By the time I was 8 I could drive and back trailers with a Ransome Syms & Jefferies caterpillar tractor that was on my Dad's market garden. I applied for my driving test on my 17th birthday but in those days (1980) there was a 5 month waiting list.
The motor school car was a pale blue Escort 1.1 Popular that couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding but my Dad had recently bought a Mk2 Escort 1.6 Ghia so that was like chalk and cheese driving that for practice at the weekend and then lessons in the week in the slugmobile.
I passed first time with the chief examiner who was a funny little man who wore what looked like a flashing Mac and his trilby but he was so short he could hardly see over the dash!
My first car was a Mk1 Escort 1300XL in Sunset Red with black upholstery. I loved that car and I always thought there similar parallels in the handling of that to the 4/4.
