My first car

When I was younger, my father always told me that any teenagers first car should be a "scadonk" . His reasoning was quite simple "you are going to crash it, so rather crash a piece of scrap then a nice new car"

Strangely, my father seems to be in the minority in this opinion. Through my teenage years I watched many friends crash their fancy new BMW's and Mercs, watched their parents buy them a new one, only for them to crash that one shortly after, and every
time I remembered my dad's wise words.

So when eventually I did buy my first car, it was worse then a "scadonk"

I bought a  Fiat Uno that was barely holding together.

It had many problems. Its paint had not been finished, so if you touched or leant on it, you'de come away white, which is why it got the nickname "Chalk", If I turned left my drivers side (right) door would fly open. My boot's hydraulic lifts pulled rather then pushed so every time I had to open the boot, I had to use a plank to hold it open. When I changed gears I first had to search for the gear, and it felt like stirring porridge. It had a top speed of 80 and shook like hell when I reached that, but it got me to where I needed to go and it used the tiniest amount of petrol. It was a perfect first car!

And guess what....... I never crashed it , and (touch wood) none of my cars since,  but if I had it would have been cheap to fix

So to all you parents out there, don't buy your recently licensed teenagers new cars, because chances are they are going to crash them, get them a nice used car. It will get them to where they need to go and will teach them to value their car, so that when you do eventually spoil them with a new car, they will be more careful and more appreciative :-)