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When did it start for you?

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by Jive-Bomber, Mar 19, 2010.

  1. Zumo
    Joined: Aug 30, 2004
    Posts: 1,389

    Zumo
    Member

    I think I was 6 or 7 and my Dad had just put a set of headers on his SBC he had in his 1946 chevy truck. It was at night and we were in the garage. I remember him standing in front of the truck and wiping his hands with a red rag and saying to me, "Get ready, it's going to be loud son"
    Then he walked around the truck and got in the cab and fired it up. That was the moment I knew I loved Hot Rods and was going to be just like him.
     
  2. fleetbob50
    Joined: May 1, 2006
    Posts: 306

    fleetbob50
    Member
    from Waco,Texas

    My dad and older brother were both mechanics so part of it was genetic. Didn't help that a 32 Vicky was the yard art in front of the house and the 32 Cabriolet was in the back yard. Drove them both a million miles in my dreams. Started out rebuilding lawn mowers and went up the food chain from there. Hope to have the cabriolet driving this year for sure!
     
  3. 55chevr
    Joined: Jul 12, 2008
    Posts: 985

    55chevr
    Member

    Neighbor's boy friend had a new 56 Mercury convertible ... so I must have been 11 years old ... I remember it had lake pipes and was loud as hell ... I loved that car especially when he left rubber going up the block ... Joe
     
  4. Probably what started it all for me was seeing a primer grey '40 Ford Tudor, with a hot flathead and no hood back in around 1957, combined with the R&C and other custom car magazines my brother and I found under the seat of our dad's '55 F100 (They came, inadvertently, with the pick-up when he bought it and I've still got 'em!). Having an older brother who was a rev-head since he could walk helped, too.
     
  5. chop32
    Joined: Oct 13, 2002
    Posts: 1,077

    chop32
    Member

    That explains alot, now I see why you are the way you are! HaHa!
     
  6. 18n57
    Joined: Jun 29, 2007
    Posts: 578

    18n57
    Member

    Probably around 1961 or so. There was a chopped and channeled '32 Plymouth(I think) coupe; usually parked at a gas station on the way into town. Had a sbc with 6 carbs on it. I begged to "go slow" every time we passed that car. It was the coolest(really the first) hot rod I'd ever seen and I've been hooked since....

    PS: Car sat on corner of 13th and Grand Ave in Ames,Iowa. Any Iowans out there remember such a car?
     
  7. MotoVintage
    Joined: Jan 6, 2009
    Posts: 124

    MotoVintage
    Member

    I am sure I was born into it, Dad had a model A that he would let me work on, by the time I was seven years old I could do a full tune up on it, I was always atracted to things mechanical, dad would take us out on Saturday evening to the local drive in resturaunt, it was like going to a car show every Saturday, so many cool rides would be there, Gassers, muscle cars, hot rods, T buckets, you name it, Dad was a hot rodder but he was not a mechanic, he was in the Accelerators car club in Cameron, and had some kind of roadster with a cut down top, will have to get pictures on the hamb some day of the drags and pics of him and his buddies cars.
    thanks Dad
     
  8. HotRod33
    Joined: Oct 5, 2008
    Posts: 2,570

    HotRod33
    Member

    My Dad got his 33 pickup in 1953... I was born in 1955 and grew up playing in the truck out in the garage...... I've got the truck in my garage today still playing with it.... Wish Dad was still here too......
     
  9. I picked up the Aug 53 Hot Rod because of the article, "Soap Box Derby Speed Secrets".
    I took it back to show Jimmy the machinest that worked in the shop at my fathers Auto Parts Store.
    He started telling me about hopping up motors, and building Hot Rods.
    That was it, I was hooked, and have been buying Hot Rod ever since.
    HemiDeuce.
     

    Attached Files:

  10. For me it was 1964 when I was 10. We moved next door to a stock car racer running a '59 T-Bird. He hauled me out to the races as one of the "crew" and trained me in the fine art of modification.
     
  11. topdeadcenter
    Joined: Nov 30, 2002
    Posts: 525

    topdeadcenter
    Member

    between the ages of 4-7 (1977-1980) I guess. My dad would quiz me as we went down the highway on what the year and make of the old car was that we just drove past. Man, I was so happy when I got one right (and I think he was too)...

