Club GTI Nottingham

I learned to drive on a Massey-Ferguson tractor. And here is me and my banger-racing car.

There are those who reckon my driving has never improved since those early days .... although I reckon a resounding wallop at speed by a 3.5 litre Rover with it's bonnet up called for some retaliatory driving ....

Sadly, that was the end of the scaffolding-reinforced Ford!

My first Dub driving experience was my Dad's VW Derby, which was still going strong up to a couple of years ago.

If only everything in life was as reliable ....

Which unfortunately can't be said of some of my early cars, which were far past their best by the time I acquired them. (Can you tell I'm a bit past the 'boy-racer' age?) These Morris 1800s (the front two were mine) had a tendency to leak their hydrolastic suspension fluid and had to be pumped up again every couple of months. In the meantime, it meant driving around with a distinct list to one side!

However, the red one lasted till well past 100K miles (quite a feat back then!) and was last seen towing a caravan around Wales.

The blue one had an interesting water feature - because the window seals weren't very good, whenever it rained heavily, the two front doors used to fill up with water, and you could hear it sloshing around as you drove! It met its demise when a wall fell on it during a gale one January!

There was also a Ford Capri, but unfortunately no photographs of that have survived. Then I had a Yamaha motorbike. It wasn't very powerful, but it was absolutely lethal, so after a couple of years, and with a desire to live longer with all my parts intact, that was sold.

The XR2 that came next was almost as scary as the motorbike. Too much wheel-spin and looking up other vehicles' exhaust pipes! I hated it, so that soon went.

After that was my BMW 325. I loved this car, though it was a gas-guzzler and horrendously expensive to buy, insure and maintain.

Sadly, I was involved in a head-on crash in this (it was the other chap's fault, honest!). Considering the impact and the amount of damage to the car, I got out of it with quite minor injuries. It was repaired, after a lot of argument with the insurer and a certain horrendous BMW dealer in Nottingham, which is why I will never have another BMW!

Next was a Vauxhall CDXi Carlton! It did have one redeeming feature - it was built in Germany!

When the speedo packed up, my partner worked out what speed it was doing from the rev counter according to which gear it was in. Maths isn't my strong subject, which is how I came to be doing 118mph on the M1 one sunny afternoon, but that's another story......

Next came the Rover 600. I liked this because it had all the toys and comforts that most of my other cars never had
- power-steering, air-con, 6-stack CD player, ABS, etc. And it was reliable, whatever its reputation!

Last - and still - I have a Golf. It has none of those comforts, but apparently, they're only for wimps ....

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