My first vehicle purchased a few days over 60 years ago, was a 2.25 litre diesel Landrover IIA with indirect injection. Manually controlled glowplugs were only needed when the engine was cold.
I learnt to drive on the garage breakdown 1955 petrol LandRover around 1969, then in 1976 I had a 1967 diesel 2 1/4 LWB, around 1983 I had a nice Series 3 SWB diesel, then later I bought a SWB 2a petrol that I fitted a Ford York diesel engine in, mainly for towing when I started self employed. Also I bought a 1985 Defender 90 diesel SWB.
I enjoyed all of them but realised a good diesel van did the same towing job but was more comfortable to drive less cramped driving position.
The York diesel I could manually use the cold start/excess fuel device when towing to get instant grunt/torque when going up steep hills, though the person in the towed vehicle couldn't see for black smoke
Thinking back I also had a 1971 FX4 London Taxi with leather seats etc. That one had a 2.5 BMC diesel.
In between all those I had BMC Sherpa 1800 diesel and a couple of LDV 200s with the Perkins Prima diesel, oh! thinking back again, I also had a Mk1 Ford Transit and a CF Bedford with the old Perkins 4.108 diesel and of course my 1947 Karrier Bantam Series 2 with another Perkins diesel engine the 4.203 which had been retro fitted by the garage using it for recovery.
I still have had more petrol vehicles, but you can see I am not averse to the smell of diesel
