Car motivation for a kid? Am I nuts?

Son's going to be 13 in October . . . I look back on my misspent youth and think of all the cool things I shoulda/woulda/coulda done. My son has an interest in cars, well -- err, big Dodge diesel trucks now, but that's just because his grandpa uses one everyday in an appliance repair business. I kicked this idea out to his mom and grandmother on maybe getting him interested in a car project. 3 years till driving -- that's a lot of time to work on something and get it ready for driving. I'm thinking it could be good motivational tool for grades and different things -- plus if its got his own blood/sweat/tears into it, maybe he'll be less likely to wrap it around a pole doing something stupid.

Has anyone else went this route with a youngster? What advice or thoughts can you add to this? Am I totally off my rocker or does this sound like it might be a plan?

 

my little guy is still way too young but that's a novel idea. i really enjoyed building a car when i was young with my dad. probably one of my best memories, plus it's cool to see how everything works. i think you should definately do it.

_T

 

My dad "bought" me my first "car".

Dragged it home from junkyard and said if I wanted a car, there it was.

We worked for about 8 months getting it road worthy.

Took my test and got my license in it on my 16th birthday.

Great memories and a good lesson.

I say definitely YES !!

- RBR

 

Get one yer buds to take him for a rip in a fenderless model A or sumfin,that'll ruin him forever and then you two can go out and buy a model A body and start building sumfin killa for him.
Take ya about two years to collect parts and build it then that gives you a year to drive it til he takes it away .....Shiny

 

I'm going that way with my 4,2 and 1.5 year old.

We've gone to the drags/swaps/shows and plan on a trip shortly to El Mirage. Not only are they excited when "working" on my car; I just let the older two wield the spray gun a couple weeks back, but they have in their minds what they want.

The 4 year old wants a 30's/pink (girls...) roadster or coupe. The two year old wants a blue 40-50's sedan but threw me this last weekend with how much time he spent looking over a Vista Cruiser. I guess he's seen pictures in my dads photo album and thought it looked neat.

My plan is to have them go through the whole process I did of saving searching and then finding that car or pieces they want/need. They'll pay for them with their own money and put a car/ re-do a car from scratch. I'm also kicking around the idea with the wife of putting together a rail-job to run for fun at the drags/lakes. All these ideas are far off for me but I want them out of trouble and wanting to spend time working on something as they grow up instead of hanging with friends at the mall.

 

Done that with my son when he was 15 and today he is 27 still has the car and we work on it together best investment I ever made. He learned about building and taking care of the car and I got to spend some quality time with him.

 

yeah, go for it, it seems to be rare these days for kids to take an interest in cars, even if they've grown up around them. Only one of my 3 sons is really into it, and he isn't into it nearly as much as I was when I was his age

 

Going through it with my Nephew (Jayzee).
Great motivation for grades.
I take him to the swap meet every month looking for the right parts.

 

I only wish my dad was a thoughtful and daring as you seem to be. I had to build my passion for old cars on my own - chances are if you get to him soon, he'll skip right over that obsession with sport compacts and imports - and when you watch the Fast and the Furious with him for the first time, make sure he sees the tears fall unashamedly down your cheeks when that blown 70 charger is destroyed by the semi truck - and giggle convincingly and gleefully when they destroy all the other plastic import crap.
So - YES - I think that's a GREAT idea, and I'm already envious. Tell him chicks will dig it too, at least the ones he wants to bother coaxing into the roomy back seat!

 

Here's waht we did with my daughter.........She had no interest in cars, but had no interest in grades, either. (Got that from me) She came home with a form to be signed to take driver's ed. I told her no........grades were too poor for a driver's license. When the crying stopped, I made a deal with her. Get grades up to a C average and we'll sign the form, and you can get a license. Get the grades to a B, and you get your own car. Loose the B, lose the car.

I'd have killed for deal like that when I was in high school. You'd be amazed how fast she got a B average.

Then came senior year.....the B average went away. I told here if it wasn't a b average on the next report card, goodbye car. Next report car came, no B average, I sold her car the next day. You should have seen the crying that night...........but, she learned a lesson the hard way.

 

I think it's a great idea. I'm hoping my 11 year old stepson displays an interest in cars soon. I was bit hard by his age, but his first love is the PS2.

 

I don't have kids, but my neighbor did that with his son. When the kid was 13, he was starting to go down the wrong path I guess. He for a beat up shell of a 67 Mustang. He told his kid that this was the only way he was going to get a car....build it, get good grades....and keep the good grades or lose the car. Its 4 years later now, I guess this kid is on the honor roll, plays some sports but doesn't want to join anything at the school because it cuts into his time afterschool for working on cars! I think its great, and this Mustang he's got is BAD ASS!

I guess for Xmas and birthdays, all he would ever ask for is car parts. My neighbor is a muscle car guy big time so thats the direction he went with this project, and now the car looks like Elenore from Gone in 60 Seconds. Got a 351 in it, mild cam and it fucking SCREAMS. For his graduation gift he wanted a real good paint job for it so it would look like the Elenore car, so my neighbor had it painted early this spring so he could have it for graduation and then drive it all summer. This kid really knows his shit now, he put in most of the wrench time on it with dad guiding him. This kid LOVES this car and baby's the shit out of it.

I think that would be a great plan. I'm a firm believer that if you built it, or you worked hard to save the money to buy it, you respect it a LOT more than you would if it were handed to you. My sister is 25 and has yet to buy her own car. My parents keep leasing cars for her and every one has been fucked up, crashed, cigarrete burns in them, filthy. She could care less because she didn't pay a cent for them, or the insurance on them.

