what's your earliest motoring memory?

[Deleted member 6183]

I was reading a magazine interview where this was one of the questions posed and it got me thinking.

At first I would have said that being fascinated by the little coloured globes on the centre wheelcaps of Dad's Triumph something or other.

But then I remembered that Dad's cars got bigger over the years so the Morris 1100 incident must have been the earlier:

Mum and Dad in the front and me in the back before seatbelts were deemed compulsory.
10 minutes into the journey I announced that I really needed a pee, parents response was unsurprisingly 'we just left home why didn't you go before we left?' Obviously I didn't want to ge before we left.

Anyway, I hit upon the perfect solution and proceeded to empty my bladder into the ashtray in the back of the car. The problem was that I had seriously underestimated the amount of fluid that a small boy can hold and, of course, overflowed the ashtray.

Nonetheless I remember being pretty happy that I'd done the right thing and announced that there was no longer an urgent need to stop for a toilet break.

Dad braked for a junction, both suffered and unexpected dampness around the front footwells, I was forever labelled the stupid boy of the family.

Bet Dad was glad those old cars had rubber floormats!

 

[television]

Mine is from 1953 when sitting on the door panel of my 1937 Morris 8 van and thinking as the car lay on its side " did I take that bend too fast or was it the wet road"

 

[verytalldave]

Going on holiday in about 1954 with my dad driving the Vincent, my Mum on the pillion and me in the sidecar with all the luggage. Went all the way from Blackheath (South east London) to a caravan site near Portsmouth.
Comfortable it wasnt.

 

[KillerHERTZ]

Walking to school with my Mum or Dad and counting how many Datsuns I could spot on the way.

We had a Gold 1980 Datsun Sunny estate at the time, nearly as rusty as a 1999 W210

 

[BlackC55]

My Mum had a 504 estate when we lived in France.

She loaded the car up with my sister and her friends but left me behind in the carpark.

I must have been 3ish and I can still remember looking and smelling the yellow diesel smoker driving away.

She soon realised I was missing......

I remember my Dad fixing the rust holes with newspaper and filler and helping him to do it.

 

[Ted]

Similar to mine.
Aroung 1959 Dad on the motorbike, no helmet & singing at the top of his voice
Me and mum in the sidecar.
And earwigs. The sidecar always had earwigs in it

 

[Harley Man]

Going on holiday in about 1954 with my dad driving the Vincent, my Mum on the pillion and me in the sidecar with all the luggage. Went all the way from Blackheath (South east London) to a caravan site near Portsmouth.
Comfortable it wasnt.

Bet you wish you still had the Vincent..

My early memory was being driven round by Dads mate Dave in a mk2 zodiac, it seemed to be made of chrome .I used to be taken to the Dukes Motto Cafe in Hackney and fed on Chips. Dave also had a Vincent kneeler racing sidecar outfit which was very interesting to a small boy too..... it held the sidecar lap record at Crystal Palace track

 

[BTB 500]

I suppose the epic journey from Teddington to visit my grand parents in Nottingham, in our Austin A40.

 

[reflexboy]

When I was a lil boy...falling asleep on the warm bonnet of my Dad's Datsun 120Y, after a long Sunday walk in Syon Park, after he had carried me the last few hundred yards. Oh, and pressing the cigar lighter into the dash of Dad's two week old Nissan Sunny...Well I didn't know what the cigar lighter was for when I was wee child. He wasn't best pleased to say the least. Then again he always drove naff cars. That reminds me...the Lada...Oh god, that white box thingy-got five of us plus luggage all the way from SW London to Wales and then conked out at the cottage gate and refused to start. We had to push it the last 20 yards!

 

[fabes]

Brother and I fighting in the back of my dad's (and mum's) Morris 1800 - it had the biggest back seat and legroom in the world (well, I was only 4-ish) but it was big enough to take my brothers pram - thats why they got it

Earliest I really enjoyed - passing my test at 17 and getting the keys to my mimosa yellow Dolomite Sprint then hunting down XR3i's - sheesh that car could shift!

 

[purplegoddess]

being crammed into the back of a huge blue volvo with my sister and 3 brothers and going to blackpool and southport on days out (still gives me nightmares )

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Brother and I fighting in the back of my dad's (and mum's) Morris 1800

We had a maroon one for 20 years plus - a wonderful car. In fact the car I first learnt to drive in at the age of about 9 or 10.

My first memory was my Mom passing her driving test. She had a white Triumph 1300 (?) and she went into town for her first trip alone. She was so used to walking back, after she'd done the shopping she just headed home - without the car.

It was only when my Dad arrived home from work and asked where the car was, that she realised!!

True story.

 

[R2D2]

.........slidng down a snow covered hill in Dad's Ford Anglia, with Dad reassuring us that this was ok and we would stop....eventually

 

[R2e]

Must have been about 5, mid 1950's when I went with my Dad (can't remember the car, pre-war Austin, Ford or Wolsely or something similar, definitely a 'banger' though) to have a heater fitted, which gloried in the name of 'Jed Heat', in Jedburgh at a blacksmith's shop. I don't remember the details but it apparently consisted of a bit of metal pipe through the passenger floor, with a removable cap which was connected via hose to a funnel shaped heat collector mounted behind the radiator core. When the rad heated up, reach down to the passenger floor and remove the cap and luxuriate in the 1950's version of climate control

I don't think it caught on in a big way.

Also remember an incident, maybe earlier, maybe later, in self same car when my Mum was learning to drive and put the car up a verge to avoid by about 10 feet a cyclist coming the other way. There ensued an argument, my Mum got out and walked home with my Dad driving alongside her saying "Stop being bloody stupid, get back in the car..." etc, while young sister and I sat in the back.

Happy days!

 

[grober]

Getting to steer a Standard Vanguard along a deserted road sitting on the drivers lap when I was about 7years old . I remember it had a V shaped perspex insect deflector mounted on the bonnet emblem. I was hooked for life from then on.

 

[television]

Getting to steer a Standard Vanguard along a deserted road sitting on the drivers lap when I was about 7years old . I remember it had a V shaped perspex insect deflector mounted on the bonnet emblem. I was hooked for life from then on.

My vanguards had the perspex fly thing and the sun visor hood

 

[del320]

Getting to steer a Standard Vanguard along a deserted road sitting on the drivers lap when I was about 7years old . I remember it had a V shaped perspex insect deflector mounted on the bonnet emblem. I was hooked for life from then on.

...how old are you???

I got to steer AND change the gears on father's Standard Vanguard at the same age (sitting on lap, 50 years ago). We were on Dornoch 'airfield' - a V A S T area of grass with one very small hut in the middle.

Missed it by inches...

Earliest memory though was at less than five, standing on my mother's lap with my head sticking through the sunroof on our Standard 12.

 

[comports]

I think one of my earliest proper memories was burning my behind on the vinyl seats of my dads triumph 2000e. He used to drive us all down to the south of france for our annual camping holiday. We'd park up somewhere and go down to the beach all day and when we got back to the car the sun had nearly melted the seats. My sister and I had to sit on towels to avoid the "scorch marks"..

My second would be my Grandad teaching me to drive in Thetford forest when I was about 7/8. I used to sit on his knee and steer at first in his green Mk 1 1.3L capri... I could actually drive and reach the pedals soon afterwards. Guess what my first car was....


2.0L Sport Capri - Still love them.:bannana:

 

[Dieselman]

Missed it by inches...

LOL..

magnetic hut..

 

[edgersoldchap]

My father had a blue Triumph Gloria 'sports' saloon with leather seats. I remember going over a hump back bridge followed by a sharp left, resulting in the rear door on my brother's side flying open and my mother hanging grimly on to his flailing leg by his shoe to stop him falling out. No seat belts then - must have been around 1954!