Technical What makes a car guy ?

So here is a question for y'all ? What is the difference between a real car guy and one that is not ? Is it shop experience ? Road experiences ? Years of fabrication ? A whole shop full of fabrication tools ? Tire machines, lifts, ect. Curious to know as I never really considered myself to be one, but everybody's definition is different. It seems there are so many factors now that make it harder and harder to be car guy these days just because of societal changes.

 

I believe that now you can be anything you decide you are, or so I'm told.....

 

Desire, Car magazines, model cars and toy cars
Great parents, tolerant girl friend later wife

 

All you gotta do is love cars. Doesn't matter what kind or what year...
The kid with the "tuner" is just as much a car guy as the guy with a new Vette...

 

I've seen two year old's that were car guys with no special talents or abilities to do anything but fill their pants. But one of their primary interests was cars, they talked about, play with and looked out for their favorites when out and about. I've never gotten the impression that Jay Leno works on his cars but I think he's an over the top car guy.

 

There you go. There's no single definition.

 

When my wife was a kid in the late 40s and early 50s she used to look out her window and try to name the cars as they went by. She's better than me at id-ing a car at distance.

does that make her a car guy?

 

Perfectly said

 

Ya don’t even have to know how to hold a wrench.
You can live vicariously through the automotive exploits of others.

 

If you check out the video on YouTube of the HEMI under glass roll over, those two guys in the car ( Jay Leno & Bob Riggle ) are examples of " Car Guys "

 

I'd say this is the correct answer. The bullshit that if you don't build it yourself or work on it yourself is just that Bullshit.

I've known a number of hard core car guys over the years who didn't build or maintain their own cars outside of hours of cleaning and polishing. That didn't mean that they don't love cool cars.
It's your love for cars or certain models of cars that makes you a car guy.

My father in law was not a car guy. As long as it ran and got him where he wanted to go it was a good car and if it broke down it was a bad car. He changed employers and had to buy a white sedan to use as his business car. The only specification the company gave was full size white sedan. He bought a late 60's Ford and when I asked him what engine it had he said "Blue". Car had a 390 and sucked gas like a bar fly guzzles beer at happy hour. No clue that he needed to research gas mileage and what engine the car had to keep more money in his pocket rather than at the pump.

 

I identify as a car guy.

 

If the only thing you did was buy it you are not really a car guy in my book.

Blood,sweat,tears,gas, grease and dollars make a car guy.

But that is just my opinion.

 

....it may just mean that you need an eye exam.........
..........oh, ....and she would be a car ‘gal’........

Anyway, met a guy yesterday that drove a very nice late model Camaro, probably NZ $80,000, - knew it had a V8 in it, but didn’t know how many hp, or cubic inches. He was driving the car of his dreams! - Would he be a car guy........???

 

When I was 12 i found a bunch of carb magazines and a box of carburetors. I rebuilt my first carb, a Harley when I was 13. Took auto tech and got second in the Chrysler Troubleshooting contest in High School. First car my father bought me just to learn about cars. My second car was a 1963 Mercury Comet. Took it to college and as a graded project I built a 3x1 setup. I bought a 66 chevelle SS, rebuilt the engine, started to do the body work and when I took it to get an alignment the frame was bent. But it was bent where the left side had positive camber and the the right side had negative camber...mmm. Striped it down and put in a 350, and went asphalt oval track racing. I was an automotive tech, working in dealers. Master ASE tech since 1979.
Moved to Omaha and after a few years got back in racing, building a dirt chevelle. After 15 chevelle race cars we built a dirt modified. (What fun). DIVORCE, it all came crashing down. Moved to Florida. A few years later I was helping a SCCA team setup their car (took off .750 a lap at Palm Beach). I moved up in my job position over the years and I am currently an automotive fire and mechanical failure investigator. I have a 47 Ford p/u in the garage that I am just finishing and a 63 Bird in the backyard.........yea, you could call me a car guy

 

I think there are 2 groups of car guys. There is one group that is hands on and does all there own work. I fall in this group. I like the challenge of taking a project from a old heap to something I can be proud of.
There are certain aspects of a build I like better than others. Interior work is not my idea of fun but it is a neccessary part of a project. I will admit i had the seats done professionally. On the other hand I really enjoy an engine build. I like the challenge of getting the most power possible with a given engine and parts going into it. A careful build with stock parts will gain power over the factory.
Then there's the group that have great cars and love them just as much as the other group. They are lacking the skills to build a ride themselves and have the funds to buy or have one built. I dont feel there's anything wrong with that. The cool thing about the guys and gals in this group is they usually have lots of book knowledge on the subject.
Whether you build your own or have one built we are all car guys in both groups.
I dont build cars for a living but many here do. I'm sure they love the 2nd group.

