My first motor vehicle was a 1959 Lambretta 175cc motor scooter. I bought it (for £5) in 1969, so it wasn’t particularly old by today’s standards (or perhaps by my standards of today), but vehicles showed their age sooner in those days. This was actually not a bad machine, and the only chronic problems were an unenthusiastic electrical system (the lights were terrible), a rear transmission oil seal that I became extremely familiar with and a strangely twisted shaft for the kick-starter. This last problem caused the starter to fall off every so often, and eventually I lost it. I got very good at push starting the Lambretta. When I eventually came up with enough money for a new kick-starter the solution to this problem was a piece of wire tying it to the frame, so that when it fell off it would drag along the ground as its own alarm.
But I was young and foolish, and the undisputed fact that the Lambretta was fun and did all I needed was nothing against the desire for A CAR.