The first car I ever owned was an MG Metro 1.3 with a pull-out choke. I learned to drive in a Metro so getting one of those seemed like a natural move to me. I liked the fact it looked a bit more sporty for a first car and I bought it before I even passed my test. I actually bought the thing at a car auction, which was a risky thing to do, but it was quite exciting bidding for something you want, especially when it’s your first car.
Until I passed my test I stored this thing in the garage and I used to go up and have a look at it from time to time. In the meantime I had a part time job at Safeway, which involved catching a bus to work, so passing my test couldn’t come quickly enough. I didn’t have a clue about audio at the time so I bought a set of Goodmans speakers from Argos for about £29.99 (lol).
I’m On My Way Nan, Put the Kettle On
Fast forward to when I’d passed my test, the first place I drove my Metro to on my own was my grandmothers house. My grandfather had died 4 years earlier, so it was a pity I hadn’t got to pass my test and show him my first car while he was still alive. There still isn’t a day I don’t think about him and decades have since passed. No matter, my grandmother was alive and I nervously drove over there on my own. It’s really weird driving your own car when you’re used to the driving instructor sitting in the passenger seat next to you.
Insane In The Brain At Halfords
This car served me pretty well and it got me to college and back for the next 6 months. I used to give my mate a lift there and back and we’d chat away with the MG Metro powering our way faithfully to the destination. Like any young kid, I started getting into my audio and quickly ditched the Goodman speakers in favour of a set of 6×9″ Pioneer ones.
The funny thing is that in order to test out the speakers, we got a cassette of “Insane In The Brain” by Cypress Hill, walked into Halfords, played it and tested out all the speakers they had for sale just as a bass heavy section of the song kicked in after he says, “Don’t You Know I’m Loco”. God knows what the staff inside the shop thought, but they let us do it anyway.
I must have had the MG Metro for about a year, at which point I got a job in a building society, which is a pretty boring job for a 19 year old as I was then. It also didn’t make much sense getting a job in such a place when I’d just passed an advanced coding qualification, but that is how things panned out. The building society job was too serious for me so at lunchtimes I used to make sure that I got out of there for an hour. At first I walked up and down the High Street during my lunch hour, but that was about to change.
Ford Escort XR3i In Dazzling White
Once again I headed off to the auction after getting a loan from the bank for £1500. I didn’t know I was going to buy an XR3i at the time but as soon as I saw it I fell in love. Risky things, auctions are, but at 19 I was risk averse and I’d turned up to bid with a cigar in my hand. I’m not even making this up.
No matter what happened, I’d already decided I was buying this thing and I actually think I ended up bidding against myself. They call that ‘bidding off the wall’ when nobody else is bidding against you. I only realised this when the final hammer fell. No matter, it was all mine and I know owned a bright white Escort XR3i. It looked good then, and after I’d finished with it later it looked even better.
At the time I felt like I had just bought a supercar or something. I opened the car door and it has a very distinctive smell like Fords of that era did and it sounds silly to say this now, but I felt special.
T-Cut & Wax to Catch the Eye
My mate said, “This will look amazing if you T-Cut and wax it”, so when I got back home we got in the garage and he helped me t-cut the entire thing and then wax it all over. I don’t know how long it took, as I wasn’t timing it, but it must have been a few hours. At the end when the job was done I couldn’t believe how great it looked.
At 19, when you have a car like that, it isn’t just a car. It’s part of your identity and I found myself looking out of the window at it in admiration. Up until that point in my life I’d never really owned anything of any significance other than the Metro before. Growing up, we never went without food, but there wasn’t anything extra left to go round other than a £1 a week pocket money. When I was 11 I got 3 paper rounds just so I could have my own money, but that’s a story for another day.
Back to the XR3i. Unfortunately I haven’t got a picture of it to share with you, but other people liked it as well. It looked quite similar to this one, but with different alloys:
I used to get comments about it off the opposite sex and they liked it too. I used to think it was a myth about women liking fancy cars until I worked with one that wanted to date a guy just because his car had a leather interior (lol). Anyway, my car was fucking great in my book, I loved it and that was the main thing. I put a silly sticker on the back screen that said something like “Dare to Dream”. Stickers on your car back in those days were pretty common and it’s not as cheesy now as it sounds today.
You Don’t See What I See, Every Day As Warren G
The monotony of the building society job was offset by me deciding to get in my XR3i on my lunch breaks, whack on Warren G singing songs like Regulate and drive over to my nans house for 15 minutes to have a chat with her. I’d do anything just to get away and I was happiest when I was in my car listening to music, especially the XR3i. Near where I live they used to sell amazing kebabs. I’d buy one late at night and eat the kebab in the car, chatting to one of my mates about this and that. I always remember I’d get in the car the next morning and it would absolutely stink of doner kebab. Nice!
When the Ford smell came back again, all was well.
Oh, So That’s What ABS Is?
I was driving to work one morning, keeping my distance from the car in front when all of a sudden they slammed the ABS on for no reason. I hit my brakes several times but the ABS on the XR3i didn’t work. There was absolutely no chance of me stopping in time, it was like they’d stopped in front of me on purpose for insurance reasons. This is the only time I ever had an accident in a car. I got out and they told me it was the 6th time they’d had an accident. I was so annoyed about it, but what can you do.
At lunchtime that day some kids smashed the driver window on it after I’d shouted at them for trying to break into someone elses car. They probably thought that would teach me a lesson for reprimanding them. I went out in the snow that evening, which was an error of judgement as the car conked out on a stretch of road and I couldn’t get it going again. My beloved XR3i was stuck on a road and I went to work the next day, stressing about where it was.
Why I didn’t take the day off work I’ll never know. By the time I got back to it the following evening, the police were on the scene. I had a chat with them and they were very nice about it and actually helped me get it going again. Thank the Lord.
Manchester Or Bust With The Help of Tights
I had to go on a course at work in Manchester, so I drove my XR3i there. On the way there and back I listened to the Reservoir Dogs movie soundtrack which is one of my favourite movie soundtracks of all time. Life wasn’t getting any better than listening to Stealers Wheel and Push It By Salt ‘n’ Pepa on the way to Manchester, I’ll tell you that much.
On the way back the alternator belt snapped and it slowly lost power. By sheer luck it conked out right outside my mates house. I said I didn’t know how I was going to get home and he said, “Wait there I have an idea”. He went back in the house and came out a few minutes later with a pair of old tights. He used the tights as a makeshift alternator belt and it only bloody worked.
The next day he said, “I knew the tights would get you home mate”. ha ha.
Not long after that the XR3i slowly started to fall apart, which was a tough one as I really loved it. To this day it’s still one of the favourite cars I ever owned as it made me feel special, as silly as that sounds. There aren’t many cars you own in your life that you can’t wait to get into and drive. At that time in my life, it was one of them.
Time To Look Through The Bargain Pages
I sold the XR3i to a mate that lived around the corner. I was sad to see it go. He broke it up for parts and made a mint out of it in profit. I decided the next car I bought was going to be a Peugeot 205 GTI and that’s exactly what I got.
Possibly the greatest hot hatch off all time. It’s a story for another day. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you in the next one. Let’s play this one out with the song that fits this post perfectly. Ladies and gents, I give you “Insane In The Brain” by Cypress Hill: