How long have you played with cars?

Started working on my first hot rod in 1959 when I was 14. Had been addicted to the "little books" for several years. My ride at the time was a Cushman Eagle. I can still hear that gutted muffler in my mind. My friend's grandmother gave him a 1941 Ford Sedan. He was building a Model A touring car, and needed money for an Olds engine he had found. I bought the sedan for $30.00 hard earned paper route money and traded it for an engineless 1946 Ford coupe. I got a running '53 Hemi out of a scrap yard for $10.00 and bought motor mounts and transmission adapter from Honest Charlies Speed Shop in Chattanooga. Picked up a '39 gearbox and away we went with a glove box full of axle keys and skinny 16's all the way around. Got my driver's license 47 years ago today.

 

The first car I worked on was my dad's '57 Ford when I was about 11. My dad was always about ready to junk that car, but I kept fixing it. So I guess I've been playing with cars for 36 years. I remember asking for a "Motors" repair manual when I was in about 6th grade. I still have it -- it's dated 1971. I learned a lot from an older cousin of mine who was a metal shop teacher. He had restored a Model A from the ground up and he was showing me stuff like sandcasting aluminum when I was 12.

 

Since the early 60s when we went dirt track racing. When you wrecked it you had to fix it and I spent a lot of time fixing it .

 

I guess since the age of 8 (1971) or so as my parents owned and operated a service station/ restaurant that I had plenty of spare time to myself to tinker.

My father frequently tells the stories of having customers come to pick up there cars and being told that everything is repaired and ready to go only when they tried to start the engine they discovered the carb would be missing...........Needless to say after a few of those episodes and a introduction to the nearest fan belt my father could reach I moved on to the wrecks in the scrap lot........

 

Ever since i had that mullet that my mom said was in style..

 

I started off with Hot Wheels and stuff at a young age just like all the other boys. Before I started dating I would beg my mother and her girlfriend to take me cruzn on Second Ave in ElCajon, CA to see the cool looking cars. They would. My Dad was in the Navy and aboard ship. I was 12/13 years old. Once I started dating at 14 I would only date boys with cool cars that like to cruz. My favorite dates included cruzn Telegraph Rd and Woodward Ave (by this time the family moved to suburban Detroit) and trying to catch as many races as possible. My boyfriends would always let me shift from the passager seat and they always said I could shift better with my left hand, and I had a good ear for when, then most with their right.

I saved all my babysitting money and at 16 bought a '68 Camaro convert and started to do the body work. Dad was too busy working to help in the garage. I didn't like bodywork too much nor was I any good at it without any direction. Had that Camaro for a couple years then moved up to a completed '69 Firebird convert that again I bought with my own money.

Me and my sister also had to pay for our own car insurance, on our own policies, and our own fuel. Our folks paid for our education, food and had a roof over our heads but did not feel they "owed" us a car or anything "extra". We had to EARN it by working.

Anyway, I've had some sort of old covertible since the month I turned 16....and without reveiling too much let just say its been a long time.

 

Well, Lets See Here.............. I Was Born In 1966, In 1969 My Parents Moved Into An Old House At The End Of Town Where The Last People Had Left A 265 Chevy V8 In The Morning Glory Patch.

I Would Say Within About An Hour I Found It, My Dad Rolled It Out Of The Vines, Up On Some Ply Wood To Keep Out Of The Dirt, Loosened All The Bolt, & Gave Me A Small Box Of Used Tools.

I Messed Around With That Ol Chev For Months.

I Think To This Day My Mom Is Pissed Off At Him Cus Ever Since Then I Have Had Some Sort Of Mechanical Project Goin On..............and She Wanted To Raise A Cowboy To Ride Horses !!!!!

Thanks Dad !!!!!!!!!!!!:d

 

Well, I think it was 1960 when I picked up a 50 merc without a motor. I was only 14 then but I would clean that car and hoped to score a complete engine but never did. By sixteen I got a 55 ford with 3 on the tree with 272 for 50 bucks. Did alot of racing with the ford on stecker street in Detroit and college road in Dearborn. I also picked up a 41 ford at the same time I had my 55 and I was only sixteen. The 41 had a 53 merc in it. That started it all 47 years ago. Time flies when your having fun. Here I am at 61 with a 40 ford and my latest project a 64 dodge 330, it's in the blood!

 

About 30 years. Started with my old man when I was about five.

Chris

 

To my dad, the garage is a place that's too small to park his 80's tank of a Suburban, so it get's filled with furniture and boxes. I don't know where I got it from, but I saved my pennies and got a 65 Mustang when I was 16, and I've been getting more and more motorhead ever since. That was only 15 years ago though, so I've got plenty more hot rodding to do, more mistakes to make, more shit to set on fire, and more ways to hurt myself ahead of me.

 

20 some years now. Started with my dad when I was 7 or 8 had my first bike at age 13 and my first car by 15. Now age 36 I still seem to know so little. Sure am glad theres a place like this around to fill in the gaps.

 

I started about 1959 or 60 at 14 years old. My dad bought me 40 Ford but I didn't have a Dr. Lic. yet and wouldn't let me drive it (when he was home). I put a lot of miles on that car in South Austin while he was not home.

 

Mom says I used to lay on the fender of my grandfather's 48 Buick and watch him work under the hood when I was about 2.... haven't stopped yet... 50+ years.

