Previous Bikes and Cars

My first foray into the world of transport started in 1971 with a Suzuki 50 then a Honda 90 but my first "real" bike was a CZ 175.
I tried various colour schemes and accessories to get it to look right but as you can see, it never really made it.
Mind you, the crowd I hung around with at the time didn't care what you rode as long as you did...

I left home in '76 to join the Army and ended up doing my training at Catterick.
While I was away I bought this to get me around Yorkshire.

Back home for a while but the Reliant never made it any further than Oxford.
So I got me a Yamaha 350.  It looked a lot better than the CZ, especially with the flamed tank. 
Unfortunately it tended to blow holes in the pistons (or maybe it was just the way I rode it - nothing ever changes).

Ah well, time to move up to a proper bike at last - a Royal Enfield 350 Bullet:
Spot the Army inspired Salisbury Plain landscape sprayed on the tank.

After blowing a hole in the Enfield's piston (!) I decided it was time to settle down and buy another car.
A 1956 VW Beetle that was nearly as old as I was.

Off to Germany now with family, so I sold the Bug and bought a German built Ford Escort:

Then stepped up (via a sad 2 week period with a BMW 320i) to a 2.0 V6 Ford Taunus (Cortina).
This picture was taken at the Inner German Border - where I was in real danger of being shot if I strayed any closer to the barrier.

Upgraded this to a 2.0 Ford Sierra Estate on my return to UK - no pics though - it wasn't that inspiring.
After that it was time for a much newer car - this time a British 1.8 Ford Sierra that was only 6 months old.

When I left the Army in '98 I was lucky enough to get a job with a company car.
Unfortunately the cars I drove weren't the sort of thing you took pictures of (and they weren't mine anyway),
being a Ford Mondeo and Fiat Brava. 

When it was time for me to get my own car again I went for a Mazda Xedos6.
2.0, V6 again - but this time not a Ford...

After that it was a Mazda MX6 (2.5 V6 which started like this:

and ended up looking like this:

I also spent some time working for CCL UK and got to drive plenty of good (and some bad) cars, including these: