My First Car

One thing everybody remembers is their first car.

My first car was a powder blue 1977 Vauxhall Cavalier.

It cost me $200 from a dealer who'd accepted it as a trade-in. After I bought it, a mechanic friend of mine told me its engine could host a Weber twin carb, which would vastly increase the power of the 1600cc 4-cylinder engine. When he popped the hood at his shop, he let out a low whistle. "What?" I asked.

"This is an Opel Manta engine." (Opel Mantas are, essentially, rally cars – fast as hell.)

The engine had no business being in this model car; the dealer who sold it to me can't have even looked under the hood. My mechanic still managed to install the new carburetor, though. Now it was a souped up rally engine!
My friends came to call it "The Beast," in reference to the expression the beast within because it looked like a poorly lamb but roared like a rampant lion. The bugger went like shit off a well-swung shovel.
The highest speed I dared myself up to was 120 mph on the motorway, and it was still accelerating strongly. I was bricking myself. The body was shaking like a rusty leaf. The power pulsing through the drivetrain was overwhelming my little two door saloon and my pounding heart. I eased it back to 75 wearing a cold sweat.
There was nothing my friends liked better than riding with me and goading other drivers at traffic lights into a drag race. I know, I know, it sounds like a scene from Grease, but I won't deny enjoying a brief bout of smug satisfaction when I'd leave a BMW owner in a swirl of squealing tire smoke.
One summer I Beasted 3 friends to a music festival in Skegness, 120 miles away.

As Britain has no open container law, my passengers got their beer on in a big way, tossing the empties in the front side footwell. By the time we got to Skeggie the shotgun rider was knee deep. When we opened the door cans tumbled out onto the tarmac. Highly amusing stuff when you're 19.

It was in Skeggie that I christened The Beast by banging some bint in the back seat.

On the way back to Scarborough the exhaust fell off.

I didn't bother repairing it because without the muffler it now even sounded like a race car. You could hear me coming from 100 yards away. It was fun for the rest of the summer, cruising the sea front, watching the sidewalks ahead packed with holidaymakers turning their heads dominoes-style to see whatever such a din was heralding. I'm sure they all expected to see some tricked out hotrod growl past; instead they got a rustbucket chugging along like a tractor with several youths lolling from the windows, listening to rockabilly on the cassette player's single speaker, trying to look "fifties" cool with cigarettes ludicrously dangling from lips that had rarely brushed a razor. Looking fucking stupid was never so much fun…
I had to put The Beast down after a violent incident with a fence, a steep bank, and a wheat field. It managed to limp around town for a couple of weeks, but eventually I got a ticket for driving an unroadworthy vehicle. It would have cost thousands to fix it, so I scrapped it.

I didn't really think too much about it then, but now, when I think back, I can't help but smile whistfully and stare off into the middle distance.