My brother passed his test actually on his 17th birthday and he had already HP'd a Honda CBX1000 himself as he'd been working a couple of years, so it was sitting at home for him when he returned.
He used to take me out on the back, and i was only 10 years old, and i couldn't get enough of it.
He then exchanged that for a Kawasaki Z1300 when he was 18 years old.
He raced them both over a quarter of a mile at Santa Pod as well.
Makes me shudder a little bit now bearing in mind they were both extreme lumps of a bike and he was still a kid himself, but it was different times back then, and way less traffic to worry about.
Happy days.