First cars, first loves

Banging stereos, loud exhausts and bodykits may have been all the rage for young drivers in the not so distant past but it seems buying habits are changing and tech is the number one buying consideration for the upcoming generation. They’re also spending more on their cars than ever, the average £4,000 cost of a first car five times that of the same back in the 90s when many of the Auto Trader reviews team were first taking to the roads. That thrill of first car ownership and the freedom it brings is just as powerful, though, and those memories stick with you for life. With Valentine's Day in mind here we remember our first four-wheeled loves, and share some of our early adventures along the way…

My first car was an Austin Metro. And my second, after I wrote off the first at 10mph in the snow, given that's how easily a rusty Metro could fold in half. I still love them though, and dream about buying one, complete with parcel shelf.

I learnt to drive in a diesel Ford Fiesta belonging to my driving instructor Vicky Vrooom and, at first, I looked at buying my own before falling hard for the seductive looks of the Fiat 500 and buying one of those instead. Having learned in the Fiesta it took me ages to master driving a petrol car but once I got the hang of it there was no going back to diesel, and I quickly upgraded to a Mazda MX-5!

Like many young drivers I didn’t actually buy my own car to learn in – I borrowed my mum’s. Which was fine because she had great tastes. Driving other people’s cars then became a professional calling, so it was a while before I actually owned one myself. That car was a gorgeous imported Subaru Impreza belonging to my brother the DVLA were possibly going to crush over a disagreement over its serial number. Fed up with the saga he gave it to me and said “it’s yours, if they take it bad luck, if they don’t then enjoy…” Even with this threat hanging over it I promptly spent a fortune souping it up with bigger wheels, uprated brakes and the essential throbby exhaust before taking it on various track days and trips to the Nürburgring on the basis if it was on borrowed time I was going to make the most of it. And the DVLA? They never came knocking, thankfully.

My first car was a G-reg third-generation Ford Fiesta I nicknamed Georgia. She was with me until my 21st birthday, had a manual choke and one of those CD players you had to plug into the tape cassette player. On a cold day I had to let her run full choke for at least 20 minutes before the car would go, but Georgia never let me down … even when I drove onto the beaches of West Wales to surf and the tide came halfway up her wheels.

I learned to drive in my mum's Fiat Cinquecento … well, I tried. The pedals were so close together I kept pressing the accelerator and the brake at the same time with my size 12s. That’s definitely what the problem was. Not my awful pedal control. Or the fact that my head was touching the roof. Anyways, I managed to convince my dad to get my mum a bigger car ... a Fiat Punto. Gold. I loved that thing. Sadly, so did the local roustabouts, who, upon discovering that it could be accessed using only a screwdriver, nicked the radio. Then nicked the replacement radio. Sometime later they nicked my dad's Ford Orion. Then the following night they nicked the Austin Montego that the insurance company gave him. Then we moved house.

My first car was a Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 SXi. I'd been working Saturdays in a car repair shop since I was 15, saving up all my money to buy my first car. I bought it just before turning 17 so that I could modify it before I passed my test – it was the 2000s after all! It was lowered, had 17-inch alloys, a big exhaust, an induction kit and bright blue neons. It attracted quite a lot of the wrong attention and within 48 hours I'd been pulled over by the police twice - regulations on undercar neons were unclear, but blue lights were considered to be imitating the police so I had to be ... more considered when I turned them on.

My first car was red Fiat Punto with ... no engine. My dad went to auction to get a car for my sister and decided to make the budget go further by getting a lesser car for her and also one for me – he came back with a functioning red Peugeout 106 GTI for Hannah and the engineless wonder for me. His intentions were good, of course, but it made dad unpopular with mum for failing to understand the assignment, me very unpopular with Hannah and in turn my dad very unpopular with me in the long run because the car sat on the driveway for eight months which was like a constant reminder of what could one day be... Eventually, Hannah's godmother Geri helped us source a new engine via my mum's uncle's breakers yard and I was finally on the road blasting Garage Platinum III classics on the route to and from college.

A two-door coupe inspired by thinking big in the USofA. Downsized for Dear old Blighty. I bought it just before my test because I fell in love with it when I saw it parked just near Manchester Uni. £450 I think. First drive was from Manchester to Nottingham. I remember it had the turning circle of an oil tanker and half way home the gearbox seized up and I had to drive half the journey in second but it just needed some gearbox oil, I think. First and last classic car I owned. A beautiful pain in the backside!