Nick Knowles: 'I remember my first car well - because I crashed it straight away'
Television presenter Nick Knowles says he has always been a petrolhead and still has fond memories of his first car, a Fiat 127, which he promptly crashed.
“I must have been 17 or 18,” he said. “I bought the car from my dad and it was a great little car. It had a twin overhead cam and it was a 1,275cc,” he said. “It was a beautiful Italian car and very racy.”
He said on his first drive in it alone he had a minor bump.
“I did the classic thing at a junction where I thought the car in front had pulled out and I was looking right,” he said.
“The car in front had hesitated and I drove into the back of it. I got back home and my dad was not best pleased.”
He said he only calmed down when his wife – Nick’s mother – pointed out that he had been involved in a similar accident as a youth when driving away from a showroom.
“I have had some nice cars over the years,” he said, recalling a Ford Capri 3.0 lutre John Player Special among others.
He still enjoys driving and now has a 2011 Range Rover. He has tried newer ones but prefers this older model.
He loves car styling and is unhappy that Jaguar, Ford and others don’t make more of their heritage. The new Capri comes in for particular criticism.
“I had a Jaguar XKR which to my mind was the closest to the E-Type we have seen,” he said.
Nick, 62, is from London but his mother was from Wakefield and he has still a lot of family in the area.
Nick is best known for his work on DIY SOS, Who Dares Wins and others, and recently took part in Strictly Come Dancing during which he injured his knee.