Left-field choices for young drivers

...it's odd the tricks memory plays. (You can hold the senility jokes).

If I'd been asked which car I learnt in, I would confidently have replied "a dark blue Escort Mk2", but it's now dawned on me that the model year of my Mk1 Escort post-dates my passing the test, and that the Mk2 was introduced some three years after that date  .

Must have been a dark blue Mk1 Escort, then (though the picture in my head is still Mk2 - I suspect I am simply seeing a girlfriend's dark blue Mk2 that I spent an awful lot of time keeping on the road)   

First car I drove was a....Nissan Micra. On my 17th birthday, during school lunchtime. Didn't get on with the instructor though so switched to another one the week after who had a Mitsubishi Colt. The second generation which came to the UK I think. A C reg if memory serves me. Met blue. Gearbox was a bit shagged, and it used to slip out of first sometimes when pulling away. It did this to me on my hill start on my driving test, but I managed to catch the car and stop it rolling back. Second time of asking, off we went. I passed.

Whilst learning I'd also been practising in my Mum's Escort MkIII 1.6 Ghia. What a machiiiiiiine. Met red, velour seats, luxury. 5 gears, big wow. I remember the first time I tried to drive it, I couldn't get the clutch bite point right and kept stalling/kangarooing. Took me ages to get it. No idea why, had no such problems in the other instructors' cars, and once mastered I had no idea what the problem had been.

Talking of old motors, I overtook a Vauxhall Cavalier on the motorway this morning, an N reg, one of the last before they went Vectra. It was being followed by a Honda Civic of the latest generation, which was so much bigger, the difference really struck me. The Cav looked like a toy, and yet it was the "class" above things like Civics in those days, a large family car.

How's about one o'these...

www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/202001065863393

I'd be perfectly happy, but of course we're all different. I get where you're coming from though.

People would pay good money to see WDB and WDB jnr. inside that wearing the headlining as a rasta hat. That camshaft probably knocks like a bag of hammers too.

I had forgotten just how hideous the Belmont was.

I like C segment saloons. Always have, always will. I know not why, I just do. I saw a couple of lorry loads of brand new, white, Ford Focus saloons on the motorway in Slovenia last week, heading up from Turkey to a Hertz compound no doubt. Much prefer the saloons to the hatches in terms of looks. Always preferred Orions to Escorts, Regatas to Stradas etc. I suppose it extends to the D segment too. Never much seen the point of hatchbacks, a saloon is a nicer place to be, and if you need more practically then get an estate. I guess that's the mindset in a lot of Eastern Europe/Middle East where saloons are still popular and you get things like the Citroen C4 saloon and Peugeot 308 saloon, which just wouldn't sell here.