Throwback Thursday: What was your first motorized vehicle? #TBT

[#1]

It's Thursday!

In Iceland, the youngest you can be to drive legally on the streets is 15 and it is a license to operate a 50cc or less motorcycle/moped. We of course always called it a motorcycle. This beauty was my first motorcycle. It was amazing how much freedom all of a sudden came into my life.

I was able to easily go to all over and not having to rely on getting back home on a bus or bicycle or walking. I also made new friends from parts of town that were kind of far away. A whole new dimension in my life. Fun times!

So... what was your first motorized vehicle?

Let’s make it a great Thursday!
KGM

[Valerie Knapp]

My first car was a 1978 Chevy Malibu in about 1999. I started working retail at about age 16 and also taking my brother to school so this was the car for the job, which was purchased from my great grandmother. It got terrible gas mileage but it was steel and so strong and heavy in the ice and for first-time drivers to learn in.

[Stuart Capel - London]

one of these bad boys!

Renault Mégane, they don't make them like this anymore...

[Trish Cescolini]

At 9 years old, I was finally given my first set of wheels...a blue Honda Trail 70.  I think my father was tired of me tearing apart his lawn equipment in an effort to build a motorized go-kart.  When I turned 16, my father and brother took me to get my driver's license, testing with both the family car and a street-legal dirtbike.  After passing both the car and motorcycle driving and written tests, my father asked which vehicle I wanted to drive home.  I picked the dirtbike.  50 years later, I'm still twisting the throttle.  As a matter of fact, I purchased a new KTM 250 enduro bike just last winter.  Maybe some day I'll grow up.  Side note, at 18 I got my very own car...a blue Camaro Z28...manual transmission (of course).

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

Holy cow, @Trish Cescolini , age 9! And what a Camero!!! Happy you are still twisting the throttle. Is midnight blue your color?

@Valerie Knapp 1978 Chevy Malibu is a set of sweet wheels! That is way cool.

I remember Renault Mégane but never driven one, @Stuart Capel - London 

[Danno]

@Trish Cescolini don't ever give up on the twist of the wrist until you absolutely have to. And that is one beautiful Z-28.

[Danno]

Gotta laugh. My first motorized vehicle was a riding lawn mower.

[Trish Cescolini]

@Kristjan Geir Mathiesen - Origo bright blue metallic was and still is my color of choice.  If I could score a Shelby Cobra SuperSnake in bright blue with the white stripes I would be in heaven. 

[Tuncay Senturk]

2010, my first car (Renault Megane)

[Taranjeet Singh]

That's a really great topic, @Kristján Geir Mathiesen , and it reminded me of my younger college days when I was 18 and got my first motorized vehicle, which was coincidentally a Honda motorcycle, namely, "Honda Passion Plus". Those were some great fun days and I made the most of this golden time riding my first vehicle to my college with my friends and a lot other places inside and outside my hometown in India.

[Alex Koxaras _Relational_]

@Kristján Geir Mathiesen oh boy!

Memories started flooding my head! Outstanding topic!

In Greece you were allowed (and I think still is) to drive a motorcycle, of 50cc (you can drive a car when you are 18 yo). So me, born in a town in Central Greece where there wasn't any sight of a hill or bump, I wanted to get a motorcycle. So my dad bought me, my brother and my sister a Honda Chaly. That looked liked this when bought new:

All nice and white and pretty and that smell of rubber and of something new! Awesome feeling! I was riding this beauty everywhere! And I mean everywhere! Even in school, which was literally 5 mins of walking, I would take this bike to go there! And of course there was the fights with my brother as to whose turn was it to ride it!

