Cars

I passed my test aged 17 and drove my dad's Viva. Then I got a job as a secretary and the boss liked me to drive him about in his powerful V8 Rover. I was often out on my own doing errands in it and used to go well over the speed limit. One day another partner in the business gave me the keys to his Porshe to do an errand for him. I couldn't get it out of first gear and drove all the way in first gear! Those were the days. I can't imagine why they trusted a teenager with their cars. Might have been something to do with my mini skirts!

I learned to drive in 1967 in a Ford Cortina and had to do hand signals! I also tried to practise in my parents' Humber Super Snipe, which I found terrifying. It had a column gear change, a bench seat in front so the brake was on the wrong side and a very powerful engine and it reduced me to tears. Fortunately for me, my father was a schoolmaster and ran the school's CCF so had access to their ex-Army vehicles so I had a happy afternoon doing three point turns around the playground in a jeep. My own first car was a green A30, which my brothers painted red with some old paint, either gloss or emulsion. My favourite car was a Morris 1000 that I had when my first two children were small. It had the dip switch on the floor, which I always thought was a great idea.

I had a wonderful Hillman Imp, we called it 'the pram' because it wouldn't go without a push..........so many cars over the years, all rum characters, bit like the pets we had, happy days......

The first car I drove 50 years ago was a Hillman Imp which was embarrassingly unreliable and leaked even though new! The first car of my own was a Hillman Husky van. It had a rear engine and had to be stabilised with a bag of sand in the front boot!
When I was a child the man across the the road built his own car. The back seat was an old sofa and we all went off to the seaside in it! Happy days!
Does anyone remember Derek car seats, made of metal with a steering wheel and a tray.? It hung over the front seat and had there been. an accident the child would have shot through the windscreen or been sliced in two by the tray!

I find it scarier to join the motorway from a slip road! At least if you're already on it you can usually move over to the outer lane to allow for traffic joining from the left.

I remember well the fear I had on my first motorway journey. I'd done dual carriageway work with my driving instructor but that first time I had to cope with traffic joining from the left at motorway speed was terrifying! I had a friend who would turn off the motorway at slip roads, go round the roundabout or whatever, then rejoin from the slip road in the direction she was originally going!

I always remember my big brother coming home on leave from his National Service in a very old Austin 7. It had wooden floorboards and they were riddled with woodworm so he had to replace them with some old wood my Dad found in his shed!

In 1967 I had 12 lessons in a Hillman Imp and passed my test first time in it, never having driven at night or on a motorway. So far, almost 50 years on, touch wood, my licence is still clear.

My first car was a standard 10, passed my test in my teens but did work in a garage so had freedom of the garage during lunch hour to manoeuvre my car into difficult parking bays and great for practising the three point turn , didn't need a driver with me

J52I also loved my 2CV, when I went round bends a bit sharpish the window flaps would open, my children thought that was hilarious, entertainment was cheap in those days

I passed my test at just 17. I couldn't wait to drive. I drove my Dad's Hillman Minx until I inherited my Grandad's Austin A30 complete with little yellow flipper indicators. On a good day and down hill it got up to 75 mph . I progressed to my Mum's redundant Austin 1300 and then to a Triumph Spitfire which was my pride and joy. Sadly I couldn't fit the baby's carrycot in the back so it had to go. Late DH was a bit of a petrol-head and after he died I found a list he had made of all the cars he'd owned - over 50. These days so long as the car is reliable and gets me from A to B quickly and safely, I'm not fussy - but I do admit to a slight yearning for a Porsche; maybe in my dotage I will get one ......

We have had some real 'old bangers', but at least, when cars were less complicated you had a better than even chance of getting them going again if you did a bit of fiddling about under the bonnet - using tights to replace a broken fan belt (it works); giving something a clout with a spanner to jolt it back to life (DH was always doing that); taking damp spark plugs out and drying them..... Modern cars are a nightmare. Things pop up on the screen and frighten the life out of you, and half the time they are not relevant, just the computer acting up. Our eighteen month old Honda regularly puts up the tyre pressure warning sign, so out we get, check the pressures, no prob. Reset the computer. Drive on, on it comes again. It's getting like the boy who cried wolf; you daren't ignore it. The dealer keeps fiddling about with it. We also get the service period indicator at ridiculous times and that needs resetting. You look under the bonnet of a modern car and don't have the comfort of seeing anything you recognise as making it go!

