History I'm curious-How long you been at this??

Man, I remember those noisy little sons-a-bitches! Love the surfer's cross on the fuel tank!

 

What a long strange trip its been.

 

19 first real car was at 18 when i got a 46 chevy aerosedan way to much for me so sold for a 53 lincoln capri still to much but its getting better although my father did have meny older cars such as a stock modal a hes always been into corvairs and was in the corvair club it didnt click tell 18

 

I used to play hockey in Carp at the Thunderbowl Roller Hockey Rink. One night there was a poster there of vintage jalopy races at the Thunderbowl. I was told the rink was named after the track, which was on the ocean side of the 101, near the Hwy 150 interchange. I got a photocopy of the poster; I'll see if I can find it.

Thanks,
Kurt

 

63, My first car at 10. 36 Chevy Coupe (not running) Got it running, drove around the house for what seemed like forever then sold it to some guy who saw it in the driveway. Took the money and bought the 'next' one....... and so on and so on......... Now looking for the next one

 

my dad, grandpa's on both side, and uncles were all into cars. lived in michigan and dad & others worked 'em for a living too. cars were all encompassing in my family, and im told i started taking things apart around the same time i was learning to walk-- trying to mimic my dad. im still learning how to put things back together

funny how teens go.....i decided i didnt like american cars / hot rods when i got older (rebellious)-- so i got into VWs, which were my first couple cars. got my first VW project at age 14. due to running away, getting in trouble, etc-- i never got that first car running.... Did many VW, Custom / Hot Rod, motorcycle builds through the years since...

dropped out of high school and started as an unpaid apprentice on a drag race team. learned a lot of good (cars) and bad (coke dealers to support race budget) things during those years, and i eventually even got paid to do so. have always fucked with engineering & technology, and the internet eventually allowed me to make more money-- so i got out of working on cars for a living and kept cars as a hobby.

these things may be an addiction--- but at least an addiction that still allows me to make it to work in the morning....

I'm 37. I love long walks on the beach and gold chains.

-scott noteboom

 

59 and started with a 426 powered 51 henry j in 63

 

That's so fucking HILARIOUS!!!!!!!!!!

 

Well I think I came out of my mom with a Wrench in my hand.
as a little one i had to always take shit apart to see how it worked, and was usually succesful at putting it back togeather. At 10 or so helped my dad work on some small engines , lawn mower and the like. at 13 I remember this well. I pissed my ol man off for taking apart a brand new clock he had bought for me. so as punshment ( i think) he handed me the rebuild kit to our Dodge sportsman Vans carb. and said "here you like taking shit apart" take that carb off and rebuild it, " dont fuck it up or we'll all be stranded some place..I did good..and he was happy..so I was happy. ( and got to live)
so on my Birthday i Had 60 bucks of B-day money and some I saved up and bought a Yamaha 60 Dirt bike basket case and built it from the gound up and ran the piss out of that bike for many years of fun..Moved up the Motorcycle food chain..Hondas, Triumph, to Harleys (built an H.D. in my living room the first year I moved out of my parents house.)as I remember i never had alot of money so I had to buy shit no one wanted any longer and fix it up. Helped many a friend at the drag strips wrenching. at 16 moved on to the cars, my first car was a 68 charger, and there were many more after that and every one had to be messed with, to make it better faster stronger, cooler. theres just way too much more to this story, some of it i couldnt remember and some i wish I could..I just always had a love for all things mechanical..and Im still struck with the sickness at 45

I was brought home in a 63 catalina..it was fairly new..just before(about 6 months) J.F. Kenedy got shot

 

I'm 36, and I don't remember ever not being into cars. My dad restored Model A's for a living until I was about 4 or 5, and always had some project going... usually for someone else, but occasionally for himself. (He now runs a street rod shop in North Carolina.) As a kid, I mostly liked muscle cars and 4x4's, but when I saw that 58 Impala in American Graffiti (shown in my 10th grade American Literature class! ), it was all over.

 

I'm 68, and I've been into this since I bought a Hop Up magazine in 1951. I learned from neighborhood kids and schoolmates; I never had family that was interested in hot rods or customs (although my granddad did take me to watch the midgets at Gilmore Stadium around 1947).

 

That'd be cool.


I was pretty much a Skateland (Ventura) guy.
Five of us played the about 15 man team from Roller Gardens (Wagon Wheel, Oxnard) and beat em every time.

