The 2 things that I blame are Dirt Tracks and Cartoons Magazine. I grew up about a mile or two from a dirt track and went to bed every Friday night to the sound of open pipes until it closed when I was in grade school. Sometime around third grade an older kid on the school bus introduced me to Cartoons. It was down hill from there. My dad also had a 58 Ranchero, I dont remember it running much but it was cool.
My dad has been drag racing for his whole life and he has rubbed off on me. growing up around that stuff planted the seed. As I grew older my cousin darrell was a great body man one of the best I pretty much followed in his foot steps and now I am a frame tech in the collision industry. Growing up my dad said to me that he had a 32 coupe that he had bought for me and tucked it away. I never realy saw the car cause it was in a thousand parts looked like more of a pile of junk to me but now 20 years later it looks like a pile of gold. I got the chance to get the 32 and now I am in the process of putting the peices together. After watching movies like american grafitty a thousand times growing up you can't help to want to go back in time. My dad gave my brother a model A coupe that was a complete car and he didn't realy do a lot with it. For most of my life I had to look at that car in the garage just sit there and sit there. It killed me to see it sit. My brother lost intrest in it and never touched it for 12 years. I couldn't watch the car sit any longer I had to do somthing with it but it wasn't mine to touch. So I made him a deal and it was that I would fix up the car with my money and time if he would put the car in both of our names. So he did and so I did. To veiw pics click on my signature.
My Dad! He's been involved in drag racing all of his life as an engine builder/tuner,I was helping him with his customer cars when I was about eight or nine years old,(he's a speed shop owner and an old school tuner/guru), plus he always said when I came home from the hospital as a newborn, I was brought home in a 1964 chevyII four door! (I'm sure that had to help).
That would have to be my Grandpa..my best friend...my role model....he has been gone since '99 but We would sit and talk for hours and hours about cars. He was a hot rodder from way back in the late 20s early 30s. Raced in the the countryside and farm land out side of chicago. After the war he got into customs and was a master weldsman(I think thats what you call it). He would customize and hop up the guys cars in his neighborhood. He would tell me stories about the cops would come to his house on Saturdays with their patrol cars with speed equipment that they would buy and ask him to put it on the patrol cars for them..I look back now and realize the patience and time he took with me the thousands of times I would look over all his old photos and ask him to tell me the story about this car and that car....I miss him tremndously...wish he was still here..
My dad allways drove a jalopy so he could afford to give my mom something reliable to drive. I can still smell that old imperial we (he) had to fix every weekend. There was a nova for a short while. Now that dad is retired living "the good life" I have Ted to keep me going.
I was born into the hobby and got involved by osmosis... At any given time there were 10-15 cars in the shop between my dad's & grandfather's .. only difference is my grandfather's cars actually ran & drove,, my old man would get a car, even if it was running and tear it apart and let it sit. I can remember a '55 Ford Crown Vic, '55 Ford Convert, just sitting there in 9 million pieces. I got my first car at 15, a '55 Ford Club Sedan. Drove it from 1995 to 1999 until a drunk t-boned me at an intersection. Still have enough projects to keep me busy now.
New cars.... Old cars are easy to work on and just have " style " that new cars lack. I wanted to re-do an old car so i bought a 65 Imapla off my then FG's dad , it wasnt a total heap so i figured it would be a good place to start. I'v always had a thing for old chevys and have done motor swaps in a few old chevelles i used to own. Old cars just " look " cool while new ones all look the same.
same as a lot of guys... because of dad. We grew up poor, so it was nothing but old beaters. Dad was working on them constantly, and I was the wrench monkey. He actively got me into working on them, just to get the job done. He had a load of old car magazines laying around too, I memorized them, and anything else I could get my hands on. Became a bit of an obsession for me.
Old cars weren't that old when I was young. When I got my license at 15, I bought the newest car my $125 would buy, a '48 Chev. 2 door. A year later I bought a '35 Ford 2 door for $65. After all, it was older, so it was cheaper. Like most kids in the 50's we wanted to make our cars look better and go faster. Some of us liked doing that so much we never stopped.
Back when I started driving all the rich pricks had new cars and all I could afford was a old car. Shit now the old stuff is cool !!!
Hell, when I got in to "Old Cars" they were NEW cars ........ lol !!! I was only 15 years old when my 56 Vicky was made ..... I didn't even have a drivers license!
1. my dad 2. my grandpa 3. watching american graffiti for the first time 4. they looked cooler than all the new cars that were out there at the time that's what got me into old cars
<TABLE id=HB_Mail_Container height="100%" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0 UNSELECTABLE="on"><TBODY><TR height="100%" UNSELECTABLE="on" width="100%"><TD id=HB_Focus_Element vAlign=top width="100%" background="" height=250 UNSELECTABLE="off">Let me see, The Beach Boys, Sleads, Hot rods, American Graffiti, Do-whop, my cousins 41 Ford convertible, and my first a 51 Ford Country Squire station wagon, " Woodie Wagon ". Also I grew up in the 50's and 60's anything else. Rags </TD></TR><TR UNSELECTABLE="on" hb_tag="1"><TD style="FONT-SIZE: 1pt" height=1 UNSELECTABLE="on"> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Yep, dad did it to me too. He used to race hardtops at Roseville and Capitol City Freeway in the mid to late 60's. Allways working on cars and I was his wrench getter. The "old cars" I got into were only 15 to 20 years old then.
