Your First Car

Prince

Prince

Torque King
Points
242
Location
Northampton, England
Car
BMW E36 318is Coupe
My first car was a 2001 Vauxhall Corsa. It was a 1.0 and it was great! I paid £2000 for it and then insured it for £1200. It was a good little run around and cheap to run. The only thing I didn't like was the acceleration!

Here's a pic of it (yes I know one of the trims is missing)



What was everybody else's first car?
 
1981 Fiat 127 1300 GT - great car, typically old school Fiat wth indestructible engines. Surprisingly very very little corrosion.

81bhp - not bad in a car that weighs under 700kg.
 
One of your wheel trims were missing! :p

My first car was a renault scenic :s 1.9 dTi 1996 96 bhp :lol: 0-60 12.7sec top speed of 174 :eek: never got it that fast though obviously :rolleyes:
 
Mine was a Y reg (1982) Renault 9 TLE with a 1334cc engine! It was in metallic green and I crashed it writing it off within 2 weeks :(
 
My mate's 1976 Mk2 Escort Estate was the beast to have.

A 1.1 litre Kent Crossflow Engine. Power - 41bhp - but subtract 3bhp for the belt driven cooling fan (honestly) you're left with 38bhp.

Rear wheel drive and 4 gears, steering like a clock spring. Brakes non existent.

We timed 0-62mph - 49 seconds!!! YesSSSSS!!!
 
F reg Citroen AX 990cc - had a plastic boot etc so was very light and quick off the mark - i ragged the balls off it - suspension was sooo sloppy - regularly went round tight bends on 3 wheels! Was a fun car :blink:
 
My FIRST car? I've still got it ;)

A 2001 Metallic Sea Green Skoda Fabia 1.4 Classic 8v
68bhp, 88 lb-ft of torque, 1155kg, 0-60 in 14.9 seconds, and a top speed of 101mph.

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I have to say: as a first car it's brilliant. It's comfy and roomy (even for my 6'5 frame), it's not painfully slow and I quite like the look of it... I still want a VRS though :p
 
1987 Skoda Estelle 130 Limited Edition Sport Homoligation car.

Factory fitted Dellorto 45mm carb, Ashley GroupA full exhaust system, Kent cam and Spax suspension. That was a proper quick little car, used to eat Ford XR's and Nova GTE's. Pain £100 for it, had it 4 months, rebuilt the engine 3 times due to headgasket failure (common problem), gasket went for the 4th time, I let the engine cook and go boom. Two weeks later I found out the "Sport" models were rare and at the time worth £2-£3000.:sad2::rolleyes:. Oops!
 
Ooh - unlucky fingers. It does look to me like the modern drivers are getting newer cars. In my day we were lucky to get a car under 8-10 years old as our first car. Is this because cars are getting cheaper, finance is easier or we demand more from a car nowadays?
 
I think it's because you usually get what you pay for. I paid the money for my car to last. I could have bought some old rust bucket on wheels for £200, but I didn't want it in for repairs every week! I don't think cars are getting cheaper, I think they're getting more expensive. It's just everyone's own taste I suppose.

P.s. Fingers....ouch!
 
no id agree that newer drivers are buying a lot newer cars. i started out in an 8 year old car, then a 6 year old then 16 year old before buying the bora as a 4 year old.
i live in the street and the amount of young drivers, mainly girls, are buying brand new cars not long after they pass their test. i think it was more Citroen that started this with the cashback and free insurance deals on the saxo.

the problem with buying a new or nearly new car for a first one is the fact it does rarely have problems with them ( that arent covered by warranties) so you gain less experience doing thing on them.

with the fiesta ( first car ) i learnt how to change oil, air filter, sparks, leads, dizzy cap, rotor arm, and coil. learnt a large amount of electrical as so many things were needing wired back up due to corrosion
 
pgarner said:
no id agree that newer drivers are buying a lot newer cars. i started out in an 8 year old car, then a 6 year old then 16 year old before buying the bora as a 4 year old.
i live in the street and the amount of young drivers, mainly girls, are buying brand new cars not long after they pass their test. i think it was more Citroen that started this with the cashback and free insurance deals on the saxo.

the problem with buying a new or nearly new car for a first one is the fact it does rarely have problems with them ( that arent covered by warranties) so you gain less experience doing thing on them.

with the fiesta ( first car ) i learnt how to change oil, air filter, sparks, leads, dizzy cap, rotor arm, and coil. learnt a large amount of electrical as so many things were needing wired back up due to corrosion
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That's a very good point :)

Granted my car was only 7 years old when I got it, but (perhaps due to my nature) I've been doing as much to it as I can. I've learnt to change the oil, filters, spark plugs, leads etc... I've fitted central locking (It seemed like a really big job at the time :p ), changed the break disks and pads, and a whole bunch of other things.

