My first - a
1935 Rover 'Ten' Sports Saloon.
Given to my father when he was in his mid-40s, and thus he then learned to drive. Engine was shot, and so Dad bought another complete '38 'Ten' in Slough for a fiver. He and a neighbour-mechanic transplanted the engines, and so we had a runner. Not content with that, Dad rewired the whole car from scratch (he was an electrical design engineer), re-trimmed the interior, and fitted a heater. As a 16-year-old, I re-veneered the dashboard at school.
The same neighbour who presented us with the Ten later gave us his old 1947 Sports Sixteen, a ton-and-three-quarters of 6-cyl 2.4L.
The Ten passed to me in 1966, a year after I had learned to drive on it - crash 'box, double-declutching, and a touch of Rover Freewheel! Dad had been my teacher, and quietly accepted that I had got through the test first time, while it had taken him four attempts to do the same. During the year between school and college, I had the engine rebored, ground and re-metalled (white-metal ends!). The Ten went with me from Ealing to college in Warrington, and provided daily transport for another two years. When a 1960 Rover 3-litre was offered for just £45, I couldn't resist, and the Ten went back to Ealing, to be sold to an old school friend. We never knew what happened to it after that.