But of course, being 16, a teenager with pretty much nothing else to do in my life the above motorcycle didn't stay like that. Mirrors were thrown away (because...yeah..I was a rebel and "down with the system"!). Exhaust was changed to something more... noisy.. A lot more noisy :) The things that prevent mud and water from coming all over you were thrown as well because yeah... I liked mud :)

Basket, the thing behind the seat and some other stuff went missing. And it looked something like the one in the following image (although that's not mine). So yeah... that was a bada$$ motorcycle and I felt like James Dean, if James Dean had long hair, spoke greek and rode a chaly! :D

[Summer Hogan]

My first car was a White Nissan Sentra. Fun fact about me: I was very scared to drive so I didn't get my license until I was 25 years old! 

[Andy Gladstone]

I bought this used in 1995, it was 10 years old with over 100,000 miles and was primarily used by a industrial plumbing contractor to haul pipes, tools and parts to and from job sites. It needed a lot of cleaning when I got it, and you had to pump the gas a dozen times before turning the key. But it really created some fond memories in Junior and Senior year of High School. It was certainly not the coolest car among my peers, but it was unique! It also took us on some epic road trips around upstate New York and New England. Never got a speeding ticket in it (obvs) but got plenty of equipment tickets for electronics not working! 

1985 Chevy Cavalier Station Wagon 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I'm a bit fuzzy on "your" in the sense of ownership, so I'll type up three stories.

The first motorised vehicle I took control of was one of these:

It may even be the one in the photo I nabbed here - it's a Sikorsky S-61 taking off from St Mary's airport.  As a small-ish child with way too many engineers and scientists in the family, and sitting in the back on my way to or from the holiday, OF COURSE I WANTED TO FLY IT.  And the pilot gave me a go.  

The next interesting one happened in my 20's.  I got to drive a

But I did not own either of those, I think the question was aiming for the first one I owned, or at least drove a lot.

I learned to drive in three cars, a battered old Mercedes my dad used for work, which was a good starter because it was automatic, the Vauxhall Astra my driving instructor had, and then another one that was cheap to buy, run and insure.

I think of that last one as "my first car", even though it belonged to my parents.   Dad got it to help me learn, give mum a run-around for when he'd taken the big one, and when I passed my driving test, he delegated "drive your sister around" duties to me.  Literally, I got home from my test, said "yay I passed" and he handed me the car keys and said "Well done, now take your sister to see her friend"

I had that for a while, but moved on, most of my other driving has been done in non-descript cars that my partner or company owned at the time.  Can't remember what most of those were.

But I did go back to what Dad got me.  Which was a

That's the one I think of as "my first motorised vehicle".  It's the same model and colour as both I think of as "mine".

It gets better (you probably won't believe this, but it is true).  When I got the second one, I was living on my own, in an uninteresting street walkably near town and the station, so I did not use it a lot, mostly supermarket runs for gitty kitty and tins.  But...

The chap across the street was, and still is, a renowned Citroen expert who specialises in 2CVs.  That's not the unbelievable bit.  It's his name - Michael Knight.  (Not sure that's going to resonate with anyone under 40, but I thought I'd try)

[Sayed Bares _ServiceRocket_]

My first car was Perdua Myvi, something similar to this:

I later on sold it and got a Toyota Camry, I haven't changed my car yet and I barely drive anymore, I prefer walking and cycling specially when pandemic hit

[vikram]

My first motivized vechile is LUNA 

[Dave Mathijs]

At age 15, I inherited this Italjet XS which was the "paddock shuttle" of my granddad, used during the karting races of my uncle. What a fun dirt bike it was.

At age 16, my dad bought me my first "bromfiets", a 50cc Peugeot 103 Racing, upgraded/tuned with a watercooler and sports exhaust.

[Steven Mustari]

Such interesting posts! So much fun.

I'll bring boring with my 1991 Ford Tempo. 

[Marta Woźniak-Semeniuk]

Never really owned one, but I remember one my dad had - look like this one.
Polonez from 1994 

[Brant Schroeder]

I had a Tri Zinger that I zipped around the country on.

[Fabio Racobaldo _Herzum_]

My first vehicle was an amazing yellow zip fast rider :))))