 

The thing is.....it's in our DNA. It's no coincidence that the Swiss are good at watchmaking, and black guys are good at basketball..Germans invented and built some incredible war machines during WWII. Some folks, like me, although I love and appreciate good music, I could NEVER learn to play an instrument. You either have it, or you don't. As the old saying goes, "It's in your blood". I'm half German.

 

I know a few guys that couldn't change the oil in their car if their life depended on it, buy those guys love cars, they drive their car everywhere, all the time. I know several ladies that fall into the same category, my wife being one of them.
I don't believe being able to work on your cars is a requirement of being a car guy/ gal, its more about the desire to own or appreciate and the love for cars. That is what makes a person a car guy/gal. Gene

 

I don't know.....really, real, drool on their shirts, talk about nothing but cars guys drive me crazy. Yet, the couple I know are poor builders, I'm the advice giver, the fixer of many mistakes, they own the clothing, walk the walk, talk the talk, go to every car event they are able to, hang with other drool on their shirt car guys, bore their tolerating wives to death, attend rockabilly events, they literally drink in as much car stuff as they can.
Me? Not so much, I like camping, fishing, politics, motorcycles, equipment and big trucks. I drive a western star with a 625 cat engine in it that literally never runs out of power, I operate iron, have all my life, yet, I've also built a dozen cars from scratch. Several custom motorcycles as well.
We are both car guys, them and me, and the gold chainer who thinks he can't fix shit, but likes to be seen in a cool car, and the guy who contracts a high end shop to build him a riddler, because at places like bonneville, where it matters, we are all equal. Some of us bring money to the table, some bring their skills, but we all want to see modified shit go faster, me with my torn jeans, him with his hawiian shirt, and we all love the same shit in the end, cars.
I think we're born with it.

 

If when you go to a car show you visit all the rows, then you could be "a car guy".
But if you skip certain sections, then maybe you're a Chevy guy, or a flathead guy, or a pre-war guy, etc. There's nothing particularly wrong with that. You know what you like and you gravitate to that. "You are what you eat."

 

Car guys .............dont flinch when you run your fingers along a cheese grater, paper cuts just don't happen , you put up in silence when you hit your thumb with a FBH, again, differential oil in your hair is a right of passage not something to wash out that day, you set fire to some part of your body at least bi annually and tell everyone about it, your hands are painted in several colours (with flake is better) when out on date night, tax returns are for something shiny or finned. You forget your partners birthday (or that other apparently important day) but you know what size bearings and pistons are in the engine you built ten years ago. Does that cover it?

 

How the hell do you know me so well? Have you been reading my mail? Are you stalking me?....

 

I have been known to drive 500 miles with a trailer to look at a car I might not buy, but I have to go because it might be "the one". (I did buy it) I do a double take and go around the block because I think I saw something interesting in a driveway, backyard, alleyway, car lot, whatever. If you count cars and trucks bought to part out I have owned over two hundred cars, right now I have eight, five older than 1966. I still have three cars with points. I have engines, transmissions, rear ends, and every imaginable part you can think of, some for more than 40 years. I like the HAMB. I don't think I am more of a car guy than the guy with the Jeep rock crawler or the guy with the turbo Subaru. We all love cars! Where I do draw the line is the guy with the Tesla telling me I am going to have to convert my 55 to electric. I just say "I quit playing with slot cars a long time ago" or "my car is a hybrid, it burns gas and rubber".

 

You're a particular kind of car guy if....you took shit apart as a kid to see how it worked. You bought car magazines, and looked them over and over starting when you were 12 or 13. A couple years later you could identify all sorts of cool old cars, from reading those magazines. You are antsy to get your first car and might even buy one before you get a license. You work on that car for sport and might even take auto shop in high school...so you can work on it at school. Your major in high school is industrial arts (auto shop). In your senior year you are the auto shop teachers' TA. Later you start buying project cars so you can fix them up.

When you drive down the streets of a neighborhood...you look down the driveway or an open garage to see if there is a cool car there you might try to buy. You can identify cars with car covers or tarps on them. You might even be able to identify cars in your rear view mirror at night..because of the headlights/turn signal setup.

 

Mom said my first words were not "Da, Da", but "Vrooom, Vroom" and then there was some sort of backfire!........Do I qualify?

 

The automobile is a constant,,,there’s always something needing attention and you da guy. Says it’s hard to stear. Older vehicles always in need of attention

 

Do I qualify if and when my wife wants to go to Calif. to look at the ocean and I will only go if we go to Pleasanton also?

 

if you hear that a house burned down, and your first reaction is, "did they get the cars out of the garage?"....your a car guy.

 

On the HAMB every day.....................

 

It's as if people have a sixth sense about you kind of thing, like everytime you meet a friends' friend or a friend of a family member or someone that you've met but haven't stayed in contact with and when you are introduced they will immediately say, "oh, you're the car guy".
Kind of like having leprosy but in a good kind of way, if that's possible!