Memories Behind the Wheel: Staff Share Their First Drives and How They Shaped Their Love for Cars

The first time we sat behind the wheel probably had the biggest impact on our passion for automobiles. The very act forges our feelings of motion and control, and this is something we likely never forget. At least that’s the theory, so we asked the staff here at Hagerty Media to see how their first drive changed their lives.

But one of us threw everyone a curveball, suggesting that the definition of a “first car we drove” might not be set in stone. Because you can still be driving if your legs are too short to touch the pedals, right?

Eddy’s Capriciousness Chevrolet

If you’re generous, Uncle Sanjeev, with your definition of “drive,” maybe this will count. I remember sitting on my dad’s lap in a full-size Chevy, probably a late-’70s Caprice, in the early ’80s. Wonder of wonders, I could see over the dash! And what’s this—control of something? I could feel the slight changes in direction as I moved the wheel left and right, my dad ensuring that I didn’t deviate too far as we idled along.

We lived on a sleepy, straight street called Luikart Drive in Euclid, Ohio, that dead-ends at the shore of Lake Erie, and ours was the last house on the right. I did my best to turn the car into the driveway, and once we shifted into park I couldn’t wait for my next chance to get behind the wheel of something.

— Eddy Eckart

In THAT Case… Sajeev Mehta (Actually his Dad)

By Eddy’s definition, this 1975 Mercury Montego MX was the first car I drove. It picked me up from the hospital as a newborn, and a few years later my parents found me worthy of sitting in their laps so I could turn the steering wheel in rush-hour traffic or in a parking lot.

That was certainly fun, but it was also great to not be sitting on its black vinyl seats in Houston’s painful summers. I am starting to enjoy the dichotomy of old and new memories, as I am perfecting my “new” Montego and writing about it on this website. Puttering around in my new one makes me wonder how kids get into cars at an early age these days: I would be safely strapped in a car seat if I was that age in these modern times.

Not that I am complaining, it’s just that my early memories of spinning that steering wheel seem way more fun than watching the YouTube Kids app on an iPad.

— Sajeev Mehta

Buick

My mom let me slide over and “drive” the family’s ’76 Buick Estate Wagon from the center seat on occasion, well before I had my license. It seemed easy, a natural segue from arcade games, RC cars, and the other entertainments of my youth. I think she was like a lot of people today who experience autonomous driving for the first time; nervous and watchful at first, then practically asleep within two minutes.