We were pretty experienced skaters at the time and the Roller Garden guys were noobs to an exent.

I thought my number was up when I knocked the biggest, toughest, meanest guy on their team out cold with my hockey stick one night.
Not long before that, I cleaned out a ceiling hung fluorescent light with the puck.
It was a rather rambunctious game.

He was cool though, figured it was part of the game.

I think he was proud of the killer black eye he got.
Kinda sad looking for a while and every now and then some sweet little gal in a short skating skirt would be sitting on his lap and stroking his hair.

Sometimes the Gladiator biz can be rewarding . . . ya know?

 

27, got ol blue at 15. built lowrider bikes and r/c airplanes before that (yeah i know odd combo)

 

found some old pics of my start @ 1968-70?



and me and my oldest @ 1992 "THE NEXT GENERATION"

 

there's a lot more old farts here than I would have thought. good... makes me feel like a youngster at 48.

no car people in my family. I can remember drawing cars and motorcycles all the time when I was a kid. models and hot wheels were a big part of my youth. I saw Easy Rider with my dad in 1969 (?) and I was all about choppers after that.

asked for a subscription to Street Chopper when I was about 12, but my mom got me Street Rodder instead. that is when the sickness really took over.

bought my 49 chevy in 76. still got it.

 

Since I was born. They noticed I gravitated towards the Hotwheels after a while

 

photo was taken 50 Gracefield Avenue Toronto Ontario 1954. That is me leaning over the fender. Dad (also in the picture) tells people "this is when Don began his career." (I am a Mech /machinst by trade)

 

Do YOU like walks on the beach???

 

i,m 62 been into cars and bikes my whole life got my frist car at 15 57 chevy conv. and my frist bike at 17 46 hog the only person in my familythat was into cars was my bother inlaw had some pretty cool cars 51 ford conv. full custom a 50 olds i remember rideing by bike to les cove,s on 22 to see what they were doing to jimmy nolans 51 section merc (now manny,s) and spike,s where a lot of customs were done in jerzy in the late 50,s

 

Raised on a farm with a NON car hobby family. At 8 years old I rebuilt my first tractor moter, aboutt 10 use to ride my bike to Minnesota Dragways, Highschool strated to build a 36 Chrv street rod, 18 Started to run sportcar road rallyies, then Vintage sport car race, SCCA road racing, Midwest council racing, 2004 Sold racing stuff and started to work on 54F100 project, 2005 found the HAMB and the rest is history. by the way I turn 60 in October so I have been playing in the grease for a long time.

 

I was concieved in the back seat of a 38 chevy sedan in 49,born in 50.At it ever since

 

Man, there really ARE a lot of grey-beards on here! I'm 54 and I honestly can't remember a time I wasn't into cars. I was drawing Prudhomme's rail in the 6th grade while I was s'posed to be studying Science or something. Bought my first car at 13, (Summer of '67) a '56 Chevy 4-door hardtop that "College-guy" couldn't keep running, paid $15 for it, opened the points up, put the battery on charge and sold it for $50! My Dad's a gear-head, both my kid's are too! Must be in the genes! I've been building, custom painting, 'striping, racing and playing with cars all my life and I honestly feel extremely blessed to have been able to make a living doing exactly what I love to do.

 

I'm 29. I have always loved art, so I think its another form of that, or at least an appreciation for form and the mechanical side of it. I first really got into cars around age 12 when I started reading my older brothers copies of American Rodder, and also Lowrider. I saw the lowrider bikes that were sometimes in that magazine, and built a couple of those. At age 15 I got my first car, a 59 chevy biscayne. It was mostly redone already, but I got some practice fixing up little things on that car. Then I sold it to get more of a project and have been messing with old cars ever since. I never knew there was a traditional rod and custom "scene" at the time, but thats what I was drawn to (looking back on it). Then later, when I was about 17 or 18 years old, my best friend and his father taught me alot about the mechanical side of things while hopped up 60s muscle cars that we all drove as our daily drivers. Since then I've owned a few really cool cars. I regret the ones I've had to part with, but hope to own even better ones in the future.

