What was your first driving experience and how old were you?

I thought this was a fun topic I found on another forum so I thought I would ask it here as well.

What was your first driving experience (tractor, car, etc) and how old were you?

Mine was certainly memorable for all of the wrong reasons!

I was 9 years old and my Dad let me drive his F150 up at our hunting camp. So the driveway out was at a slight incline up to the road and as I was getting closer to the end my Dad said "Okay, start hitting the brakes now." I proceeded to SLAM ON THEM so hard that I bounced my face off the steering wheel! My Dad was laughing so hard he was in tears and then he said "Jason these are power brakes. You don't have to slam on them like you see people do in the movies!"

Then I drove about an 1/8th of a mile down the road to my Great Grandpa's farm and drove down the 2 rut road to his house. Naturally I was weaving in and out of the ruts all over the place at that point. My Grandpa happened to hear the truck coming so he watched us driving in and when he came outside he said "Brian are you drunk? I saw the truck weaving all over the place down the driveway!" My Dad laughed and said "No that was Jason driving!"

Riding lawn mower.

I was responsible for the lawn from the time I was about 8 years old.

My Mom bought a cool old lawn tractor cheap, and I mowed the lawn.

Never had a go-kart, or any other cool toys.

But the neighbor kid showed me how to disable the governor, and I learned how to not just launch the thing in a wheelie, but to ride it on it's rear wheels completely down the street.

We had mower races with all the neighborhood kids.

Fortunately, my Mom never found out.

1. My Dad built me a wood framed go-kart when I was about 7.

2. I built a coaster car with a steering wheel and brakes. My neighbor liked it so I helped him build one. Then it was ON! We built hitches for our bicycles and towed them around to different hills. We had a blast until he rolled his in a corner with much crash damage and lots of abrasive wounds.

3. When I was 9 my uncle put me on his Ford 9N tractor bush hogging his pastures. I was worn out and sunburned after the first day, but I loved it.

Mine was a Hodaka Wombat. The clutch was so worn out that you had to launch with a wide open throttle.

I took off across the side yard and froze. Couldn't remember where the brakes were and almost went through the neighbors window. I dumped in their gravel driveway.

I still love motorcycles!

My Dad would sit me in his lap to steer the Hillman Minxes and his baby blue Sunbeam Alpine, sometimes the big Ford Country Squire, at around 5 or 6 years of age. I learned to drive on the street at 15 in a Fiat 850 spider - and promptly went to court for letting 2 girls sit up on the rear. The day of my first kiss so it was worth it.

I think I was about 11 when my dad was taking me out in the hills shooting and our spot was full up. On the way back dad decided to let me drive. Logging road in an old Blazer was my first drive. Had drove the riding mower before that I suppose.

Dad bought me a gocart when I was around nine or so. Before that I got to drive the boat out on the lake starting at 6 or 7. The first actual vehicle I ever drove was dad 76 GMC pickup at around 7 or 8 around the campground. I remember trying to get it to go up a very steep graveled hill and the back end just kept stepping out.

Learned to drive in a manual '78 chevette at about 15 I guess. Whatever the age for getting a permit was back then. I didn't get my license until I was 23, but that didn't stop me from sneaking out and stealing the car to go to parties and concerts that my parents wouldn't let me attend. I was a wild child.

1. Grandpa's riding mower.

2. Go-kart I built in 4th or 5th grade. Cops made me sell it.

I was 8 or 9 years old. Farmall 100 tractor. It was a lot easier than plowing with a mule.

I was about 8 when I was first allowed to drive dad's IH cub cadet lawn tractor around. Thing was a bitch to steer for a kid on account of the ~1000 lbs of added weight to an already very heavy lawnmower.

I was about 10 when my dad let me take our K-car around the Stampede grounds in Calgary, the Stampede wasn't happening so its just a big empty parking lot.

Fueled by Caffeine wrote: 1. Grandpa's riding mower. 2. Go-kart I built in 4th or 5th grade. Cops made me sell it.

I had been riding my go cart down at the boat docks at the campground for a couple years. It wasn't a very busy place and it had a big flat area that I would ride around in. One day a game warden happened to come down there while I was riding and started tearing into me. Said he'd make it so I couldn't get my license until I was 18. He was acting like I had committed the worst crime against humanity ever. All he had to say was that I wasn't allowed to ride it there but he had to be a dick and must get off on intimidating little kids. I sold it after that because I didn't have a place to ride it.

59 CJ5 when I was 6. Dad put it into low range, told me not to shift out of first, and off I went into the field.

Downside, is that by the time I was 13, I was the primary equipment operator on the farm. Dad was dead, my older brother was running the welding shop, so three quarters of summerfallow once a month, 12 hour days on a 1370 Case...

At 8 or 9 i learned to drive the old ford f100 around the farm.

as far as I can remember, I was always behind the wheel of something. Whether it was sitting on my dad's lap in his Opel or maneuvering around some boat or another.. that said, it was not until I was 14 that I got drive something by myself

I almost forgot mine; I had a neighbor across the street from me that had a couple of go karts, along with some other kids from down the street. Every now and then, I was able to drive one of them. I was probably 10 or 11, and I didn't remember it much so I must have drove them very seldom.

i was sitting on my dad's lap and steering his 73 Monte Carlo all over the place when i was about 5 years old- back then (late 70's/early 80's) the cops just waved when they drove by you..

my grandpa taught me how to do donuts in a hay field with my dad's 30 Ford Model A street rod... his only instructions: "turn the wheel, push the gas pedal all the way down, and hold on"... then when we got back onto the pavement, he taught me how to do a brake stand... that was fun..

When I was about 5 or 6 I used to climb onto the Farmall and push the starter button. It would lurch ahead in gear for a bit. Thank god it never caught or I wouldn't be here.
I wasn't much older when dad had me drive the international flat deck truck from the back of a field while he followed on a tractor. He showed me how to let the clutch out and give it a bit of throttle, but he never thought to tell me how to stop. I got to the road half a mile away and just put the clutch in. Of course I rolled right across a busy road and down into the ditch on the other side. Again pretty lucky to be here.

1st memory…. sitting on my dads lap with him holding my hands on the steering wheel.

First bike, honda atc70 for my 4th birthday.

Then when I was 9 he taught me to drive in a toyota 4x4 on the powerlines/ fireroads. He used to make me do hill starts for hrs and drive for miles in reverse using only my mirrors, at the time I thought it was torture.

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I still own the truck…. A lot of firsts in that truck.

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5

1948 Piper Vagabond

Which is disturbing as I couldn't really see out the front...

Though, Lindy crossed the Atlantic with the same view I had

T

When I was four I drove my dad's horizon into the neighbors rose bushes, I didn't have the key or know how to stop it as my brothers pushed it out of the shop and down the hill.

Had go karts and mini bikes from then on.

About ten my cousins taught me to drive the manual trans tiny nissan parts truck for my uncles service station. we used to drive around the parking lot behind the station at like 10 or 11 at night

Started out at approximately age 5 on one of those lawnmower engine minibikes. By age 8 I was driving riding lawn mowers, a 8N Ford tractor and a thing called a King Midget. Not ours but it looked just like this:

It had a snowmobile type transmission, there was a lever under the seat you moved to get forward or reverse. My brother and I broke hell out of that thing bouncing across newly plowed fields.