My uncle who knows nothing about cars. Got me into building model cars and then it took off from there.
My dad,......hands down. As soon as I could walk,....I was spending my weekends at the car shows with him. In addition to that,....he almost always had a booth at the swap meet also.
Two people, My Dad & my Late buddy Dave. Pops was doing this stuff back in the 50's & 60's all the same, always drove me around in his highly chopped & severely channeled 34' five window when I was younger. (Mainly because I was short enough to see the traffic lights at the time). He always helps me with my projects and has a watchful eye over what I could screw up. Dave was a cool old dude, When I was a kid, not many other of the "Car show guys" would listen to my questions or put up with my hyper ass but he did. Plus seeing a 32' roadster launch on street tires and lift the wheels is a sight for any kid under 12 years old.
My dad is the main source, my grandpa being secondary. I don't remember a time that my dad didn't have some sort of old car. We would go on church road rally's in a 66 Fairlane drag car...390 with top loader, 411 gears...or drive around country side in his 56 Fairlane. We couldn't wait for spring to come and the car show season to start up...cruise down to Englishtown or somewhere in PA every weekend. He taught me drive stick shift in that 56! He bought my first car for me, a 70 Mercury Cougar...had 351W rebuilt, bored 30 over and a set of Crager SS's. goin to cruise Grand Rod Run with him this weekend in Pigeon Forge...can't wait! Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
My Dad, he wasn't a hot rod guy, but loved sports cars. He recognized my interest in cars and started taking me to the Oakland roadster show every year starting when I was about 5 (1960). He also took me to Fremont Drag Strip many times and to Laguna Seca a bunch of times. I got a pretty well rounded auto education. When I started road racing motorcycles he supported me and had his small business sponser my entry fees. also growing up in Fremont, we had a lot of Hot Rods cruising the streets, which was great stimulus for a young guy.
My dad got me started in cars and taught me how to wrench. He was always a street rod type of guy. I had some friends when back when I was 20 that I used to go to Paso with. They all had hot rods and they got me into the traditional thing. My dad and I still bump heads when it comes to our tastes, though! Sorry pops, no rack & pinion or fuel injection for me!
My dad, his friends? Ah hell I had a dream and woke up and said to myself man what a screwed up dream, then dropped acid and tried it.
My Daddy was in the Seabees in WWII if they were not fighting thy were hopping up jeep and even trucks just a Family Tradition
My dad, when I was a few months old he built a SBC with Gail Banks twin turbos for a boat and, we did 80 MPH across Deep Creek Lake. I'm glad he didn't go to jail because, I still thank him for what he did. He also used to strap me in my car seat in his truck and, take me to Keystone Raceway. He still has the trophies and time slips. Dustin
My cousin!---He had a '29 AV8 roadster hiboy. & gave me my first ride in it after WWII in 1946. That was the start of my love for roadsters, after reading all the hot rod mags I could get my hands on while in the USN during the Korean war, 1951-1955 & keeping abreast of car activity back home,it was my dream to someday own a 1932 roadster. Dreams were finalized by buying one in pieces in 1962, & 6 yrs. later finishing the project between Girl Scouts & Little League baseball. Now, both my cousin & I are in our 80's & still joke about his old hiboy & giving me that first ride so many years ago.----Don
My elder brother is to blame...back in the early sixties he started buying HotRod magazine,Popular HotRodding and some little books...he went to the Drag Fest over here in 64 and was totally mesmerised by it...he bought some water slide decals at the meet and we had Moon Eyes on our mirror for years and years.We shared a bedroom and the walls were plasteres with Hot Rod pictures . He also is a very talented model builder and he used to build Revel and AMT kits..but he'd cut the doors open with a scalpel and hinge them,chop tops,use cotton for HT leads ,thin courdouroy for tuck-n-roll, drop the suspension etc, and then he put them in a garage made out of a kit called BAKO, he fitted it out with benches and tools etc and rigged a battery operated light that lit up the inside........at night I lay in bed looking at it with the cars arranged in the garage and just the little bulb lighting it up in the dark bedroom......I never dared touch it as he was five years older than me and was only too happy to hit me and my little brother lol. I remember drawing Rat Fink on my school books as a kid and my Corgi and Dinky cars all got customised...my favourite was my 59 Impala Fire Chiefs car, it got scraped to bare metal and painted cherry red with my mums nail varnish,the suspension got lowered by putting broken matchsticks under the little springs and the tyres got taken off and whitewalled using tennis shoe whitener....all at about six years old.Other kids just did not understand us...we used to nag mum and dad constantly to emigrate to California ha ha.I wonder what it would have been like if we had? Hot Rods take up most of my thinking......I just can't imagine life without it.....it saddens me a little that it now seems almost mainstream and every one sems to know a little about the subject .....I kind of preferred it when it was just an underground kind of thing that only those in the know knew about...if you get my drift.