 

50 years old and I still haven't learned my lesson. Was always into cars ever since I was a wee lad a favorite story my mom used to tell every girlfriend I ever had (well the one's she met anyway) and also my wife was how on Christmas morning when I was 4 or 5 I took the brand new Shinny red fire truck Santa brought me and painted it black. Yup flat black! I guess that was the influence of my hoodlum cousins with their hot rod coupes and one had a 49 Merc.chopped & channeled road in that car to my fist day of Kindergarden. I can remmebr my aunt sitting in the front seat crying the day she found out he was killed in Vetnam. We sat in that car for hours, the day I saw it being towed away I felt a tear in my eye, I was 19 then and my aunt had just passed away.

 

Born a car guy thanks to my pops. I was born in '73 (34 now). I bought my first car, a 51 ford, at age 12 with grass mowing money. Still wasting $$ on rusty crap. Best hobby in the world

 

Remember going to a dance in '38 with my dad and coming home with my mother. Be 70 in Sept. Went to my first socalled drags in the early 50's. It was a 1/2 mile strip in Winters Calif. Any you kids remember it? Bought first Hot Rod Magazine in '48. (They are now being passed to Kiwi Kev.) Drug my first duece roadster out of the berry vines in '53. (paid $20 for it and promptly removed motor, radio and a bunch of things you would die for today and threw them in the river.) Know one ever said I was smart!. Starting another roadster now, still chassing the white line. For you youngsters: TAKE LOTS OF PICTURES or they won"t believe you someday! Sold that roadster in '60 to someone in Sonoma, Cal. Had '50 Ford taillights molded in the corners and a stainless dash insert that was painted with louvered deck lid. Anyone seen it???

 

40 years old. I grew up in So Cal and my dad was (still is) in to dune buggies. He put himself through college building Max buggies and eventually started welding his own frames. He built a two seat rail for my brother and me when I was ten.

He worked for Hurst when I was a kid, selling the Jaws of Life rescue tool, and would volunteer on the safety crew at off road and drag races. I learned to drive on the Baja 1000 courses growing up.

My brother stuck with VW’s (of the on-road variety) and I got bit by the domestic iron bug. My first car was a $50 ’71 Vega wagon that I bought at fourteen. All I ever managed to do was dismantle it in the family garage for about a year. I went without a car for a couple years in college, but have had an old American V-8 barge of one kind or another since I was 21 or so.

 

About 2 weeks now.

 

Another gray haired checking, I'm72. Always like building things. Seen a channeled 32 in Hot Rod Mag.in 51, fell in love with it. Started driving in 52, my first car a 37 Chevy coupe. My mother told me about a Hot Rod club, The Lehigh Valley Timing Assoc., being started and knew I was interested in cars. Built my first hot rod, a chopped & channeled A on 32 rails in 54, did some drag racing in 55 then 59-62, my first wife hated cars, left her in 77, then got back in it. Got my 37 Terraplane on the road in 93 and put about 3000 miles on it a year and aslong as big brother dosen"t take my liscence away I'll keep driving it.
PS My current wife loves cars, going to keep her.

 

I was born in 1963. My dad never was into cars that much, but he did have some nice ones as I was growing up. A 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser Pace Car, '67 Dodge Monaco 2dr hdtp, and a '69 Mercury Marauder X100 that later became my first car. Of course there was also the ol' '58 Apache with the original 6, three on the tree, split manifold, and dual cherry bombs, as well as the faded green '50 Plymouth 4dr sedan he called "Fliver". I remember sleeping on the rear package shelf in during long trips, the warmth of the sun through the glass, and the steady purring of the old 6cyl.

I started building models when I was about 10 or so, and in 1975 or 76, somewhere along that time, I bought my first car magazines. One was a Truckin' Annual full of cool vans and trucks, and the other was a Rod & Custom Annual with Sam Foose's awesome candy red 46/48 Ford coupe on the cover. I still have both of these mags packed away somewhere around here, but they are the ones that did it for me. I was totally hooked.

Fromt eh time I was 15 I always had a project, but was young and stupid and never finished anything. Things like the '58 MG roadster set up for a small block chevy, a '26 5 Window coupe, a '46 Ford truck, a 72 Gremilin with a sbc, and so on and so on. My first completed and drivable project was a '77 Pontiac Astre with a 302 chevy. Once i hit the road with it was all down hill from there. LOL Corvettes, street rods, muscle cars, mini trucks, and even a VW or two.

In the late 90's I took a break and started collecting and restoring classic fiberglass ski boats, but now I'm back into the car scene and loving it. Still armchair cruising right now, but have a RPU project inthe shop and hopefully next summer.....