Tell us about your first car!

[Neeek]

My first car was actually an Austin Metro that I bought from my brother for three hundred quid. One week after taking possession, the front sub-frame parted company as I was doing about 60mph and I slid neatly off the road and into the hard shoulder, fortunately avoiding all other motorists. Got some money back off my brother and all was well.

But the car I remember as being my first “proper” car was my 1987 mushroom grey Skoda Estelle 120L – you know, the little Czech sedans with the engine in the boot and body panels made from what seemed to be cardboard. Some say that the coupe version (yes, they did make one!) handled like a baby Porsche 911. Not having had the pleasure of driving one of those yet, I can’t confirm that, but the fact that the engine is slung all the way out over the rear axle makes that claim plausible. My Skoda was the up-spec model with the 5-speed gearbox and alloy wheels, no less! I bought it from a dodgy old man who lived in town and did the four hundred pound deal on his dining room table, whilst trying hard not to look at the veritable mountain of pornographic videotapes he had stacked beside his ancient TV.

My little Skoda and I had a whale of a time. I endured all the jokes from my mates (What do you call a convertible Skoda? A skip…) and took great pleasure in being the laughing stock of the local village when I turned up every Friday night to go to the pub. These cars, quite rightly, are the subject of much derision in the UK. But it was different, and I liked its amazing craptitude.

Anyway, I had it for a total of 7 months. Caned the hell out of it doing a 30-mile each-way commute and it never stranded me until the very end. But lots of things went wrong…

- the spring-loaded choke cable snapped leaving me at WOT in traffic, which was interesting.
- I had my first accident involving another car as a result when I ran into the back of it (no damage to their car, my Skoda suffered a broken front bumper and cracked headlight).
- it overheated constantly (driving faster fixed that – radiator was in the front).
- it refused to start almost every day until the ambient temperature hit more than 5 degrees, and then it required at least 17 turns of the key before it spluttered into life.
- the coolant pipes froze up in winter (hot water from a kettle poured over them fixed that nicely!).
- it was scary to drive with no weight over the front and nearly killed me twice on slippery roads. My solution to that was innovative – place 3 concrete blocks in the front under the bonnet to weigh it down. It worked!
- the driver’s door handle broke. Twice.
- the driver’s side windscreen wiper flew off at speed in the rain.
- the exhaust manifold developed some gaping holes at regular 2 month intervals and I almost bought shares in muffler putty.

But there was plenty to like as well:

- I never tired of the jokes, and I was still one of only a handful of my mates who owned their own car rather than borrowing Mum’s…
- It was supremely comfortable to sit in, even on long journeys.
- Once the “counterweights” were installed, I took great pleasure in scaring other motorists on my favourite roundabout as I approached it doing 50mph screaming in 3rd gear, braked into the bend and let the tail-slide out. My mushroom taught me a lot about driving RWD cars.
- Driving in snow was great – the only way to get power-oversteer in a 1.2 litre rear-engined vehicle. At 10mph.
- I managed to do naughty things to my then semi-girlfriend on the still-warm boot. And she bragged about it.

Sadly, the end of my time with the little mushroom was a massive overheating episode where I looked in the mirror as I was blatting down the A47 at about 70mph to see nothing but clouds of smoke. I pulled over and lo and behold, the engine was on fire. And I noted that the temperature gauge was stuck on “Ice Age”. Because I carried many water bottles with me in the car to counter the overheating problems, I doused the flames and put the fire out. But my little Skoda never moved under its own power again and was towed home where it sat in the front garden of my parent’s house until the grass grew up to the windows. And then the newspaper deliveryman bought it (he also drove one – wonder if he liked porn too?) for twenty quid, and my little mushroom was gone.