Oh I remember it all well, I took my husband's car out the day I passed my test - he was very precious about his cars, I had to use a circuitous route to get home so I didn't need to turn right.
I had a car with a column change and caused many traffic jams as I couldn't change gear.

My first car was a Datsun Cherry in 1975 and was really basic compared to today's cars. No central locking or air conditioning or hi-tech gadgets, just a basic car with a basic Mototola radio. I later had an 8 track cassette player fitted. Loved my little car but had to sell it in 1979 to buy our white goods when DH and I first set up home

I had Mr Bean's citron yellow mini in 1976. Previously a grey Morris 1000 called Nellie ( as in The Elephant ). Stopped by a policeman was asked'is the rust keeping it together?'
But there's nothing like driving a 2CV for a real experience! As long as you had a can of WD 40.

Bullet hole transfers?? We only got green shield stamps! DH stuck gaffer tape over the bullet holes! Transfers would have been good!

My dad first got a convertible Hillman Minx in the 1950s. I can remember us 3 kids bouncing around, standing up and waving on the back seat !

"it gained a couple of bullet holes"

I thought you meant the bullet-hole transfers that they used to give away with petrol in the 1960s. Whatever happened to petrol freebies, the idea seems quite quaint nowadays.

I passed my test 56 years ago. My first car was a Hillman Imp which I loved but which was apt to break down at inopportune times. I discovered that I could get it moving again by pressing something called the solenoid. Never heard of it before or since!
In Kenya, in the 60s, I had a Morris 1100, totally unsuitable for rough roads and bashing around the bush. A lead to the pump came adrift and whenever that happened, the car stopped dead - embarrassing at best, dangerous at worst. The garage kept telling me they were getting the spare part but finally I gave up, crawled under the car and attached the offending lead with a piece of Elastoplast which was still there a year later when I swopped the car for a much more suitable and utterly reliable VW Beetle. A later Beetle, in the 1980s, had a problem with the heater and exhaust fumes came through instead of heat. I stuffed an old tea towel in the channel to prevent myself succumbing to CO fumes. My mechanic called it a mobile gas chamber.

Any use of a hand-held device while driving, other than to make an emergency call, has been illegal since 2003. This applies in road jams or at traffic lights.

The problem is, catching them at it!

I remember there being holes in my parents' car. Us kids thought it fun to be able to see daylight and the road through the floor!
We also had great fun pre seat-belts. And fun with many kids in the back.

I do think there needs to be a further law now though- texting while driving. Dangerous.

We bought out first car, a second hand mini, in 1971 when we were stationed in Belgium. The rear subframe collapsed on the way to Antwerp Zoo, but minis were surprisingly easy to repair. A local BMC garage sorted it out for a small sum, plus a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label and two hundred Dunhill cigarettes! We had it when we were in Londonderry and it had a damaging encounter with a large seagull which knocked out the rusted headlight; it gained a couple of bullet holes (one perilously near the petrol tank) while parked on the barrack square, courtesy of the boyos in the Bogside taking pot shots at all and sundry - thank God it was our car and not the soldier who was walking past it at the time, though he did feel one of the bullets whistle past him! And still it continued to go, but, held together with chewing gum and sticky tape, water leaking in everywhere, we had to bid it a sad farewell in 1976.

I remember when petrol was 2/6d per gallon! I didn't have my own car until I got married in 1982. I drove my Dad's after I passed my test. He must have said a prayer every time I took it out, as I was a bit slap dash in my attitude to driving to begin with.

It was fun in those days and cheap, my first car was £100 I had a corner garage who fixed it and lessons were £1.50 a time, hardly expensive, I worked and that paid for it,the pleasure of feeling free to go anywhere is something I've never tired of even now. I find fares much more expensive than petrol, in 1970 i paid three shillings and sixpence a gallon, just before decimalisation .

I drove a tractor on my fil's farm long before I drove a car. Don't think it helped as I had to take my test 3 times

I learnt to drive in 1972 because 2 under 2s carrycot on wheels and country buses didn't mix.

My first car was a Citroën Diane which I was never able to get into first gear so had to rev manically before shoving into second and hoping for the best.