I started out with a Kawasaki AR50 when I was 16, I wanted a proper looking bike rather than a scooter. Managed to clock up 600 miles in the first week (150 on the first day which introduced me to the reserve tank switch, and then a 200 mile round trip the next two days down to Cheddar and back).
Then at 17 I got a Honda CB 100 in silver and with engine bars, could do 60mph and the engine sounded lovely.
After a bus went up the back of me when I stopped at a red light for road works (the bus driver thought I was going to go through the red light for some reason), I took ownership of my sisters Mk2 mushroom coloured Cavalier (which she'd had for a year and hadn't worked out how to turn the interior light on). Doing physics A level at college, part of the course involved going to the local hospital to be shown their scanning and imaging devices. A friend and I spent the morning watching an image of a woman's thyroid appear on a screen as it was scanned by a gamma camera, then in the afternoon we were supposed to go to the X-ray department but no one was there, so after waiting for 30 minutes we went and ate lunch in my car. My friend joked how good X-ray was what with the sandwiches, and the name stuck to the car. A911WUH was it's reg, and despite being a 1.3, with only 4 gears it used to fly off the starting line and even once surprised a Lotus Elise driver by pulling away faster and getting to 30mph before he caught up and flew past me.
Had a woman in a Skoda pull out across a lane of traffic in front of me, hit her B pilar and wrote her car off. She admitted liability, but then tried to sue me for psychological damages to her, her husband and her kids. She was the only one in the car. Thery played silly buggers right up until the court case where late the Friday before they faxed through a letter saying they withdrew their claim, too late for our solicitor to get it before he was on the first train from Bristol to Portsmouth. Our barrister was fuming.
The only problems I had with it was the charging wire broke and had to be replaced by the RAC, and one night on the way to (S)Hatfield Poly's observatory along a country lane, I dipped the headlights and they turned off as I was travelling at speed around a bend. Not sure how we made it but I managed to get the lights working and it never did it again.
Sold the Cavalier and got a 205GRD which was the best 205 I owned, even if 1st would sometimes pop out of gear. It went like a rocket and still returned 50-60mpg. One night returning to the University of Herfordshite I decided to go via London Colney rather than stuck with the dangerous idiots on the M25 all the way to the A1. Big mistake, I think I hit oil on the road doing 30-40 on a long curve in the road, the back span out like it was on ice, I rumbled along a fence, hit a "Bend" sign just by the B pilar which pushed into my chair, broke two ribs but thankfully moved my head out of the way for when I rolled and ended upside down in a ditch with the A pilar somewhat compressed and the roof where my head would have been. Wiggled my fingers and toes to check my back was OK and released myself from the seatbelt, only to land head first on the sunroof. Crawled out back to the road and was found by a passing motorist who called the ambulance.
Recovered and used my student loan to buy another 205. Driving it home feeling happy with a bargain my friend in the passenger seat pointed out a chip at the bottom right of the windscreen. Pondering if it would be a MoT failure I said it can't be as it's in the same place as the tax disc on the other side, and then realised there was no tax! Quickly got that sorted. She had a leak from her fuel sender under the back seat, and taking my dad's advice on which garage to use I learnt not to take my dad's advice. It took them 3 goes to find the leak before they actually listened to me as to where it was coming from, each time charging. The car, if they were to be believed went through CV gaters like they were going out of fashion, and regularly pitted it's breaklines. I decided then that I'd start doing my own servicing etc.
Sold the car to a friend when I got a company car (1.4 astra estate that was awful), and he was a wanna be boy racer, claimed he'd get the engine chipped (it was a 1.8D so best of luck with that) and complained that soon after chaning the oil it turned black. He ended up rear ending someone he tailgated and was sued by his passengers for whiplash.
After being offered the oppertunity to travel many more miles in the Astra, I turned them down and took a permanent job with DSSD (or Comax as they changed their name to, or Comix as we called them) and bought my first Xantia; a 1995 SX with a lovely big wing spoiler that had a middle leg and a brake light built in. Unfortunately at the time I owned a house on a council estate and some kids torched it, so I got another 205, which they beat up with a brick.
I gave the 205 to a friend when I sold the house and bought a Laguna II which was lovely, apart from the ECU running Windows ME that needed rebooting quite a lot and cost a fortune in tyres due to pulling over onto the hard shoulder to reboot and finding nails all the time.
After 2 years and 76K on the clock, a blown turbo (which Renault replaced under warranty despite me being lax with servicing), I traded it in for a 3 door Meganne (with XRD in its reg), not as plush as the Laguna it was still a good car and gave me no trouble, but was costing too much to own, so it had to go and I got Cassy, my Xantia estate that has brought me so much luck.
Along with Cassy, I've had Dex, a white 2.1TD estate that I bought when Cassy was off the road, and Jim took off my hands when times were tough between contracts. There is also Jenny, another 1.9TD that I bought for a friend who then instead pumped over a grand into an old Megane only to have it die 6 months later. Juliet the Activa because everyone should own an Activa at some point. (Jenny and Juliet will be sold this year). I also bought another estate with the view to doing it up for a neighbour but it was in too much of a sorry state so I stripped and scrapped it. Nigel's got the engine from it now.