A good observation.
I definitely honed my skills on old nails with skinny balding cross ply tyres, snow was a summons to go out and play, sometimes with not so good consequences.
Anybody remember James Hunt owning an A35 van and his comments on why he did so?
I took my driving test in a complete nail of an A35, I had bolted up tight the sliding clevis to the mechanical rear brakes from the master cylinder, it was the only way to get them to work (for my limited experience), it meant when you braked hard the handbrake lever came up and held the brakes on with its ratchet, as the lever was between the drivers seat and door I thought the examiner would not notice me repeatedly releasing it, quite the opposite but I believe he realised that if I was capable of double declutching (syncro was shot on all gears) while keeping a straight trajectory against the wheel shimmy with one hand while pushing the handbrake down with the other I perhaps deserved to pass.
I took my test 14 days after my birthday and had no driving lessons from anybody, when he told me I had passed and asked for my license he saw that it was already full of endorsements 😒