I bought my car for £2000 at 7 years old with 39k on the clock. I don't think I'm likely to ever buy a brand new car. You loose so much money on them. My father changes his car every three years or so. He's got an SLK 230 at the moment and has recently had a SAAB 93 Aero convertible, a Honda Ledgend (Suprisingly quick car. Scared the hell out of a few boy racers) and some other really nice cars. He's bought them all second hand and has never lost more than £1000 on them when he's sold them. If he'd bought them new he probably wouldn't even get half what he would have paid for them. Not to mention that he probably wouldn't be able to afford them in the first place.

The difference for him is that he could have got a brand new Polo for the price he paid for his SLK, and in three years time when he changes his car he wouldn't get enough for the Polo to buy anything other than a second hand Polo or equivilent.

It's all fine when you've got maximum no claims and pay £200 a year to insure an SLK like he does :rolleyes:
 
Do i detect a hint of jealousy SBT?

Soemtimes I wonder if the repair costs on older cars actually work out more than paying for a newer car. In terms of depreciation the best way to beat it is to buy at 3 years old and sell at 5. Typically a car loses 50% of its value in the first 3 years.
 
waynne said:
Do i detect a hint of jealousy SBT?

Soemtimes I wonder if the repair costs on older cars actually work out more than paying for a newer car. In terms of depreciation the best way to beat it is to buy at 3 years old and sell at 5. Typically a car loses 50% of its value in the first 3 years.
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There might be a tiny, little hint of jealousy there :p

My dad let me drive his car a month or two ago out on the country roads... The fastest thing I'd driven before that was a normally aspirated Subaru Forester once or twice at a touch over 110bhp or so. It was as heavy as the moon though.

Having stepped out of my 1.4 8v Fabia into a supercharged slk... All I can say is "Holy mother f****** god!" :-D

I want one :blink:
 
sbtUK said:
There might be a tiny, little hint of jealousy there :p

My dad let me drive his car a month or two ago out on the country roads... The fastest thing I'd driven before that was a normally aspirated Subaru Forester once or twice at a touch over 110bhp or so. It was as heavy as the moon though.

Having stepped out of my 1.4 8v Fabia into a supercharged slk... All I can say is "Holy mother f****** god!" :-D

I want one :blink:
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I'm pretty lucky, the Golf is brand new (as of Jan 08) and I've had the opportunity to drive a series of pretty quick cars...

ML 320 Diesel (Our Chelsea Tractor for use in Cheshire :p)
350z Convertible ("Uncle" out in America let me drive it. gets to 90 fast o_O)
S500 (Old style one, beautiful interior, very well kept. Again, in America. Black with Cream leather.)
Aston Martin Vantage (Real Uncle's Aston here in England. Very scary car. Didnt go fast, too scared of crashin. But 50 in second and being only half way up the revs is amazing.)
CL 180 AMG (Crap speed, crap sequential slow gearbox, but a nice car overall. Just underpowered. Courtesy car for when the ML was in.)
Chrysler 300 (Rental car in america. More strength in a rice pudding, but whatever.... nice car.)
1.6 Ford Street Ka (Roof down, legs round neck pressing pedals, pink seats with "Powered By Fairydust" on the back... man I looked gay. But nippy.)


I think theres one or two more but, those are all I can remember, so anything else must have been pretty minor. I guess I'm a lucky bastard but, with things I'm going through IRL right now, I'd give up alot of the material stuff I do have to change it...

Anyway... before I go emo. My first car was the 1.4l Civic 98 Hatchback. I loved it. Very light, very fun. Very white, actually, easy to clean.

Edit: Oh. Remembered. Had 5 minutes in the top model of Range Rover Sport, Supercharged jobby. For alot of mass, that thing is insane.

There, done.
 
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the 230 slk is nice and fast. havent driven it but was passenger in my bro in laws partners car. lost license meant he now runs it to keep in in a good condition
 
Izo Azlion said:
Chrysler 300 (Rental car in america. More strength in a rice pudding, but whatever.... nice car.)
1.6 Ford Street Ka (Roof down, legs round neck pressing pedals, pink seats with "Powered By Fairydust" on the back... man I looked gay. But nippy.)
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Yes...I bet you did look gay in that! Hopefully you wasn't driving along with another dude else everybody will have thought he was your partner! :lol: The 300C isn't abotu going fast though, it's all image. Check this 300C out from last month's Max Power...it's crazy!

http://www.maxpower.co.uk/article.asp?asset=6282&p=1
 
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