What silly misconceptions about cars did you have as a child?

HangTime

HangTime

HangTime

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..or an adult, I guess :)

For me, I thought my Dad's 1.3L Austin Allegro Estate would do 120mph, because the speedo went up to 120. In reality I think the top speed was about 85mph and because it was quite old even getting it to 70mph wasn't straightforward when it was loaded up.
 
I think most people of an age will have done that!

Though I do remember looking up my mate's mum's new FIAT in the brochure she got and seeing the top speed was 95mph, she got upset because we were all laughing about it while building lego.

I also remember roaming about in the back of land rovers with bench seats and fold down middle seats. Or rear facing seats in Volvo estates. The misconception was that any of that was in any way safe.
 
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My dad used to let me pretend to drive while the car was parked at home when I was like 6, we got a new car, new car had a steering lock (old one didn't), two minutes into my pretending the steering locked, I thought I had permanently broken the car and had a full on breakdown haha.
 
My mother on a long car journey once told me and my brother and sister (all sat in the back arguing and doing her head in) that we should stop mucking about with the door lock buttons because if everyone pressed all 4 car door lock buttons at the same time, the sun roof would blow off like in a bond film, and it would cost loads to replace. My sister believed her since she never lied, but my brother and I called her out on it and she went mental. This was on a 5 hour car journey ooop north in the back of my Dad's Sierra where we drove her to the brink of break down, acting up. It was so bad, she got my Dad to pull over on the side of some road and she went for a walk round some random quarry to get her head right. My Dad went absolutely mental at us and we then very much did stfu for the rest of the journey pondering whether a sunroof really would blow off if we pressed all the door locks at the same time...
 
Back when I was 16 just getting into cars buying Max Power, Fast Car, Redline etc, I thought that engine capacity was the be-all and end-all in terms of how fast a car could go. I remember having a conversation with colleagues at Tesco where I confusingly learned that my Dad's Mondeo despite being a 1.8, would get easily done by a Golf GTI 1.8, and to my astonishment even smaller capacity engined cars. I asked him how this could be and he ended up giving me a lift home and demo in his Volkswagen Polo G40 1.3ltr (G-ladder supercharged). I made a new friend that day.
 
HangTime said:
..or an adult, I guess :)

For me, I thought my Dad's 1.3L Austin Allegro Estate would do 120mph, because the speedo went up to 120. In reality I think the top speed was about 85mph and because it was quite old even getting it to 70mph wasn't straightforward when it was loaded up.
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Haha, just this weekend I noticed my Mondeo speedo tops out at 160mph and my mind went back to being a kid when you'd one-up your mates about how fast your dads car could go. Such cocky innocence. Not that I could be cocky. We had a Fiat Argenta, Nissan Bluebird and a Lada Samara when I was that young, top speed was the least of concerns.
 
One more....
Had a mate that would not accept that his 1.0ltr mk1 Fiesta was driven by the front wheels. He just assumed all cars were RWD. My mate got in and wheel spun it in front of him (just about) so he could see the wheels spinning.
 
Ormy1 said:
My dad used to let me pretend to drive while the car was parked at home when I was like 6, we got a new car, new car had a steering lock (old one didn't), two minutes into my pretending the steering locked, I thought I had permanently broken the car and had a full on breakdown haha.
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Reminds me of when we got our first computer for Christmas, which booted up in BASIC. Went downstairs and there was a message waiting saying "happy xmas to HangTime & HangTime's sister". I then decided to add "and also to HangTime's cat", to which it simply responded "SYNTAX ERROR.". I was mortified about breaking our brand new computer and was in a panic for about 10mins before plucking up the courage to go back up to my parent's bedroom and confess... :)
 
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wesimmo said:
I think most people of an age will have done that!

Though I do remember looking up my mate's mum's new FIAT in the brochure she got and seeing the top speed was 95mph, she got upset because we were all laughing about it while building lego.

I also remember roaming about in the back of land rovers with bench seats and fold down middle seats. Or rear facing seats in Volvo estates. The misconception was that any of that was in any way safe.
Click to expand...

Hah - can't remember model but early 80s we had some MPV type thing with 2 rear facing seats which were little more than a bench where the boot cover folded in half back on itself and harness style belts without any tensioners - not sure they were legal even then.
 
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Didn't consider how much the things would cost to run and maintain!

As an adult. Didn't think modern Fiats really fell to bits. I was wrong.
 
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When I was little (so in the mid 90s or so) I used to judge a car fully on its bumpers. A car with metal bumpers was old, a car with plastic bumpers was new and a car with plastic bumpers with a chrome strip was "medium". Whenever my dad mentioned a car I would ask what type of bumpers it had and that's all I needed to know.
 
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When I was at school, there was a girl who was always fascinated by any car which had rear headrests - the car didn't matter as long as it had rear headrests!
 
I used to think that cars were propelled forward by the gas leaving the exhaust, and that's why sports cars with more exhaust pipes went faster.
And also that the top speed on the speedo was the car's top speed.
jaybee said:
Back when I was 16 just getting into cars buying Max Power, Fast Car, Redline etc, I thought that engine capacity was the be-all and end-all in terms of how fast a car could go. I remember having a conversation with colleagues at Tesco where I confusingly learned that my Dad's Mondeo despite being a 1.8, would get easily done by a Golf GTI 1.8, and to my astonishment even smaller capacity engined cars. I asked him how this could be and he ended up giving me a lift home and demo in his Volkswagen Polo G40 1.3ltr (G-ladder supercharged). I made a new friend that day.
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To be fair, I think a lot of people still think this.
 
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I remembered another one, I'm not sure how it came about but I was absolutely convinced that a Q plate meant military vehicle, not Kit Car.

Quite how effective open chassis single seaters with less plating than an engagement ring would be at launching a military assault, I'm not sure.
 
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