What was your first drive and where ?
Discussion
First drive on the road:
4.00pm on my 17th birthday, driving instructor waiting when I got home from school. 2 hours driving and manoeuvring a 1967 Triumph Herald around Bromley and Orpington in Kent. To be told at the end, I should apply for my test straightaway, passed six weeks later.
Not very exciting, but an experience I still remember 42 years, 40 cars owned, and 1m + miles later.
4.00pm on my 17th birthday, driving instructor waiting when I got home from school. 2 hours driving and manoeuvring a 1967 Triumph Herald around Bromley and Orpington in Kent. To be told at the end, I should apply for my test straightaway, passed six weeks later.
Not very exciting, but an experience I still remember 42 years, 40 cars owned, and 1m + miles later.
Mine was a Vauxhall Velox, in 1961 round a disused railway repair and storage depot, with my elder brother changing gear( column change)I drove, he did the rest cause I couldn`t reach the pedals.I remember many old pre war cars dumped in and around the site which made a great playground
Dads series 3(i think) Hillman Minx in about 1965 Drove it round the flats where we lived in first and second gear The one and only manual column change Ive ever driven.
Car was shortly to be written of though, by a nun driving into the back end at the lights on the Old Dee Bridge in Chester Happy days!!
Car was shortly to be written of though, by a nun driving into the back end at the lights on the Old Dee Bridge in Chester Happy days!!
My first real drive apart from sitting on my Dad's knee steering the V8 Pilot? I guess you'll all go green but it was in an E type when I was 14. A friend and I went to the next village and back and in the months that followed stripped it into a grass track car - no doors, etc. to lighten it. Oh, I think I made a mistake at the beginning - it was a 1948 Series E Morris which was one of the first casualties to fail the new "10 year test".
My first drive was in my brother's Berkeley T60 three wheeler (for those of you who don't know what that is there's one pictured below a couple of years ago at Goodwood) 
He's about 3 1/2 years older than me so he would have been 16/17 so I was 13'ish. He hadn't got me a birthday present so instead he gave me the keys to the Berkeley and said "let's go for a spin!" It wasn't exactly the type of car to blend in, being bright yellow with a noisy two-stroke motor cycle engine so when we passed Dad out walking the dog we knew we were in trouble, but strangely he said he hadn't seen who was driving 
He's about 3 1/2 years older than me so he would have been 16/17 so I was 13'ish. He hadn't got me a birthday present so instead he gave me the keys to the Berkeley and said "let's go for a spin!" It wasn't exactly the type of car to blend in, being bright yellow with a noisy two-stroke motor cycle engine so when we passed Dad out walking the dog we knew we were in trouble, but strangely he said he hadn't seen who was driving I was born in 1961. My uncle (mother's brother) had a MK2 3.4 manual with overdrive reg no 880 EXV. 1962 from memory. His insurance policy back then stated cover for 16 year old drivers as third party fire and theft. So at the age of 16 with a provisional license my first ever drive was a 3.4 Mk2 Jaguar with the old moss gearbox. I had to have a knee op so I only drove the Jag for maybe two months after I was 16 and maybe two months before I was 17. I remember driving over friant way near wembley and it lunched its fanbelt. A young police officer stopped behind us in a MK2 popular plus escort and asked what the problem was. (I really thought I was going to get knicked). My Uncle explained what had happened. The PO took us down to midnight motors on the wembley trading estate, waited whilst we sourced a fan belt and then took us back to friant way. We fitted the belt and off we went. Can you imagine that happening in this day and age. I swear that is how it happened.
I know a little digression but again the truth. I had my test date come through 20 says after my 17th birthday. No way was I going to take it in the Jag so I approached the driving school at the top of our road for lessons. Again MK2 ford basic escort. I had one lesson only, got berrated by the instructor as I kept stalling the car. I explained that I was used to a Jaguar with far more power and he said I had a cat in hells chance of passing my test and should book a series of lessons and refused point blank for me to use one of their cars on the test.
So I went to the Harrow test centre with my uncle in the Jag. Unbeknown to me at that time the chap that took me on my driving test was the chief driving examiner for the middlesex area. My Uncle requested that he accompanied me on the test as it was his car. I remember the examiner shutting the passenger door and myself telling him that he had not shut the door properly as with all these old motors the door shuts with a particular thud. So the test continues and I find myself at a set of traffic lights turning right next to what was the abc bowling alley in north harrow. As I start to make the turn a car runs the red light, I nail the Jag, smoke the inside rear wheel making sure that I do not exceed the 30mph speed limit and of course I reckon I've blown it. I relax and carry on. Well I past my test first time, 20 days after my 17th birthday and in a NK2 3.4 Jaguar.
I know a little digression but again the truth. I had my test date come through 20 says after my 17th birthday. No way was I going to take it in the Jag so I approached the driving school at the top of our road for lessons. Again MK2 ford basic escort. I had one lesson only, got berrated by the instructor as I kept stalling the car. I explained that I was used to a Jaguar with far more power and he said I had a cat in hells chance of passing my test and should book a series of lessons and refused point blank for me to use one of their cars on the test.
So I went to the Harrow test centre with my uncle in the Jag. Unbeknown to me at that time the chap that took me on my driving test was the chief driving examiner for the middlesex area. My Uncle requested that he accompanied me on the test as it was his car. I remember the examiner shutting the passenger door and myself telling him that he had not shut the door properly as with all these old motors the door shuts with a particular thud. So the test continues and I find myself at a set of traffic lights turning right next to what was the abc bowling alley in north harrow. As I start to make the turn a car runs the red light, I nail the Jag, smoke the inside rear wheel making sure that I do not exceed the 30mph speed limit and of course I reckon I've blown it. I relax and carry on. Well I past my test first time, 20 days after my 17th birthday and in a NK2 3.4 Jaguar.
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