Re: Your very first car.
My first car was a 1947 Hillman Minx.
Side valve engine, with a "thermo syphon" cooling system ie no water pump, leaf springs front and back, cable brakes, suicide doors, semaphore indicators, bucket seats(!), tons of room in the back seat area and massive but narrow wheels. It had those absurd vacuum driven wipers than slowed to a crawl when you went up hill and which you could operate separately, the front windscreen opened forward and it had a sunroof that leaked. Awful car but at 17 I thought it the bees knees.
I bought for £10 from a bloke at work - that was two weeks wages! I had a lot of fun with it before I broke a half shaft and scrapped it prior to emigrating to Australia (what is it with British cars and broken axles?)
I am pretty sure I still have the manual for it somewhere and some pictures but I found this on the web