MY FIRST CAR
Car enthusiast Robert MacGregor has had some interesting cars over the years but his first was a standard Mini.
“It was a mushroom grey,” he said. “A rather unattractive colour but it did have a hydrolastic suspension which was great. I must have been 17 or 18 so this would have been 1977 or 1978.
“I added some go faster stripes which were very much in fashion at the time. I’m not sure it made the car go any quicker but I did manage to sell it for a little more than I paid for it.”
His passion for cars was fuelled by his father Ian MacGregor, a motorsport business partner of Sir Stirling Moss and chair of the Aston Martin Owners Club (AMOC) whose family got involved with his historic car restoration projects at home.
Robert, just appointed as chair of the board of trustees at the National Motor Museum in Hampshire, is a self-confessed car enthusiast.
He is now an international lawyer based in London, but at the time he had the Mini he was trying to make a living as a squash coach before reality hit home and he went to university.
“I have had some interesting cars over the years,” he said. “I had two BMW M3s but they were stolen. One had a tracker on it but that didn’t help. The car must have been whisked away in a shipping container very quickly.
“I had a Ford Escort 1300 which through a contact of my father’s was souped up a little with some rally features. It was a super car which I was very fond of.”
He has inherited an Aston Martin DB3 from his father. “It’s a 1959 model and it means a lot to me,” he said.
But his everyday car is a Mercedes-Benz C32 AMG estate which although is now 19 years old is still an excellent car.
Robert joins the National Motor Museum as it embarks on a four-phase scheme to realise ambitions and raise more than £15m to improve facilities.
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