Modified cars where did it all start for you?

Excellent topic. My story similar to Dan's but it was the late 90s, my schoolboy days were spent dreaming about a Gemini blue mk2 escort with signal green 4 spoke revolutions and roll cage. That car was the car I wanted to own above all others. Belonged to a mechanic at the local garage and was in a fleet of escorts with contrasting colour wheels. He had a white mk2 rs2000 with purple revolutions too.

In fact here it is

My old man used to run our local scrap-yard, or vehicle recycling centre as they're known now, so all sorts of cars used to come home and all sorts of engines chucked in over a weekend. One of my personal favourites was a red mk4 cortina 2 door that had a capri 2.8i v6 shoe horned in over a weekend, then the old man brought home a metallic red Cavalier SRi 130 which was about 12 months old when he acquired that. When I was 15 I managed to get an apprenticeship with Volvo Truck and Bus so was on the tools and surrounded by lads doing the same, ended up working for an engineering firm that was responsible for developing race engines. My first car was a mkII escort 1600 sport on twin 40's followed by a string of mk4 XR3i and RS Turbos, a couple of Orion Ghia I and a long list after that.

A mates older brother used to read Street Machine and Custom Car, so we used to read his magazines when he was at work.

And then in September ‘87 I broke my leg, which coincided with issue 1 of VolksWorld coming out, so I had loads of time to dream and scheme and decide what I wanted.... I guess that was around the start of the UK cal-look scene, and it sort of exploded from there. Went to the first Bug Jam on my own because none of my mates wanted to go to a beetle show, but I was 16 so had to scab a lift and then walk from the main gate aaallllllll the way down with my tent and pack
Bought a wreck of a beetle at the start of ‘89. It was all I could afford on my £56 a week apprenticeship wages and then fixed it as best I could with my limited skills and resources... still loved it though

Lowered it myself, and got it a bit wrong.... it had about 3” clearance with the sway-always wound up. Should have started with a better base, but I was always skint and kept crashing/braking it

A set of Capri alloys and an XR3i front spoiler on my Mk3 Escort.

I cut my teeth on SJ's, my first being an SJ410Q, 1 litre 5 speed spanish-built soft top, abused offroad but what a cracker. We kept it on for years in my grandfathers garage but I stupidly gave it away about 7 years ago maybe, to find it had just ended up being scrapped.







I also had a SJ413VJX 'Samurai', the japanese built tin top. But I used that solely on-road as it was quite tidy.



After that I had a Mk2 Golf Driver, that was quite differently modified for it's time. Everyone was going single lights, debadges and 90 spec GTI bumpers, I went the other way. (that's my brother in the car, I don't think I ever looked that young ever)





After that, my car history is pretty well documented on here. In fact the first SJ even had a thread as I battled it's tin worm in vain with a gasless MIG before getting the MGB.

Citroen AX GT in 1998. Magnex exhaust, white 15” compomotive MO’s with 195/45 Yokohama tyres, 40mm lowering springs and the torsion bar wound down.

That was my first car at 17.... and I’m still slamming heaps of ‘bleep’ now I’m 40.

Being an older fart, I grew up where the car modifying scene was HUGE and the roads were empty,
My first foray into modified cars was buying 2 magazines, Car and Car Conversions, and one of the first issues of Custom Car, Going to the 2nd Crystal Palace Custom Car show, and helping Eddie Wimble push his first Model T onto a trailer. that was quite formative in my pre driving years, 1st car at the age of 15 was a Ford Pilot, that just sat outside the house and rotted even more than it was when I was given it, that bad, the banger racers had given it the swerve, that was scrapped, next was a Mk3 Zodiac Farnham Estate, that got lowered at the front and raised at the rear, a set of Rusty appliance five spokes, and big BFGs on the back, went round corners like a large jelly, that ended up being sold, too scary for me, after that I settled down into the fold, A 2 door Corsair with a Ian Walker built 1500 pre crossflow, lowered on genuine Lotus 6"Special Equipment wheels, (god knows what they would be worth now) that is the only car I have written off. As an engineering apprentice I owned a series 22 105e Anglias, which were powered by various engine from a Genuine ford Cosworth MAE, A F3 crossflow, Lotus twinks, V6s, a Genuine Superspeed Little Red Rooster, every single one lowered on steels.
I then thought I wanted to go faster, Brands Hatch, Lydden and Santapod were weekend Haunts, had foray into circuit racing in special salons in the late 70s, fec, that was expensive, still kept my finger in by buying a very clean Mk1 Zodiac from a Certain Andy Harris, then proceeded to fit a 289SBF much modified, a good quick car, offered silly money for it, so it went, its still about today. then a pre airflow Mk1 cortina from Nick Arlett, which turned out to have a Highly specced crossflow built by Ron Harris, a mate begged me for that, and I relented, he chopped it up to pro street it and its still in a garage and will never be done. a 105e appeared on the horizon then, very clean, best looking anglia I ever built, burst a liner on the seriously over bored engine and was sold to a mate who still has that, meanwhile I had bought an Austin Devon Pickup to put in a SBC and go drag racing that was half built and a Devon Woodie Factory Prototype was offered to me, rotton as a pear in the woodwork dept, the steel was MINT, woodwork is not my Forte, but I sold on the pickup and started to fit a Jag IRS 3.9 RV8 etc, got the woodwork very near, and a mate just casually mentioned that he would never take his kids out in a car made of wood, that ruined it for me instantly as this was going to be a family hotrod, A mk1 escort then graced my garage for a while, I gave that to my son as a 16th birthday present, he still has that too, I built a Mk2 Cortina, with a very quick RV8 in it, which ran 11s in street trim, had a serious medical issue, (a burst artery in the brain, which I made a full recovery) That made me think my car days were over, got divorced, had to sell the cortina because I took it out for a drive and scared myself sh-tless, and regrettably sold that too. I then had to move house because of the divorce settlement, Bought a house without a garage, Built a Garage, 6 months on from moving I had started to build a Austin 7 with a toyota 4age in it. the shell was a stinker. more rust than metal, that is now in storage waiting for a better body to appear. still needed to have something else, so I now have an Austin a35 van the the aforementioned toyota engine shoehorned between the inner wings, not far away from being on the road now, my builds have got much less frantic now as I have got older, and I still have an Itch to build a 2door Mk1 cortina or a 2 Door Consul Classic, not a silly build, but I have a set of rare wheels that need to be on a car,
I'm Now 64 and am really proud to say owned or I have been building modified cars since I was 15, yep, thats 50 YEARS of fun.

I've always had my head turned by interesting cars, but for me it all began here:



I bought this at the age of 16. Boy was it rotten.

The seller was so happy with the agreed price, they delivered it for free - it had no MOT so arrived on an A-frame.

I got my dad (who has no car interest at all) to drive it to the test centre and it broke down at the end of the road. It got towed to the test centre, and failed on at least £1k of welding alone, as well as needing a new front axle, headlamps and various other parts. They advised me to scrap it and buy a better one

A lot has gone on since then, but here's the same car, in the same place, with the same phone box and postbox 20 years on:



I still have it