My First Car in 1958

I purchased my very first car in Belfast in 1958 it was a 1935 Standard and cost me 5 Pounds sterling. Not a lot of money for a good car in those days, that is of course if it ran. I had just turned eighteen and thought I knew everything??? So off I went to buy a car without the benefit of an elder and more experienced person along to advise. My little car didn’t look quite as nice as the one in the photo, but was the same model and did look quite decent. What attracted me to the car were the wheels, they weren’t the old fashioned spoke wheels but disc wheels known as easy clean wheels. I thought they looked great on the car and made it look modern. Anyway I bought it and drove it home feeling very proud of myself. The street where I found the car was flat maybe even slightly down hill and the wee car moved off smoothly. Where I lived it was a wee bit steep and this was where I encountered my first difficulties, the car could barely make it up the hill to my front door. I spent a week trying to improve the performance, installed new spark plugs, new points and condenser, cleaned everything I could think of and tried to drive further up the hilly street to the main road, didn’t make it. After various experts gave the car the once over it was decided it had almost no compression, in other words the engine was worn out. My leave was almost up so I arranged to park the car at the back of my brother-in-laws shop. We drove down the Falls Road, which fortunately was down hill and were making good progress until a red light stopped us. Finally the light turned green and slowly ever so slowly we began to move through the intersection, before I reached the other side the light was red again. We did manage to reach the shop and park the car, I returned to my ship, and a few months later Dan managed to sell the car for 3 pounds. I was grateful and glad to see it gone,
it had cost me roughly eight pounds by then and still didn’t run worth a damn. A good lesson was learned, and it taught me to be more careful in future, fancy wheels a good car does not make!!! I have made so many more vehicle purchases since then than I care to remember. However I can honestly say the great majority of those were more sensible purchases. I may not have become rich from all those cars but never lost any amount either and the most important part was the fun.
God Bless and keep reading