What got me into old cars? Two words: My Dad! I remember helping him work on his black 55 chevy in 4th grade when i was 10 years old and 11 years ago. Now I'm going to MU in pursuit of a Mechanical Engieering degree. I'm working on a model A, and a small business of building LED taillights for pre 1970's cars. I think he did alright Justin
If the question is based on old/traditional cars... then this site. I was a self made muscle car nut when I was a kid in the 80's but money was tight in high school, so I drove 'sorta' muscle cars (what was left from rust). I was officially broke all through college, chasing girls, get a career, I had no time for anything else. Then, one day I come across the HAMB and BANG! I'm broke all over again
My dad is who got me in this crazy mess. I was brought up around Hemi's, Gassers, Dragsters and such from day one. I have it in my blood, and just can't seem to shake it out......I started hands on at a very early age...
i remeber back when i was like 5 or so my dad had a mid 60's dodge pickup and havin to help him push start it when the starter went out, i dropped the clutch while he pushed...then eventually he got a 79 chevy 3/4 ton and it got passed to me when i turned 16 since that truck ive always loved that boxy style chevy and havent owned anything younger than me......
My Dad, the meager family budget, and the fact that my Mom was probably sick of driving us to school everyday..This was 1965, the hot cars the rich kids were driving were GTOs, Mustangs,Vettes..It took a little doin, but you could take a clapped out 55 Chevy, put a 327 innit and give those guys a run for their money...
I guess Hot Wheels got me hooked on cars. And my dad had some cool stuff. The stories he would tell of his high school days! He was from a small town county in the mountains of NC. On the weekends, there was only one deputy sherriff on duty at night. So someone would place a false alarm call to get teh deputy to one side of the county, and the guys would race on the other side. Back in, oh, '76?, I was vacationing at the beach with the family (I was 13) and this guy drives by in a T roadster pickup, YELLOW! Dad and I tracked teh owner down that day to look at it. Hooked!!!!! Seeing my enthusiasm, Dad, unknown to me, started looking for something old for me. To my suprise, he found a green 46 Chevy PU with baby moons and a straight 6 for $650. He drive it for a year, parked it, and he and I put a 265 and a floor 3 speed in it, with a 55 rearend. I drove it that way (first car) until the 265 gave up. Bought a 66 'cayne for the 283, found a Muncie, and drove it all during high school. Still have the truck, but it has been off the road since the guy that rebuilt it in 86 couldn't get it running. College, marriage, career, kids, all got in the way. But now it's different. I'm ready to turn some wrenches to get her going again.
My Gandfather had a 40 Buick in the front yard for a few years, my cousin and I decieded to ask for it when we were 13,(1959) but it was towed away on Grandma's orders. Ever since then had a love for old cars, and it gets worse as time goes by!
I hate to admit it but I saw the movie Grease and I was hooked.I was 13 yrs old and I told my old man I want an old car to fix up. Christmas came that year and I didn't get a car .I was so pissed ,I didn't talk to my parents for weeks!!!Finaly 10 days before my 14 th birthday we hauled home a 1954 Chev half ton pickup.Life has not been the same since. That was 29 yrs ago last week .I celebrate that day like a second birthday.....PAUL
Just got tired of all of the run of the mill, cookie cutter cars like the Jags, Ferrari's, Maser's, Aston's and well, you know the type. Wanted something different, simpler, but exciting. First it was an Allard J2, and then I laid eyes on a hiboy, and then a chopped and channeled 32 5WC with a blown flattie. Wow! I was hooked and have been ever since.
My dad's 67 Buick. He bought it when I was born and its been said that before I could even talk I was going varoom and making car noises! But, it was amazing how people always asked about the car and looked at the it no matter where we went in it. I started to save for an old car I spotted on the way to grandmas house when I was 12 and bought that very car when I was 14. Still not done today since kids who are 14 don't have a lot of money, but I never stopped or regretted that car once. You know you got old cars in the blood when you save your money at 12 years old. Heres to old car fever!
I can't remember not being fascinated with old cars. When I was a little kid that's all I'd look at, didn't care about new stuff. Dad drove mosty boring stuff, but I have pre WWII pics of him with a '32 Chevy roadster and a '34 Ford 5 window coupe. I lived in Dodge City back then, and there was a guy next door that had an Indy racer that was around now and then. The MC races in Dodge were also addictive to a little kid. I have a pic of my grandad somewhere sitting in his car with tiller steering. I'm hopeless, it's in the blood forever.
The Jalopy Journal
