How did you get in this mess called cars? Was it hot wheels, car models or a cool relative a weird oh neighber or a t-shirt ? That got you started
Models and hot wheels and my dad and my best friend's dad he always had something cool in the garage.
Early 1950's Dad would build Revell Hiway Puioneer models and display them on the window sills. I started AMT models around 1960. Got hooked with the local car show in 1961.
Model cars, HO slots, 1/24 slots, cool guys in the neighbor hood, and then my own cars. The rest passes on to the next generation, and history!
yeah that....and a house right by the turn around point for the main cruise strip through town....used to sit on the front porch and watch em all evening every evening.
Well, to be honest I'm 32 years old and just now learning to really work on a car. I've always been into them and motorcycles. But seeing as literally no one in my family is a gearhead, it all seemed so strange and foreign to me. It never dawned on me that I could do it too until my teen years. Then a joke of an auto shop in high school and a really bad experience in diesel mechanics school left a bad taste in my mouth for years. Now I've come back around and am shooting really late out of the gate.
Dad played with go-karts when I was real little, later on Hot Wheels, model cars, and Hot Rod magazine firmed up the sickness, then in high school Dad was drag racing bikes. I come by the car gene naturally.
my dad and his brother allways hot some cool car and my moms brother had (still has) a 69 roadrunner and model cars, hot wheels plastic push around cars etc etc etc still build models, still collect allscales of diecasts and toy cars when i was younger ...i didnt know there was anything else except cars to be interested in
Models, HO slots, A go-kart at 6, Honda mini Trail 50 at 8 and my dad and his friend building race cars and hot rods. I grew up around it. My dad built a 1935 Ford pickup in the 60's and gave it to me when I was 17 and I never looked back.
Most people think we were born with 20w50 and 110 octain in our vein's. Hit the ground wrenchin I was!!!
Hotwheels, magazines,models,American Graffitti,older friends,Dad's Sunoco (ALL the cool cars came there for the 260!).
My dad was a gearhead but into original antique cars. I went to New Liskeard, in summer of 72, I think and saw American Grafitti at the movies. It totally changed the 10 year old boy into a hot rodder. Earliest memories were a 55 Chevy "Badman" gasser kit, then the hot wheels set called "Bug Bite". Redlines from the Oshawa Discount House, Hot rod magazines, little books in with my dad's stuff. It was a rapid progression down the seedy road of hot rod addiction. I think my son is infected too. His 52 Ford pickup has been sitting for a few months. We pulled one out of a donor today so he now has an engine. Maybe I should watch Grafitti with him tonite just to seal his fate!
Hot Wheels in 68 to Model cars, to the neighbor having a 69 Daytona, To our other neighbor having a Pantera, and 1 accross the back alley with a Austin Healy with a Small Block in it.. that pretty much had me hooked..
It started with the Aurora HO slot cars and the 1/25 scale model kits... I'm still at it! Now I have a 4' x 8' table that I use for both.
For me it was a trip to a drag strip with my best friend and his older brother. I couldn't believe the colors, sounds and speed of the wild wonderful cars. On top of all of that it was adults playing with those things and although it seemed hard to believe it was legal! I started building models that week, was buying car magazines pretty soon and it just kept going from there. Funny how one day like that could change me so much.
The Jalopy Journal
