Thursday, January 20, 2011

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History: Week 3 - Cars


This week's genealogy and history challenge:
Week #3 – Cars.  What was your first car? Describe the make, model and color, but also any memories you have of the vehicle. You can also expand on this topic and describe the car(s) your parents drove and any childhood memories attached to it. This challenge runs from Saturday, January 15, [...]
Our family's first car was a Mini, then we had a few Ford Cortinas, and I seem to remember an Austin Maxi.

I used to get horribly carsick as a child. Especially when we had reason to travel from our home in Lower Hutt, over the Rimutaka Hills. My parents put a rubber strip trailing from the back of the car to the ground, allegedly designed to "earth" the car to the ground to help prevent carsickness. I don't think it made much difference.

My first car was purchased with my then-boyfriend. It was a red 1963 Hillman SuperMinx. I was living in Hastings by then, and we spent many a weekend, either travelling down to Featherstone to visit his father, or going further over the Rimutaka Hills (the other way) to visit my parents in Lower Hutt.

We had a series of Humbers and Hillmans, and also a Holden Stationwagon at one stage.

By the time we moved to Auckland we were the proud owners of a chocolate Mitsubishi Mirage hatchback. I inherited the car when we split, and it became my first real car that I owned all by myself.

I loved that car. I drove it all over Auckland, and up and back to Hastings on a regular basis, to visit my old friends, Even drove it all the way to Wellington a time or two.

I affectionately called the car "Mitsy" (of course), and was gutted when I had to part with her to travel overseas to the UK. I left her in good hands though . . . she was sold at a car fair to a couple of Scottish nurses that were planning on travelling around New Zealand. Made perfect synergy to me!

When I was in London my English husband bought this horrible a black Vauxhall Cavalier. I hated it on sight. Hated it even worse, when a few weeks later, someone hit the front passenger door and we ended up buying a red door from a wreckers. Only really used the car at weekends, as we used the Tube or a train to get from A to B.

Next car we had was a red Peugeot 405 sedan. I loved that car. We did a lot of travelling around in it. Often taking off for long weekends out to quaint country villages.

When I got pregnant with the twins, we realised we probably needed something a bit bigger. My husband had a son from his previous relationship, and we needed something that would fit us all, including two car seats, a double buggy and luggage. We bought a Ford Galaxy, an MPV. Another vehicle we loved.

Now in New Zealand we have a Honda Odyssey that we really love. A seven-seater, it is really adaptable, and can be a van, or a stationwagon as well as an MPV. We have a dog (Sasha, big labrador), so we can fit her in along with everything else. Its easy to drive and doesn't feel like a van.

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