I've thought about it and I can't think of anyone that got me interested . When I was 16 I bought a 1940 Ford Coupe for $100 ( Olds 324 Rocket , Cad LaSalle transmission , and Olds rearend ) . It was in Easton, Mass. and I lived in Penobscot ,Maine 270 miles away. A friend of my step dad helped me build a tow bar to fit our 1962 Chevy car , and we flat towed it the 270 miles. Wouldn't dare do that these days. Too many crazy people on the roads. Back then we were among the few crazies.
My neighbor Justin Miller and his 32 Highboy and pair of buckets that he took me for rides in. The cackles from those small blocks, and the wind in my face was enough! Still can't believe my Dad didn't buy that 32 when we had the chance!
My mother. She towed me home in my first car (Model A), bought me my first set of tools, took me to my first drag race and car show. In spite of my dad who was a '20s and '30s car guy. Mom (who dad refered to as Barney Ofield) passed two years ago at 98. Thanks mom.
This is 60's New York, I was already diggin slot cars when John D started dating my neighbor Trudi G, the cutest chick in the neighborhood. He had an early 50's Chevy 2 door that was jacked up to the Moon in front, black, with blue glass........it had a 396 and a stick (For some reason I think it only a 3 speed). But it was a monster looking and sounding thing!!
I was lucky to have a neighbor's son growing up in the mid 50's on Long Island NY. His name was Bruce and lived directly across the street. I was about 10/12 years old. His name Bruce and drove a 1946/47 ford 2 door sedan as his daily driver. I remember it is a dark green with I think 3 on the tree. It was full fender with stock wheels. I do remember the horn sounds though. Of course he had the "aooga' and the "ding dong" bell. Bruce was always under the hood or on his back under the engine/ tranny. I would go over and talk with Bruce once in a while when he was not up to his armpits in Ford. I guessed that is where I picked up the bug. However, I was in love with cars from the age of 5.
My Father, his partner ( R.I.P Bill Boer)and their many customers coming to the house, you just couldn't not get into it. He was building cars before I was born and that was quite a few years back.
Cool Topic... for me it was a combination of things. My Dad loved going to the Truck and Tractor pulls when I was a kid...in the 70's and early 80's they were huge, something about a big old supercharged motor going full bore in the Silverdome wow! BUT he loved bikes, but also like going to Detroit Dragway on Saturdays. My uncles all had cool cars their whole lives and still do today. I loved being in my uncles shop at 2 am when I was a kid wondering if we were gonna get in trouble for making so much noise. After that it would be my still to this day friend Andy's Dad..both are still into cars today. Back when they had the old Street Rod Nats at the State Fairgrounds he would hand two 15 year olds the keys to his 39 and say go cruise! we would get our lean going while blasting Stray Cats.. hey it was 1983! As I got older it was Mike Gator Gaydos that introduced me to Kustom cars..he was and still is the biggest in my thinking of whats cool about cars. He loved traditional Hot Rods and Kustoms..he wouldn't call them that he would just say Kool! but he had a great attitude about anything someone was driving that they worked on. I hope I can be a good influence for some kid one day too!
Willie Rells. car builder . and a list of more , that is unbelievable. funny car guys,elcajon racers, machine shops parts houses, Leonard Abbott Bruce Crower D Russell B Simpson the people of CAE and more ... will edit later. say there name, from the San Diego (so-cal)area back when i was just a pup, in 1963 - 64 -65 -66- 67 -68 -69....
Hot rod magazines. I picked one up at about 12 and been obsessed ever since. I finally got my first real project a year ago. Until then it was just simple mods on it vehicals
By age ten, i knew i liked cars, just didnt know what kind. A year later, some hairy hippy looking hot rodders, set up a shed over my back fence. I would hang out there whenever i could, and one guy had a black n flamed Model A tub, with a 383 Chrysler for power. He would get us to wash it, and gave a friend and i, a ride as payment. That was me hooked. Its why my hot rod is black n flamed.
One other thing I remember is after many comics and Mad Magazines, it was my Mom who for some unknown reason pointed out and suggested my first hot rod type magazine at the news stand in the mid 60's. Way ta go Mom
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