Most influential car as a kid?
Discussion
Hell27 said:
I loved the Rover P6 3500S, as my dad had one, wonderful sound and I loved the dashboard, plus I thought the Viking badge was cool.
Dream car at the time was a Lotus Esprit, then most TVR's - it was the wedge era, so the 4500! I also remember seeing a BMW E28 5series in red thinking that it looked awesome. Still does, I'd love an E28 528, 535 or M5.
Mine was always a Series 1/2 E-type Coupe (like the red Corgi model) until Ferrari brought out the Daytona, then it had to be one of those mainly because for years it was the quickest car Autocar magazine ever tested!Dream car at the time was a Lotus Esprit, then most TVR's - it was the wedge era, so the 4500! I also remember seeing a BMW E28 5series in red thinking that it looked awesome. Still does, I'd love an E28 528, 535 or M5.
Barring a EuroMillions lottery win neither of those is ever going to happen now though. 
But when I was 20 in 1979 I bought a 1973 Rover P6B 3500S in Mexico Brown, mainly because I couldn't get insurance on a 3 litre Capri! Ragged the a*se off it, but the handling was like a blancmange in a hurricane - still loved it at the time!
And it was rotten as a pear, as most were! Remember it driving especially randomly when one of the De Dion mounts pulled out of the rear inner wing - started to take it apart for a mate with a welder to fix and found the other side had already been repaired at only 6 years old!
On the plus side on the odd occasion I didn't drive like my a*se was on fire it passed under the radar well, and in the dark one flash of the lights got everyone out of my way on dual carriageways and motorways as the front lights had a fairly distinctive layout and they didn't know it wasn't the BIB!!
Thought about buying an SD1 V8 some years later, but by then Capri insurance became affordable (mainly because I worked for an insurance company and knew who to ask for a favour!) and I didn't need rear doors or seats so 2.8 Injections beckoned! Happy days.
Some great replies here fellas, thanks.
Straying slightly from Dad's influence, I can relate to the holiday theme very much.
Citroen SM's and Renault 5 Turbo 2's form various trips to the Cote D'Azur.
I remember one year when I was perhaps 15 we couldn't find a room so drove overnight from Grenoble to Antibes. We were in a Light metallic blue SAAB 900i flat front with four bloody great cibies on the front. We settled in behind a couple of locals and all three of us drove 'briskly' over the mountains and down to the coast.
Brilliant!
Jimbo
Straying slightly from Dad's influence, I can relate to the holiday theme very much.
Citroen SM's and Renault 5 Turbo 2's form various trips to the Cote D'Azur.
I remember one year when I was perhaps 15 we couldn't find a room so drove overnight from Grenoble to Antibes. We were in a Light metallic blue SAAB 900i flat front with four bloody great cibies on the front. We settled in behind a couple of locals and all three of us drove 'briskly' over the mountains and down to the coast.
Brilliant!
Jimbo
Porsche 917 was the first car that I ever saw and heard, where it had a real impact on me. I was fortunate enough to get a toy one for the following birthday. BMW County Championship at Brands Hatch was my first real introduction to the marque, before being there again when VLM were doing a photo shoot with their E30 M3's in Labatts livery. Remember being stood near the exit from Silverstone and seeing a black road car accelerate hard. It just compounded the desire, to have one, one but it took a good few years to get my own.
Edited by e21Mark on Saturday 3rd October 11:34
The car that sticks in my mind, not that I've been consciously influenced by it so far as I can recall, is the XR4i Sierra, the one with the double spoiler on the back. It made an appearance at the local Gala Day (presumably it had just been launched), I must have been about 5 or 6, and I clearly remember thinking it was brilliant. I wrote about it and drew a picture of it at school the following week, and went on and on at my dad to get one. Later I had a Corgi model of it that was my favourite toy car for quite a while.
Oddly though, despite as a 5 year old thinking it was the most marvellous car ever, it never transferred to a wider enthusiasm for Ford, nor into a particular yearning to own one or even find out more about it later. I have no real idea whether it was, at the time, a good car or not. On the rare occasion that I see a Sierra, I think of my XR4i obsession.
