Jan 1988 - my first car was a yellow 1974 Leyland Mini 1100 that my dad and I restored after I finished the HSC.
Dec 1988 - was nearly killed in a head-on crash. An old Falcon crossed two lanes to hit my Mini. Spent the next two months in hospital and another two months with my right leg in plaster.
Apr 1988 - replaced my written-off Mini with a 1976 Leyland Mini 1000. Yellow again!
Jul 1989 - replaced the "too slow" Mini 1000 with a gold 1978 Leyland Mini 1275 LS. Strangled with pollution gear but still a bunch of fun especially after fitting a Webber carby!
Dec 1992 - bought my first NEW car, a white Suzuki Swift GTi. Great engine, ordinary handling.
I still had the Mini after this to use on weekends but it wasn't getting much use. In late 1994, I traded the Mini on a mid-1980s Suzuki Sierra LWB which my girlfriend Fiona and I used for our bushwalking excursions. Sold the Sierra in ~1997 to raise some funds for our first home purchase.
Feb 1998 - replaced Fiona's 1989 Ford Telstar Ghia with a new Suzuki Swift Cino (green). It was slow as a wet week but was like a Tardis inside. A great cheapo car that served us well for several years.
Dec 2002 - sold the Swift GTi and replaced it with a new MINI Cooper S. Yellow with a white roof and white bonnet stripes. God I loved that car! It introduced me to the wonderful world of car forums, car clubs and track days.
Mar 2005 - replaced our Cino with a 2001 Subaru Outback Limited (white). Our son Alex was born 3 months earlier and the Cino had to go. The Outback seemed like a good idea at the time but was a horrible thing to drive on any surface other than dirt.
Jun 2007 - replaced the Outback with a new Volvo V50 T5 AWD (red). This is our current "family car" and we love it!
Oct 2008 - replaced the MINI with a new BMW 135i in sparkling graphite. My first ever rear-wheel drive car! What a beast!
But the 135i is a bit exxy to risk on the track (at the moment), so ...
One weekend while driving to my sister's place in Gosford, I had a brainwave: why not buy myself an old MX-5 to use as a track car? I would have to park it on the road in our cul-de-sac, but the concept was very appealing. I'd get to regularly live out my track day fantasies without it costing a bomb. I discovered that the MX-5 Club ran their own track days at Wakefield Park several times a year, and the class system looked like a great idea for competing against other drivers in similar spec cars. So I began watching carsales for something suitable. I set my sites at the bottom end of the market (<$8,000 target) and started hoping for a stock NA6 that I could run in Class 1. But I had to find a buyer for my MINI before I did anything else. I missed out on the MX-5 Club track day held on 7th December, but surely I'd sell the MINI soon, right?
Finally, after three LONG months I sold the MINI, on Australia Day 2009 in fact! Needless to say, the cash was burning holes in my pockets! On 31 January, I test drove two NA6s and ended up buying the second one from a young South African bloke in Berowra. My MX-5 is a 1992 Aussie-delivered Classic Red NA6, completely stock (except for an Autotechnica steering wheel), and had a respectable 162,000km on it. Mechanically, the car felt really good which is exactly what I wanted, and I paid only $6900 reduced from the original asking price of $8600. At the time, most were asking for at least $8000. The bad bits (that I could see): the paintwork was pretty ordinary, crapola Indonesian tyres, new brake pads required, the exhaust was patched, and only one month rego was left. I drove it home on a stinking hot day and stopped at a mate's place in Camden for a BBQ. On the way I discovered the irritating body shake at around 100km/hr which seems to be common on NA6s. My wife Fiona drove the MX-5 home from Camden later that night while I followed in our Volvo V50. She fell in love with the MX-5 after that evening drive with the top down.
My 4 year old son Alex immediately dubbed my MX-5 "Little Reddy" and the name has stuck ever since.
Here begins the diary of Little Reddy!
. The rest was easy. Job done 
