So these are my first words in this particular corner of the internet. Although… I have actually tried blogging before and that quickly paled into insignificance so don’t be too surprised if you see more of the same here.
If your not interested in internal-combustion, a number of wheels greater than two and less than eighteen (but probably four most of the time), and driving cars that could be considered nothing less than anti-social, click away now. That means you Prius drivers. For the record, drivers of 1.2 Corsas- you can stay but just know that your car is nothing like what any normal person would call fast and I probably don’t like you.
I always have been a car person: the sort of person that you don’t want to be stuck on your own with for more than 30 minutes if your conversational repertoire barely stretches past football. Quite how I’ve managed to stay an ‘enthusiast’, with all of the obstacles that being a young driver in the UK brings, is beyond me.
My first car was actually quite interesting, albeit shit. An MGB GT- no not the V8 and no not a nice one. Rubber bumpers, raised suspension and flakey black paint. Yep a US market one, even worse than the original. Thankfully I was just 13, so I never had the displeasure of driving the thing. But I wanted to.
My Dad sold it for a K-reg Landrover Discovery, with a 3.5l Rover V8 no less. Sure, it made more noise than power and used more fuel than an aircraft carrier whilst accelerating even slower. But it was quite cool, at least I thought so at 14. And, being an off-roader, I got to have a go. I was hooked.
After we found out that it was more rust than car it had to go and I didn’t have anything until I was 16. My Dad had a couple of decent motors: a V6 406 coupe in red and latterly a tidy CLK cabriolet, which went much better than it looked.
When it came to finding my first actual car there were a couple of choices. When I learned that BMWs Mini Cooper was still far too expensive, I had a look at MG ZRs in trophy blue. Thanks to insurance I swerved that head-gasket shaped bullet and ended up in a slow, boring, French, 1.1 litre, 8 valve, French, Pug 106. It was, at least, blue.
I then had a boring C2, also 1.1. But that was actually quite nice (which you may have trouble believing- and who could blame you). Now I’ve got a little Suzuki Swift Sport. It begins….
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