My first car was a 1976 custard-coloured Datsun 200B. I bought it from my Uncle Andy for $800. Aged 19, I was now free to explore my Perth universe.

My car had no air-conditioning, no wing mirrors and often no petrol. After a week of crunching the gears to locate reverse, I snapped off the gearstick knob into my hand.  “Knobs don’t like rough treatment,” Mum sighed. I rammed a squash ball onto the gearstick and drove it like that for the next four years.

My Datsun boasted six ashtrays – we teenagers didn’t let driving inconvenience our smoking. The flip-down trays in each door panel blew ash in our faces as soon as we wound down a window. Two larger ashtrays slid side by side out of the dashboard, side by side, in case driver and passenger didn’t want to share.