Known as 'the cheese wedge' by most people, this was purchased from my parents for £10 per week when I was 19. People rate the Princess as an example of the British car industry at its worst, but it never gave me any problems and I couldn't complain about it. I 'modified' it with some very nice seats from a crashed HLS model I found at the scrap-yard. There were a few bloodstains on them but they scrubbed out. It's a good job I had no sense of style because blue seats in an orange car really must have looked dreadful. Another 'cool' addition was some 'alloy effect' wheel trims. I lost 2 however so I had 2 normal ones on one side and 2 of the 'alloy' ones on the other. So what? Who can see both sides at once?

My first leap into 'performance motoring' and another terrible example of the rubbish our car industry turned out. Again though, this never let me down and I have no bad memories of it. The one thing you had to get used to when entering into TR7 ownership is that everyone suddenly knows someone else who's TR7 went on fire or who's pistons came though the bonnet, and boy do they love to tell you, whether it was true or not. Although you put this down to jealousy at the time, it did stick in your mind and you were always careful not to rev it too hard! Unfortunately its perceived 'performance' was not as I expected and my mate's Fiat 1.6 blew it into the weeds at regular intervals.

Despite my Dad's advice not to buy a foreign car (I've never taken his advice before or since), I purchased what turned out to be one hell of a good car and a future icon of the motor world. This was a pristine example and I had a lot of fun in it. It was so unlike anything I had ever driven before, the engine revved like a turbine and it handled brilliantly. Unfortunately, later on, events in my life took a sudden downward turn and I was left broke and car-less.

In 1986 I went self employed and this was all I could afford. An Ex-BT van with about a million miles on the clock and a hole by the accelerator pedal that you could see the wheel through. In winter snow came through the hole, propelled by the front wheel and dropped on your foot. I eventually bodged a piece of hardboard in place to stop this happening. Then, in the middle of winter the heater blower packed up. You had to wear a thick coat, and scrape the ice off the inside as you drove along - not much fun. I eventually bodged on an enormous electric blower from a Skoda engine which plugged into the fag-lighter and was plumbed in with Hoover - pipe. This got me all warm and toasty again.

This started life as a 1.1 Popular, but I managed to do an engine transplant in my Girlfriend's Dad's garage and replaced it with a 1.3 Sport engine. This was on a different planet to the old engine and gave it a lot more 'go', I really should have updated the brakes as well though, but I was too busy nailing on a rear spoiler and lots of Cibie spotlights to the front. This engine transplant meant you now couldn't buy an exhaust to fit this now 'mongrel' car so I built one out of several bits I had lying around. I pity its subsequent owners trying to get one to match. Good fun car. I remember Go West, 'We close our eyes' on the tape player....

Dubbed 'the poor-man's RS2000' even though it had a better engine, 5 gears, low profile tyres and lots of other extras. It also sounded much better, emitting a brilliant rasp at about 2500 RPM. Unfortunately, like all Fiats of the time, it suffered from the dreaded tin-worm and as a result I don't think there are any living examples of this car left. Mine was bright orange, the same as this photo and a great car. 

Well, it's back to Ford and another motoring icon, the excellent XR3i. Ford took an ordinary Escort, gave it some nice alloys, spoilers, spotlights, lowered suspension, bigger brakes and a 1.6 fuel-injected CVH engine and created every boy racers (and man racers) dream. It was affordable, looked good and went well. Unfortunately at this time I was given a Company car so it had to go...

Got the sack. Handed back Company car. Started a business with my mate who had also got the sack. We borrowed cars for a few weeks then I bought a red Sierra Estate. Back to basics again. I thought it was the 5 speed model because it had 5 gears on the gear-stick but I got stitched-up because when I had bought it and tried to engage 5th, it wasn't there, it was a 4 speed! This car did the trick for a while until we were making enough money to move on.

This was a bit late because 2 days earlier I had bought this car from a dodgy-looking bloke that I didn't know from Adam, for cash in a car park! It dawned on me that I may have just shelled out two grand of my hard earned cash for a stolen motor. It took a week before I found the courage to do an HPI check, but amazingly it was clear. The only problem with the car was the fat lazy git who owned it had never done a minute of maintenance and it took ten minutes to start. A new set of glow-plugs later and a gallon of oil and we set off for many happy miles.

Continuing with the Mondeo theme, we were making a bit more money so we invested in some nearly-new ones. Good, reliable comfy motors.

Still working hard, and a trip to the BMW garage for a drool one day resulted in us ordering 2 of these, one in silver and mine here in black. These were de-chromed and had nice alloys and one of our customers who I unwittingly overtook called it a 'black missile'.

Two years later it was back to the BMW man for a 330 Coupe. Still the best, most complete and satisfying car I have ever owned.

The top didn't come down much because being middle aged, male and heterosexual, I felt like a complete cock and I soon realised I should have bought the Coupe instead.

This is deliberately a bit less overt than the M3 and so doesn't evoke customer's jealousy quite as much. This was my first foray into Audi's domain. Again a great motor for motorway work with a 200BHP turbocharged lump under the bonnet. This was a bit of a shock after 6 cylinders and rear wheel drive though. Why not another BMW? - I couldn't find one that blew my skirt up even slightly when it was time to change the M3, so it was off to the Audi dealer down the road.