My First Car

(my days I'm old - a time before digital cameras!!)

CarCraft Website ran a competition for bloggers to write about their first car. 

So let me take you back to the summer of 1991!  (Actually, I'm not entirely sure it was summer, but it sounds good!). Two friends and I had booked tickets to see EMF (our latest band crush!) in their home town of Glocester and we had booked a B&B for the weekend too.  There was only one little obstacle to overcome - I had to pass my driving test!!  So two weeks before our first ever road trip I passed my test and went out and bought a Mini Metro - SPORT.  (Very important that sport bit)!

It cost me £600 and I bought it from a local garage.  I loved it.  It was white, had a rev counter and go-faster stripes (OK I added the stripes from Halfords, quite possibly my favourite shop of that era).  I only seem to have one photo of my first car, so the image above is of my third (and least favourite) car!

So our road trip fast approached and because I'd only been driving 2 weeks I got my friend added to my insurance as she had been driving for over a year.  We live near Brighton so we had snacks, chose a route from the AA Planner (yes that was around back in the day) and it took us...... 8 HOURS!!  I have no idea what route we took or how we ever managed to find the place.  We had no Sat Nav.  We had a dodge old route map and a road map and we drove between us for 8 hours!!!

My uncle gave us directions for the way home - it took us 4!

A couple of things we noticed on the way to Gloucester - the car was very quiet.  So quiet that we didn't realise we'd left the engine running when filling up!!  The petrol gauge never worked, it was hit and miss as to how much petrol was ever in the tank and it was rather easy to change a tyre!  It had pug-filled marks all over the body and mismatched colours - but you know what, I didn't care!  At 19 this was my ticket to freedom.

My Austin mini Metro SPORT was my 'girl racer' car.  A 1.3 no less and I drove this car around town where we met fellow 'racers' - I'm not talking fast and furious here people!  I'm talking like-minded youngsters PARKING UP chatting until we saw the milk floats go past - where the racer part comes in is beyond me.  One fellow 'racer' informed me that all my pug-filled marks on my car were actually bits of sandwich and anything else that could be found laying around.  I was quite shocked at this and when I asked him how he knew he responded with 'I filled it!  Small world.

I loved that car - I think I mentioned that before, I also love the boy racer who filled it and now we have a 12-month-old son 18 years later when we met up again - like I said, Small World.

The only picture I seem to have of my first car - the inside - and the father to my son some 18 years later;)