 

I Stared Cleaning Up In My Granfathers Shop At Age 8,age 10 I Was Greasing Chassi And By 12 Doing Oil Changes At Age 14 I Got My First Car

 

My first car was a little red roadster, it had a friction motor. Made really cool zoomin' noises as I recall.

I guess sometime in the '60s. I don't recall cars ever not being expensive though, its all relative to how much disposable cash you happen to have.

 

I guess I got started as a baby, my Dad would take us to the midget races every week all summer long, occasionally to the stock car races (more like jaopies actually)...that was up to when I got my first car at the ripe old age of 15, a nice clean 1951 Ford convertible that smoked like hell. That was 1963, so about 44 years worth of hot rods, race cars, motorcycles, welding/cutting/modifying on all of them. I'm not quite done yet, sometimes I'm a little slow moving in the morning and I don't stay out in the shop until the "wee hours" any more but I still love it!!

 

I was 10 in 1954 when Post or Kelloggs (can't remember which) put plastic 54 Fords in cereal boxes. Balsa wood skirts, wire insulation for dual exhaust tips and custom fins shaped with a wood burning iron. They continued through 1957 and then AMT totally warped my young impressionable mind with the first 32 Roadster equipped with 6 97s on a hemi. I was ruined for life after that. It was a great time to be a kid. I liked it so much I refused to change.

 

Loved em since birth. Mom gave me her old rusty Mustang at age 11 and it's just finished it's 2nd life and is on its way to a 3rd. I got 12 years out of my shoddy teenage workmanship. I'm hoping to have it fixed up again by the end of next summer. I've driven that car 70,000 miles since I was 17. I'll be 30 next month, so that's almost 30 that I've been playing with toys, but almost 20 that I've been playing with real ones. The worst part is that I own 3 old cars and now that the Mustang's apart I feel like I need to get another car to pick up the slack! I love almost anything with wheels!

 

My dad bought a 57 Chevy brand new, I was 7. Then he bought a 60 t-bird new. Those cars started it for me. I learned to drive on the 57 Chevy in 1966. My sister and I drove it through high school. I got a Model A coupe for an early high school graduation present, I paid for half and my dad paid for half. We paid $550 and it ran. I got it at the start of my senior year, and drove it most of my senior year of high school. Played with it alot and got it running better. I wish I still had it. Also built model cars starting in about 1960 and attended the Detroit Autorama starting in 1964. Went to the NHRA Nationals in Indianapolis as a spectator from 1965 to1971.
Red

 

Born in 1944 and started following my grandfather around as soon as I could walk. I was his shadow every waking moment. He was a born mechanical genius and taught me a love for anything with engines, gears, pedals, levers, switches. When I was 4-5 he gave me an old Model A engine and access to his tool box. He broke the high torque stuff loose and turned me loose. Took most of a month to get it disasembled while also tackling anything else that was bolted/screwed together that was laying around his shop.
By 13 I had bought my first car, a '40 Ford 2dr. with paper route/snow shoveling/lawn mowing money. Couldn't tell my dad, but my mom was clued in. I had it at the farm where I bought it and would pedal my bike out to work on it after school. My dad was in the Air Force flying bombers so was away a lot of time and it wasn't a problem getting time to pedal out to work on it.
Now, 50 years later and almost 60 years with wrenches in my hand I've owned over 100 cars and only wish I had about 95 of them back.

Frank

 

Guess it started when I rode to the hospital in a 36 Ford coupe to be born in 1944. After being circumcised at birth it took me almost a year to walk....been a love affair with old cars ever since..

 

Always, 50 of my 53 years at least. My first memory, age three was holding a drop light so my old Man could put pistions in his flathead ford race engine. Not long after that, maybe age 5 he gave me a Crosley and told me I could drive it anywhere around where we lived, except the paved roads. By age 9 my brother and I were sneeking a ride in his 55 ford pickup, I steered and shifted, he worked the pedals. 50 years to date, more to come I hope.

 

I as always working on something with wheels on it but didn't get my first car till I was 16 in "52" to hall my tools, I was a carpenter. Started to build my model A in '53" with the help of my motor head buddys. Still at it, and still have some of those good buddys helping me.

 

I bought my first car at 15. It was a '58 chevy with a 327, but my first ride in a real hot rod was when I was 10 or 11 years old. It was a '50 chevy 2 door sedan that had a 283 with 3-dueces and a 4-speed in it. I remember building hot rod models before that so I guess at least 40 tears. Whats cool now is that I now own that '50 chevy but now it has a 454 and 4 speed in it. I rescued it in 2000 from an old shed where it had sat for 20+ years and was crumbling around it. I'm 51 now and I've told my wife that I will stop playing with cars the day I die.

 

The first car I got when I was two yes two was one of those little T shriners parade cars...Drove that till I was eight...Now it is hanging from the rafters in my shop...My very first vehicle I owned and drove on the street was a 1950 GMC 5-window p.u that I bought when I was 15 (sold it when I was 17 and had all kinds of cars since)....and the Car I drive everyday is a 48 Chevy 2-dr sedan fleetmaster...my dad bought that one when I was eight and was going to sell it about 6 years ago so I took it from him and have been driving it ever since... Heck he taught me how to drive in that thing while we where bulding the GMC...I am 30 now and can't get enough of this shit...!!!