How good was your first road legal car and what was it?

Mk II Escort 1100. Engine died and was swapped with a 2lt pinto engine. With the original gearing of the 1100, it didn't hang around after the engine swap.

 

Datsun 100A. £120.00. Cracked the block do put a 1.5 Stanza engine in it.
Wish I had it now.

 

Mini thou, half tidy until I stacked it

 

My mum was getting worried about me disappearing out on a motorbike every night, so arranged for a family friend to turn up from the Preston auction with a Singer Chamois (posher trimmed Hilman Imp) in tow for me. It had a burned out clutch which we paid someone to replace at the roadside.

My mate, a biker who was serving a drink driving ban, got me to ferry him around between his various girlfriends, which was an eye opener for a teenage schoolboy, especially when they had friends.

I stupidly lent the car to another (soon to be ex-) friend who killed it by hitting a kerb hard. Not a bad car compared to some of the sheds I had later, I don’t remember it ever leaving me stranded.

 

Austin 1800, 12 years old. Pretty good nick all round. £80 with a year's tax and MOT. Sold a year later when a front wheel bearing failed the MOT and I CBA to fix it for £90. The only time I've done a year motoring and made a profit.

 

Morris minor had it a month went over a railway bridge and the seat went through the floor

 

MK3 cortina estate.
P reg, so 1976? In 1987.
Hand painted in red oxide until a friend and I resprayed it ford mineral blue.
Then the engine went bang and a 2ltr pinto was dropped in on the 1600 running gear.
I drove the wheels off that thing for about 2 years, it embarrassed many a cavalier Sri, never really worked out why it was so fast.

 

Hillman Avenger 1250 got me to work and back , Cornwall a couple of times all over UK really .
Only trouble i had with it was the vinyl lining in the fuel tank peeled off blocking the fuel line and filter .
It was a glass bowl type ..just unscrewed cleaned out ..undid the fuel tank end too and blew out the plastic in the pipeline and was away again .
After doing this about 7 times ended up buying a new fuel tank which was dear .
Apart from that just a ticking Cam follower which was an easy fix . Fuel pump once (mechanical ) pumped petrol into the sump bringing the oil light on , fixed that and that was it ...would of cleaned up the oil galleries for sure .
Sold it for an H plate moggy van ...but that one was very much another story .

 

Hillman Imp, 1966 model bought from a main Ford dealer in Sheffield. Basically a good car, usual Imp problems, changed water pump twice and radiator once.I fitted new sills (well, over sills!) at the roadside ,it took us all over the country. Wish I'd still got it...if it would have survived.

 

1957 Wolseley 1500 bought for £97 when I was 16. I stripped and rebuilt the gearbox and built a 1622cc MG spec engine for it with SU carbs from an abandoned Riley 1.5. At least I think it was abandoned, it was parked on the side of the road for weeks. Spot and fog lights, wide wheels, lowered suspension, bigger brakes, rev counter, and as many gauges as would fit in the dashboard.

Passed my test and soon afterwards rolled it on a country lane with my first proper girlfriend in it, no seat belts in those days and she ended up on top of me squashed against the door. With the car on its side it was struggle to stand up and open the other door to get out but by that time there were a few people about to help, including the police. That was my first breathalyser test – negative, we'd been to the pub but I'd only had one drink.

The second breathalyser was some 50 years later by the French police trying to catch drunk drivers coming back from Le Mans. I hadn't been drinking, I was a bit older and wiser.

 

Renault 12 , bought from soon to be ex brother in law for £30 , fitted a towbar and used it for a year or so for work and dragging around various bikes to trials events . Sadly written off by a drunken neighbour when parked up but it didn't end there ....
Drove it to the local scrappy who said they'd just collected a minter garaged Renault 12 TS with a seized engine . Minty was bought for £50 and the engine from my written off banger shoehorned in - went all over the place and lasted longer than my marriage..



Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

Mini 1275 GT - MOL139P - I was 18 and sill in school, paid for it with boot money and bouncing money.

I used it for a few months, then put it in the garage and started de-seaming it - bought a Mini 1000 to replace it, which was hand painted in crown emulsion. Drove that for a couple of years - great little car.


1275 GT ended up in a skip when I went off to University - though I kept a lot of part that I sold maybe 10 years ago for way more than the price of the car - clocks, 10 inch wheel disk brakes, grill etc.

 

sorry, generation Golf VW Golf 1 GLD with sunroof in the photo above.
Only a cheap used car with Diesel as student car in the mid 80s for around 6 years. Had some nice trips in Europe and a lot of fun with it.

The first 50 hp diesel engines from VW were not very robust -
when the oil consumption rose to above 2 l/100km and it smoked more on every climb, I had to sell it with less than 150,000 km.
The next owner installed a more powerful engine and three months later had a serious accident - total loss.

My first car rides after some meters with tractors were at an airfield when I was 15, using a vw buggy to pull the tow rope from the winch to gliders.

regards,

 

Escort m2 1300 £250
Needed wheel bearing a new battery and back seat recovering as sun burnt the top all the way along and was a nice foam look
Great car - got stolen and then recovered 5 miles away as I never had money for petrol.
I smashed the back light and rear panel in a pub car park and bought parts from a mate with breaker on his drive for a couple of beers - life was easy in those days

 

Respray yellow Renault 5 with light visible between the A pillar and the passenger door front edge .... so not sure it was strictly "street legal" but it made a great skip-scavenging car around London for a year until it needed it's death-knell MOT ... Very comfy too!