My Dad's first car, in the 50s, was one of those Ford Anglia biscuit tins, gear lever a yard long, three speeds, double de-clutch from 2nd to 1st. I learned to drive in his '65 Vauxhall Viva. I loved that. Our first car was a Morris Minor. I had to keep changing the radiator when stones shot through the grille, and the differential casing cracked open. Otherwise we loved it. There was so much room under the bonnet that you could almost get in there and stand next to the engine, and you could do the head gasket, tappets and valves with a cheap socket set on a Saturday afternoon. We had a lovely holiday in Ireland in it in 1977, where the starter handle came in handy after the starter motor decided it was going to jam at frequent intervals, and we had three punctures in four weeks. There was always the danger that the suspension top joint would come adrift, leaving you with one front wheel sitting at a 45-degree angle. Next was a Triumph Dolomite 1850. The nuts holding the exhaust manifold always worked loose and you couldn't get at them without taking off the starter motor. The front brake pads lasted 4000 miles if you never braked, less if you did. There were drilled-out recesses on top of the engine into which oil slowly leaked, which just sat there harmlessly - until you went up a very steep hill or drove on to a ramp, in which case the oil flowed backwards into the clutch bell-housing, resulting in a badly-slipping clutch for the next 200 miles. The rustiest car I ever had was an early 80s VW Polo. Brakes and a floor appeared to be optional extras. My mate next door came home one day with a brand-new Morris Marina and was proudly showing it off to me in his front drive. Less than 50 miles on the clock it had. I spotted rust in the seams (didn't want to hurt his feelings so kept shtum). Next I had a Cavalier estate. For 18 months it would mysteriously just stop, just like that, completely at random, and refuse to start again for anything between ten minutes and 24 hours, then all was completely normal again. Sometimes it went weeks without doing it, other times it would happen every other day. I was friendly with every AA relay bloke in the country. Oddly, a replacement distributor from a junk yard solved the problem. For a year we borrowed our friend's Maestro while she went on a long holiday. It would take a whole chapter to list what was bad about that car. You were thrown about like loose marbles in a biscuit tin when you cornered, you could never get more than 26 to the gallon and you could, almost literally, stand there and watch it rust. Not ordinary rust either. Sinister great cancerous tumescences under the paint, inches across, like huge cold sores that then erupted within days into flaky brown holes that you could poke your finger right through to fresh air underneath. After that, and a brief flirtation with a shit-brown coloured Vauxhall Nova (which I loved, until the driver's seat disintegrated), I very unwisely invested in a dirt-cheap Daewoo Nexia with only 22000 miles on the clock. It went like shit off a shovel but was incredibly uncomfortable and did 28 to the gallon at best. It underwent premature death when the cam-belt broke 17000 miles before it was due to be replaced.

That brought me into the modern era of the last 10 years. My cars have all been great in that time. Reliable and un-rusty. Open the bonnet and all you see is acres of plastic covers. Not my territory any more. But aren't modern cars so boring! No entertainment value, not like in the good old days!