    The other early memory is of sitting in my G'pa's field truck. (1950ish Chev pickup) 4 speed granny transmission. I would sit behind the wheel and pretend to drive even though I couldn't see over the dash (seat was just about totally gone).

    I went through the muscle car phase for a very short time when I was given a 68 Fairlane as my first "old car". I realized it wasn't what I wanted or what I was into very soon...

    So pretty much always...
     
  12. Santaji
    Joined: Feb 20, 2009
    Posts: 27

    Santaji
    Member

    I'm not exactly sure how i got into old cars, but i remember that since i was just a few years old i just LOVED old cars, i had lots of books about classics cars, and some very detailed models too. i remember a 1:18 scale model of some 1920's Mercedes that i had. i loved it. i loved how it looked, sometime i'd just stare at it and admire all the little details,
    Most modern cars seemed so boring compared to the old ones. i would be very excited if i spotted a old car in traffic(i'm still that way :D), which is not very often here in India, most of the time i had no idea what the hell it was, but i always dreamed of owning a old car just like it all the time!
    and then when i was about 12 years old a friend of my dad's called us and told us about a old VW Beetle(i've always like old VW's, and my dad kept saying maybe we'd get one someday) for sale, and when my dad told me we where gonna buy it, i couldn't believe my ears! the day i had been waiting for my entire life had finally arrived! we started participating in classic car rallies with it. haven't missed a single Mumbai classic car rally for the past 3 - 4 years. i'm 15 now and i spend a lot of my Saturdays just checking out old cars(at garages, etc) and taking pictures. :D
     
  13. Stephen67
    Joined: Jun 24, 2009
    Posts: 73

    Stephen67
    Member

    I've always liked cars but I haven't always been a gear-head. In high-school I started to look for what I thought was the perfect car, turned out to be a '67 Mustang. I finished that up a couple years ago, but needed a truck for my business. So I started to look for a truck that in itself was a work of art. Wasn't long till I was looking into 40s and 50s trucks. I eventually found the big fender 53-56's, at first I couldn't tell why the one looked better to me than another till I noticed the '56 had a vertical a-pillar and wrap around winshield.

    That was it. I was sold. I spent a year looking for a '56 after that, it had to be a '56. Found lots of 53-55s, but finally I found my '56 about 6 hours away from me. I would have just been happy with a cab to start with, got a driveable truck for the same price a rust free cab (like the one on it) goes for. Turned out that though it's a bigger truck, that also works perfectly for me and the plans I've always had for it, I would have needed the size fenders it has on it anyways if I got a smaller truck. And after a whole lot of stupid drama, it finally made it home 8 months after I bought it, lol...


    Since then, I've found there to just be something about the 50s and earlier that you don't see anywhere. the 60's hold the mean machines, but pre-60s it was more about style and class than anything...
     
  14. Probably late '50's. Older brother of a friend of mine would babysit my little brother and I. One time he brought over some car models he had made, hot rods. He also had a car and he and his buddies would hang out at my buddies (his as well) house and work on their cars in the driveway. I don't remember them having hot rods necessarily, but cool cars none the less.
    I was hooked.
     
  15. Cincinnati Slim
    Joined: Jun 26, 2007
    Posts: 368

    Cincinnati Slim
    Member
    from Cincy, OH

    I can't date the time I got into old cars. I've never known any different, I can date my earliest memories by the Hot Rod we had at the time, a '46 Ford. Dad sold it when I was five, so anything I remember of that car I was pretty little.
    Back then, we only had one daily driver, so my Mom had to use it to run around town...never realized how cool that was...with shrunken head hanging from the mirror and all. :D
     
  16. wlspdshop
    Joined: Jun 15, 2005
    Posts: 1,585

    wlspdshop
    Member
    from Missouri

    My dad started taking me to the local junk yard when I was 2 to get parts. After that I just followed him around the shop.....and still do.....He is my best friend. Now my kids are hanging out with us....
     
  17. zmcmil2121
    Joined: Dec 13, 2009
    Posts: 625

    zmcmil2121
    Member

    In 2000 when my mom and I were driving down i-183 in austin (i was 6 or so), we went past kerby lane, and I saw what I now know to be a 60's ford ranchero, and I point it out to my mom and she says "so," and I said back "look at how old it is, it's so cool." and she says back to me "why is it so special, aside from it being old, there are things about it that are cool but do you know what they are?" I had no response, so she told me to research it, and I have been hooked ever since.
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2010
  18. hotrodtom
    Joined: Apr 14, 2005
    Posts: 231

    hotrodtom
    Member

    Way, way back in the '40s my great aunt had a 1938 Ford coupe, and I can rememeber riding with her, standing up in the passenger footwell and looking out underneath the tilted-out windshield. At the time it was just an old car that smelled funny and had itchy seats, but the memory has been with me for all this time. Hot rods? A lot of my buddies in school graduated from model airplanes to cars, and I envied them their membership in the Gear Grinders. A fellow student at the local junior college was a transplant from Southern California and had a '32 five-window coupe. That did it for sure.
    Fearless
     
  19. stude54ht
    Joined: Dec 30, 2007
    Posts: 973

    stude54ht
    Member
    from Spokane WA

    It was a dark and stormy night....
     
  20. Atwater Mike
    Joined: May 31, 2002
    Posts: 11,625

    Atwater Mike
    Member

    1949. I was 7. My bud Mike Shannon drew a hot rod in school. I asked some questions, Al Marceline drove a hot rod like that...real tall, no fenders, chopped windshield...
    Mike knew the car, his uncle Harry hung around with Al. He took me to Harry's, Harry showed us the 'finer points' of a '29 Highboy! His pal Al's was a '32, Harry said "Way different"...In a week, I was reading Hot Rod magazine: I scored a complete collection, the whole year of 1948 and every one up to October of '49! I read then cover-to-cover.
    Dad died in '54, I was 12. These older rodders took me under their wing, and took me to the Drags (San Jose "Little Bonneville") I rode in some of the fastest coupes & roadsters of the day, got my first car at 13, a '36 3-window which I chopped 5-1/4". I had scored a roadster body for $3 in a field, and a kind older rodder sold me a nice '32 frame for $5!
    I went to work for Mayfield's Garage (the best damned shop in town!) at age 14, learned all fundamentals by 16, turned 'journeyman' at 18. (worked my way up just to be able to build an entire hot rod. Did it more times than I'd like to remember. Building 4 more right now!)
     
  21. James Curl
    Joined: Mar 28, 2006
    Posts: 370

    James Curl
    Member

    When I was twelve years old my big brother was living in Dallas Texas and had just gotten out of the Navy and bought a new 48 Ford todor. We went someplace and there was a black 29 Ford highboy roadster with a flathead V8 just like in Hot Rod magazine and I took a picture of it with my Dick Tracy Camera. I knew just where the picture was up until a few years ago, now cannot find my old album wife put it someplace and I haven't found it yet.
     
  22. Mark in Japan
    Joined: Jun 19, 2007
    Posts: 1,466

    Mark in Japan
    Member


    heheheheeeee :D



    I dicked around with 70s shitboxes in my late teens enough to learn that you can polish a turd........about 22 years old, I went to a mate's parent's farm......and I saw the coolest, toughest thing I've ever seen sticking its nose out of the scrap pile.....the menacing sneer of a 52 Ford Pickup.......never looked back!
     
  23. eddie1
    Joined: Jul 27, 2006
    Posts: 568

    eddie1
    Member

    It was about 1987. I was 20 & saw American Graffiti for the first time. A friends parents had a white 58 Impala that I had to have. They had a 58 GMC that was under construction & needed more money. I bought the Impala & 23 years later they still have the 58 GMC & it is no closer to being on the road than it was in 1987.
     
  24. Pre-K
    Joined: Jun 27, 2007
    Posts: 219

    Pre-K
    Member
    from Ventura

    Well, since I could barely stand up on the rear seat of my parents 1947 Lincoln Continental, which had a hot rodded '53 Cadillac V8. I'd be banging on my Dad's shoulders as I pointed out every "Ca'lac" (car) and "thruck" (truck) that passed by. They were all cool back in 1957, and I remember the hubcaps flipping the the southern California sun... Oh, yeah, at the time my Mom had a Singer sports car, and her Dad owned a 1956 Citroen DS19. I was just over a year old. I also knew how to say "Da" and "Mama".

    As my parents tell it, they thought I was absolutely fuckin' nuts.
     
