Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) The first vehicle you drove ?

Daihatsu ?

And, IIRC, FP = Leicestershire in old money.

Although, the black car in the background could be more interesting.

Yep, Diahatsu it was, ours was also V reg but there are no photos of it, that was the only picture I could find on google of a brown one. The vent under the windscreen was just a spring loaded flap, handy as ours had a previous life with a game keeper and smelled horrible all it’s rusty days, we never tried folding down the windscreen, I’m not certain you actually could.

I had one of the later station wagon versions for 6 months or so when I was having the LR 90 fully rebuilt. It was around the time that Daihatsu pulled out of the UK market, just supporting a spares and service organisation. Once the 90 was done I sold the Daihatsu on for the same price as I paid for it. Went to a lady owner to tow her horse box.

As I recall, the last of the diahatsu jeeps had a huge 3.5 ton towing capacity even though they were still a relatively small vehicle. The one we had was rare at the time, the newer, wide arched version were far more popular.

Completely different machines! Even the standard paint was differnt😉
Porsche had an air cooled 2-cylinder engine
Steyr's 15er used a water cooled 1-cylinder motor

Here's the first car I drove. This was in 1969, a Ford Popular 100E. Cost me £40.

Apparantly, a 1172 cc sidevalve engine producing 36 bhp, a top speed of 69.9 mph and acceleration from 0–50 mph in 19.6 seconds. Couldn't come to much harm in that! The thing I remember most about it was the vacuum-powered wipers. The faster you went, the slower the wipers went, just when you needed them the most. The trick was to momenterally take your foot off the accelerator when they would thrash across the screen, then revert to a snails pace when the gas was re-applied!

This was my first motorbike, a Francis Barnett Fulmar Sport. This is a library picture, mine was a piece of cr£p.

It was a two stroke which I did not understand and above 48mph it would cut out, refusing to start again untill it had cooled down. I bought it in 1976 because my car was having accident damage sorted and I felt this was my last chance for a m/c. I passed my bike test after a few weeks and intended to buy a Honda 400 4. However, I left the showroom with a Honda 750 F1.

That was what a motor bike should be. Surprisingly, I lived to tell the tale.

I remember sitting on my dads knee and steering a Bedford van on some quiet rural roads in Cumbria when I was probably 7 or 8.

I later taught myself to drive in a 1968 Singer Vogue Estate on some spare land behind our house. I would be 14 or 15 and never asked my parents I just took the keys and they never bothered. I could get into 3rd gear before having to reverse around a corner and turn round and go back.

When i was 17 I had some lessons with BSM in a MK1 Escort 1300E which was metallic purple with a black vinyl roof. Passed my test a few weeks after turning 17

Not much traffic on the roads in those days!

Aged about 9. Early short wheelbase LandRover. I was too small to push it off a Tanganyika jack, when stuck in “black Cotten” mud. Dad taught me to drive it. I can remember sitting on the edge of the seat & virtually standing up to control the clutch. Idea was for me to drive the Landy to “firma” ground.

About 15 first time I tried a car - dads mk2 ford escort company car. He was not too impressed, he didn't know I was driving it & I had a little bit of a coming together with an immovable oak tree on private property, just a touch too much opposite lock on gravel. I didn't think it was going to be any different driving a car than riding a motorbike

This was a replacement car for his previous clapped out escort that had done over 150k miles, they just gave him his old car back as it was still in the yard.
The front end of the car I crashed was scrapped, the back end was used in as part of a cut & shut on another company car that had been rear ended & the engine was used in a third vehicle. The joys of self insured company fleets running on a budget.

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First vehicle I drove (illegally first) was a Bultaco 250 trials bike in the early 1980s then a mate's mini Mayfair. Legally was my first bike a Kawasaki KMX125 and my dad's Volvo 340 which I learnt to drive in. I've been very lucky to have had a broad range of bikes and cars since then and have been a petrol head all my life. Actually scratch that - I've just recalled being around 8 or 9 years old and my dad had a Fiat 126 which I seem to recall you could start without a key by pulling a little lever near the handbrake (something like that) and I did that whilst it was in the garage one day and managed to get reverse which took it straight in to the garage door - big mistake! One very irritate Father