I was super-impressed by a friend's dad's Audi Coupe, too. I don't recall if it was a quattro, but it was by far the coolest car nearby. The dashboard SPOKE!!!! He was a dirty b
d too, ended up shagging his secretary as I recall (the dad that is, I don't know about my friend, maybe in the years since he too has shagged his secretary) which in retrospect makes the car seem cooler in an adulterous sort of way. At the time I wasn't aware of him shagging his secretary, obviously.
Oddly though, despite as a 5 year old thinking it was the most marvellous car ever, it never transferred to a wider enthusiasm for Ford, nor into a particular yearning to own one or even find out more about it later. I have no real idea whether it was, at the time, a good car or not. On the rare occasion that I see a Sierra, I think of my XR4i obsession.
I was super-impressed by a friend's dad's Audi Coupe, too. I don't recall if it was a quattro, but it was by far the coolest car nearby. The dashboard SPOKE!!!! He was a dirty b
d too, ended up shagging his secretary as I recall (the dad that is, I don't know about my friend, maybe in the years since he too has shagged his secretary) which in retrospect makes the car seem cooler in an adulterous sort of way. At the time I wasn't aware of him shagging his secretary, obviously.Bentleys. When I was a little lad a friend of my Mum took me out for a ride in his S1 Bentley and I was just amazed and mesmerised. It was so quiet and smooth ad everything worked with such precision, such a contrast to the horrible Cortinas and Corsairs we had.
Then, I saw an S1 stripped for a respray in a small garage in Kew which I passed every day on my way to catch the tube to school. I so loved that car...
I read all the exploits of the 'Bentley boys' and the silly novels like 'Speed six' and 'four wheel drift' and just adored them.
It was always Bentleys though, rarely Rolls Royce and I harboured a grudge for years over the way RR treated poor old WO when they bought the company.
I hate the fact that they are now VW products, but I guess that is better than disappearing.
Then, I saw an S1 stripped for a respray in a small garage in Kew which I passed every day on my way to catch the tube to school. I so loved that car...
I read all the exploits of the 'Bentley boys' and the silly novels like 'Speed six' and 'four wheel drift' and just adored them.
It was always Bentleys though, rarely Rolls Royce and I harboured a grudge for years over the way RR treated poor old WO when they bought the company.
I hate the fact that they are now VW products, but I guess that is better than disappearing.
rohrl said:
I had this Matchbox Hispano-Suiza from when I was very young. It was my "special" toy and maybe it kindled a lifelong interest in cars.
My Dad was a lorry driver and used to deliver huge rolls of paper to the Matchbox factory. He used to bring me lots of cars home, along with the cases Matchbox used to make. I was only young but evidently I used to sell them to other local kids, through my nan's garden gate! 
I had a bit of a Hot Wheels obsession and always loved Scalextric too. My dad always had boring, slow cars and is about as far removed from a petrolhead as it's possible to get.
My first experience of a reasonably quick car was of a BMW 525i (E34 I should imagine). A mate's dad was driving, we were about 8-9yrs old. Going onto a dual carriageway he absolutely booted it. I remember the sound of the straight 6 at full chat as much as the acceleration. The noise a car makes has been a hugely important part of my car enthusiasm ever since.
My first experience of a reasonably quick car was of a BMW 525i (E34 I should imagine). A mate's dad was driving, we were about 8-9yrs old. Going onto a dual carriageway he absolutely booted it. I remember the sound of the straight 6 at full chat as much as the acceleration. The noise a car makes has been a hugely important part of my car enthusiasm ever since.
Hell27 said:
I loved the Rover P6 3500S, as my dad had one, wonderful sound and I loved the dashboard, plus I thought the Viking badge was cool...
Same here although it wasn't my Dad's - he used to get picked for work in his mates' Mexico Brown 3500S and I was mesmerised by the V8 burble, the Hunstman vinyl roof and the almost Porsche-like 'Captain Scarlet' S wheeltrims. With four big burly donkey jacketed blokes aboard, it would roar off down the road with such style and panache, and this image has stayed with me for over forty years and explains why I've had three P6s and two P5B Coupes in the recent past, Rover built such fantastic cars back then. At first I was disappointed when it was replaced a couple of years later by a Triumph 2000, but I grew to love that too.Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff