off the line.
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mgmrw
Part of things
Posts: 701
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Just remembered my first "in car experience"..
November 1995, 4 week old Rover 820 vittesse saloon. In graphite grey. Black half leather recaro interior. Delivered from Birmingham to South Humberside.
Dad had a 12 month old 820 hatch that was a lemon, so got this on extended test drive as a " so sorry we're rubbish" gesture.
Took me to the NEC to the car show.
Remember the turbo & acceleration making me feel sick, but wanting MORE!
I was 8 though. Would love that car now.
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I can just about remember my Dad's Morris Marina in the early 80s. We went to blackpool in that for a holiday. After that he had a Talbot Sunbeam for most of the early 80s which I always liked. I can still remember 1985 or 1986, my Dad had got rid of the Sunbeam and was given his first company car, a Cavalier hatch back on a B reg, it must have been a year old when he got it. I was stood with my brother, sister and mother all waiting outside for him to bring it home. As a boy growing up, I was really into scalextric and radio controlled cars.
My first go of a car was sometime in the late 1980s, I was only about 14, it was an old Vauxhall Viva. I had no idea what I was doing and ended up all over the road, with the car jumping up and down as I couldn't use the clutch properly. This was on an old industrial estate with no traffic, my mate, also 14 used to help at the local garage on Saturdays and they gave him this old Viva to play with.
After leaving school I got a motorbike at 17 and stayed on those for a long time. I loved cars but had no money for one or to learn to drive. I think I was 24 when I finally learned to drive and pass my test, I was using bikes all year round, and was finding it hard in the cold, and had enough of falling off in snow and ice.
I bought a Rover 416 GSI, and I would have probably just settled with a life normal modern cars. Any car I had been in was not really exciting for me after riding a fast bike. A mate gave me a go of a highy tuned mk3 supra turbo. That was the turning point for me, this car was very quick, but also looked so much cooler than anything in our works carpark. I sold my Mondeo after driving that and bought a Supra mk3. From then onwards I have always owned retro and retroish cars. The Supra lead to my love of RWD cars, which in turn got me into a Capri by chance then other old 80s Fords.
An interesting thing, is that between myself, my dad and my brother, there is only me thats into cars. My parents visit me in Leeds every few months and my Dad is puzzled when he comes, by the cars I have. For him a car is just a way to get from A to B and nothing else. He doesn't get why I would want an old car or something different. He just wants to own a reliable reasonably cheap car to run. My brother has always owned modern cars too.
So I have no idea where my love of cars comes from, certainly not from my family.
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First car i have any lasting memory of is my Dad's mk3 Cortina 2000 GXL, Some sort of dark brown metallic colour. Needless to say that got pranged and we replaced it with an escort estate off my Uncle. My First Car by Adrian Southgate, on Flickr I acquired that as my first car in 1978 and kept if for quite a few years, quite often took it out without a qualified driver until I got caught... Never again. That has long since been recycled into a datsun or baked bean tin but the memory lives on with the only photo I have... That car saw many 'firsts'
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1988 DUTTON LEGERRA MK1 - SPARES DONOR 1989 DUTTON LEGERRA MK2 - CURRENT PROJECT 1990 DUTTON LEGERRA ZS MK2 1990 DUTTON LEGERRA ZS MK2 DUTTON PHAETON S2 - Resting DUTTON PHAETON S4 - Resting DUTTON PHAETON S4 - PROJECT X DUTTON SIERRA S2 - Resting
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When I was about 4 my Dad had a cortina mk3 as below but Brown Then after that a 2600 sd1 exactly as below, same colour in and out. I loved it! Looked like a space ship! All through my childhood my mates dads had escorts and little French things (very cool and rare today) but my old man was always rocking a car a few years older but the likes of an sd1, senator, big Volvos, scimitar gte etc. They just seemed soooo cool next to the common stuff of the late 80's
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Last Edit: Jan 5, 2016 17:18:04 GMT by hillbilly
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pics wrong way round, sorry!
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Last Edit: Jan 5, 2016 17:17:04 GMT by hillbilly
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VIP
South East
Posts: 8,293
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I was about 12/13 and used to see Gary Cruze's pro-street A35 burblibg around my home town. Got hooked on Street Machine and Custom Car magazine and the rest is history.
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I was about 12/13 and used to see Gary Cruze's pro-street A35 burblibg around my home town. Got hooked on Street Machine and Custom Car magazine and the rest is history. great copy of that mag, if you look at the Santa pod feature in it you will see a long haired bad jumper wearing yoof with a roof chopped escort estate,,,,,that was me!
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Last Edit: Jan 5, 2016 18:19:09 GMT by Mercdan68
Fraud owners club member 2003 W211 Mercedes E class 1989 Sierra sapphire 1998 ex bt fiesta van
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I can't remember what kicked it all off, but I know that at 9 I was obsessed. Obviously I was big into toy cars, and Scalextric. I also remember studiously reading my dad's copy of The AA Book of the Car, a great introduction, even today, to the workings of a car. My dad had a fairly good job and changed the car every 2 years, and my earliest recollections are of Datsuns; 1200, 120Y, etc. I think the first car that I lusted after was a TR7. I remember a black one I'd see at school home-time. I just remembered now, going to the Belfast Motor Show and collecting loads of brochures, as you did when you were a kid. I remember going up to a pretty lady and asking for a Porsche brochure, please. She asked me who it was for. "Me." She didn't give me one. Lesson to be learned, Porsche marketing dept., if I remember that 40 years later
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Reminds me a little of this thread I started way back in 2014, re-imagining our family car history. Some of you obviously had much cooler parents than me, judging by their car tastes.
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mgmrw
Part of things
Posts: 701
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Reminds me a little of this thread I started way back in 2014, re-imagining our family car history. Some of you obviously had much cooler parents than me, judging by their car tastes. I don't know if cool, but my dads car taste is varied between deeply sensible, and plain odd. A few over the years... 2x sierra ghia (new) 2x rover 820 hatchback 1x 200tdi discovery E reg lada Samara Mk4 escort Ghia Rover 214sei Ford explorer Volvo c70 lpt Mitsubishi shogun sport Then there was a step change... Jag xk8 Merc 280ce (w123) Merc 230sl (w113) Aston Db7 volante 3.2 supercharged Jag s-type 3.0v6
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10mpg
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 4,253
Club RR Member Number: 204
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My first proper car memory, and possibly my first memory at all, was being lost with my mum and dad in the wilds of North Norfolk in the dark trying to find my grandparents house, and my dad loosing his temper and spanking his little Alfasud hard around the country lanes, I remember wondering why my dad was getting so agitated over being lost (5 year old innocence!), but I also remember the brilliant sensation of being thrown about at speed and gorgeous rasp of the little flat four as it was shunted through the gears .. I also remember shedding a tear a couple of years later when the scrapman collected from our house it due to terminal tin-worm.. Looked like this one..
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Last Edit: Jan 6, 2016 9:10:42 GMT by 10mpg
The Internet, like all tools, if used improperly, can make a complete bo**cks of even the simplest jobs...
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ben-dover
Part of things
You can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter...
Posts: 360
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My first car related memory which I think started my obsession would be a memory of my Dad's brown Austin Metro. We were driving back from my Grandad's in Hornchurch, we come to a sudden stop, I can remember an alarm bell ringing away in the distance, suddenly me and my sister were flattened as my Mum threw herself over the passenger seat!!! All I can remember after that was the sound of a highly strained A+ engine, screaching tyre's and the sensation of moving quite fast.
Turns out that we had got tied up in an attempted getaway by an armed robber! As I got older (I was around 5 when it all happened) my Dad told me that a man with a mask and a sawn-off shotgun had jumped out in front of us aiming the gun towards the car. It was at that point my Mum jumped on us as protection (thank god for no head-rests!) and my Dad had floored it and shot off down a side street.
The robber later held a man hostage in some flats, not sure of the eventual outcome though, hopefully everyone was ok.
Later on in life I remember being quite upset that my Dad had bought a new car, a beige Skoda Estelle 120 (F714 RNO) with a black vinyl roof. (It was the early 90's so everyone knew the jokes) I used to duck down in that car every time we went out and I saw someone I knew! Wierd as I would love one now...
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None of my relatives are really car people. My car interest sparked from a Christmas toy my granddad bought me. a Porsche Carrera convertible push pedal car, if i wasnt driving it i had it up on ramps and was underneath pretending to fix it. I am sure there are photo's of it somewhere at my parents i need to hunt them out
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Last Edit: Jan 6, 2016 10:29:27 GMT by Barrass
VW nut 1984 MK2 golf type 19e
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All my early childhood memories are car related, naming all the badges from an early age, playing with toy cars etc. The first car I really loved though was an XJS convertible, my dad bought it brand new in the late eighties when he was feeling particularly plush. Used to nag him to put the roof down every time we got in it. Basically looked exactly like this: Dad actually hated it though, roof leaked from new, he always moans about the gearbox being rubbish, he switched to BMW shortly afterwards and has only ever driven them since.
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If at first you don't succeed........ ....Don't try skydiving!
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