  25. Shawn M
    Joined: Sep 10, 2008
    Posts: 408

    Shawn M
    Member

    I must have been about 8 or so when it all started. When I went to the junkyard with my Dad and my older brother for the first time. Back then, Dad didn't go to the parts store unless it was absolutely necessary to fix his cars. He bought a couple cars out of the junkyard and made drivers out of them as well. The yards we went to had cars from the 30's to the 70's, and this was in the late 70's or very early 80's. My brother and I were allowed to run loose in the yard and check out the cars and dream of what we would build etc,etc. This is when it all started for me. I remember the chrome on the 50's cars especially, the metal dashes, chrome on the inside. I remember thinking then how cool they were, and how the 70 lemans we drove there didn't look like that. Awesome stuff, I wished they were as easy to find now as they were then.
     
  26. 3rd Gen Hot Rodder
    Joined: Jan 8, 2009
    Posts: 405

    3rd Gen Hot Rodder
    Member
    from Indiana

    My earliest memory is of my late Grandfather (and my namesake) Bill Bronson taking me for rides in a wagon he pulled behind his riding lawn mower. Additional early memories are of going with my family to car shows.
    [​IMG]

    Photo of 4 generations (My Grandfather is top left if you could not figure that out!)

    Do you notice a trend with many of these postings? Many begin with 'My Father' or 'My Grandfather' or 'My Uncle'. Most of us had a mentor of some sort to get us going in this hobby. If it going to continue in the years to come, we now need to pay it forward and be that mentor. In other words, take a kid to a car show or work with him / her in your garage. Maybe you are like me and don't have a child, then try to get your nephews (or nieces for that matter) interested, or find a neighbors kid who seems to be interested and plant the seed in him.
     
  27. 49coupe
    Joined: Nov 4, 2005
    Posts: 569

    49coupe
    Member

    My story is a little different. My grandfather in Germany was a car nut and I used to help him shine up his car and steer in his lap when I was 6. I loved anything that went FASTand he didnt' disappoint me. We moved to Canada when I was 8 and we settled into a typical suburban neighborhood in Toronto - zero cars of interest. I also grew up in the absolute low point of American cars 70s and 80s. How about a nice 4 cyl '77 Fairmont 4 dr automatic in chocolate brown metalic anyone.....

    I was mostly into European cars and appreciated classic cars, but never really got the opportunity to get close to any. That changed about 10 years ago when I met my friend Gary through work. He's a hot rod and kustom car nut and introduced me to '50s kustoms and '30s hot rods. Seeing his cars and going to meets got me hooked. I bought a mild kustom '56 Merc at the tender age of 31 and the rest is history. I'm 40 now and there's no going back. Better late than never.

    Ther other thing that kills the hobby for younger guys in Canada, especially Ontario is the insurance cartel. When you're paying $7000 a year to insure a 2004 Ford Focus station wagon as an 17 year old male (my neighbors kid), do you really want to call and ask what they want for that 396 4 spd Chevelle or a new 4.6L Mustang? It was no different back then. I used to pay $2500 a year to insure an '82 VW Rabbit (liability only) in 1988. I remember calling insurance co. a couple of years later when I had a line in an Audi 5000 Turbo and the agent couldn't stop laughing, so I bought a VW Golf Diesel instead.:(
     
  28. TheHviz
    Joined: Dec 8, 2004
    Posts: 23

    TheHviz
    Member

    I was always a huge fan of cars growing up, my dad was a mechanic/service manager. But when i was 12 i stayed at my grandparents for the weekend, my uncle came over and we dug out the 50-60's Hot Rod, Motor, Popular Mechanics, Car Craft magazines from the basement, from that day forth I was hooked on this era of cars, nothing else mattered...
     
  29. I was raised around stock Model T's and Model A's. Right around the time I was born, My Dad wanted to build a T bucket. He traded a dirt bike for the remains of a 23 touring car. My Grandpa came over and started explaining to my Dad how the T's worked and so on. Well my Dad thought it was really neat, and decided to restore it. We drove the piss out of that old T. Then he got into other T's, then A's, and finally V8 cars. My Dad still has most his cars, and likes both restored and hot rodded cars. I just grew up in them and around them. I always wanted a Model A roadster. That I do remember. PLaying with hot wheels and I built a bagillion model kits. Cars are not a hobby to me, it's who I am.


    All these are me and my dad, early 80's:

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  30. carcrazyjohn
    Joined: Apr 16, 2008
    Posts: 4,843

    carcrazyjohn
    Member
    from trevose pa

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