 

My buddy was tellin me bout a study he saw.It was on kids of today and the instant gratification they get from video/computer games.
It said most kids aren't into building cars and long term projects these days cuz they don't get that instant happiness like they do with the dumb video games.Hence the lack of interest to build a car.
I guess watchin the stupid ass TV programs where they chop a car in 30 minutes doesn't help either.Cuz then they think we can do that in 30 minutes too.

I also say get something the kid will enjoy doing.Maybe a really long term project isn't the way to go.Get him/her a driving project maybe you can drive while you guys modify it along the way....Shiny

 

More important than any of the reasons you give for doing this is the fact that you and your son will get to spend a lot of serious quality time together. I say it's a great idea, my only daughter worked on every car she ever drove.

I think it will help instill some sense of value in him too.

Go for it!

 

I think it is a great idea. If you dont do it you will always wish you had.

 

I bought my first car when I was 14, but I'd been around cars all my life. I don't recall that it kept me from partying but ya just never know.

Lots of the SOC kids in school had nice cars that their dad's bought for 'em. I don't really think that I would have appreciated one as much if it was on someone else's dime. But I have no way to know. it would have been really cool to have had a cool car when I was in highschool but maybe I would think they need to be cool today instead of fast.

What the hell it'll be a good experiment, I don't think I'd hold his grades over his head for it though. That's BS, if you want to build a car with him just do it and let the chips fall where they may.

 

I agree that this was a great idea. My old man didn't do his own work on cars when he could afford to have someone else do it and it took me an eternity to figure out what was cool and how I was gonna get it. Building cars also teaches them every important life lesson - from saving, to budgeting, to not bowing to fads, to the importance of hard work, to personal responsibility for your actions. It also teaches respect for property, other, and so forth. On top of all that, you'll get stupid amounts of quality time watching your kid fall in love with the things that you also have and, in general, watching him grow up. On the flip side, I wouldn't get anything too powerful - make sure it can dust off the average 'tuned' honda, but somethingpowerful enough get a responsible adult killed is sure to be bad for teaching lessons about peer pressure and so forth. Just because your kid's reasonable doesn't mean that he's not gonna act like a jackass at the urging of his friends and a 400hp car would accentuate that single bad decision pretty well...

 

There is no down side to your plan. Any activity that you do together is the ultimate good plan.
Please remember that you should also think about a career path that would be the best and also get them involved in that, along with cars.
Enjoy while you can. The activity is secondary to the time together.

 

Hell yeah. I've grown up with a dad that doesn't like oil stains on the driveway. My first car was and still is a total pile, but I've learned alot about cars and respect for what you have because of mistake-fix, mistake-fix mentality. I sure wish someone would have been around to show me the ropes.

 

The car in my avatar was my first car. Dad paid $100.00 for it when I was 14 (1980) and we restored it. The thing was a clapped out old race car and we put it back on the street. It was the fastest thing at my highschool but I respected it and always took great care of it because it had part of me in it!! I still have it and always will because my father and I did it together. My father and I just bought a '65 Mustang roller for my son. He just turned 13 in July. The three of us are going to do this one for him. I think if a kid is part of the build, they will respect the car much more. A few busted knuckles seems to do that!!

 

Bought my first car when I was 11, still have it, still wondering how I had $250 when I was 11. It's a good plan, find him something he likes and something he'll stick with. Every kid in his HS is going to have a new car, there will be more pride in him having built it than in just having it.

I agree that you should find something that is already a driver, or at least close to it, so it doesn't get boring, and you can at least drive it while you're working on it, let him drive it around in a parking lot or on a deserted backroad once in a while. A complete ground up build is going to get pretty boring for a kid if you can keep him interested in working on it every day for 3 years. Find a runner and do small projects on it to start with.

 

my dad let me start buildin my truck and has helped me but ive had to pay for the whole thing and its kept me out of trouble i havent been grounded or nuthin since i started makin it

 

When my son turned 16 in 1976 he had enough cash to buy a car but I didn't feel he was mature enough to own one. I told him to keep driving my '64 Chevelle 2-door wagon and we'd build him something together with the money. Well it's now 2006 and he's still driving it. Takes meticulous (sp?) care of all his cars and especially the old Ford truck we built. It's still got the set of Ansens we bought for $250.00 on it. If I remember right he had $4100.00 in it when it was finished.

 

My dad lost intrest in hot rods before I was born. We had little in common, I was into cars bigtime, he was into fishing and working. I was a very troubled youth, into drugs and always in trouble. He became a successful insurance salesman, but I have struggled up until a few years ago. We have fortunately put most of our differences aside. My best friend, and his dad who was one of my dad's best friends, shares an intrest in gearhead stuff, currently fast boats. He runs his dad's business, also insurance, and is verry successful. I had a blast with him and his parents (my second family for many years)at the drag boat races this past weekend. I love my own parents and do spend time with them, but I'm around my buddy and his family at the drop of a hat because we enjoy similar things. You will possibly be giving your kid a much bigger gift than just a cool car.

 

Great idea.

Just be careful with the time frame and make sure to show him that small targets can be completed so that he stays motivated and excited. My brother started on a project truck with his 15 year old son. At the begging the kid was all excited, but my brother (a perfectionist) is taking waaaaayyyyy more time than he should with everything... because "everything has to be just right". Long story short... girls, friends with Hondas, and other interest have come into the picture. Now my brother almost has to force the kid to look at the truck.

For me, I'm starting them off early. My two and a half year old girl is in the garage with me alot (when it's safe). If you ask her about our cars she'll tell you that the wagon is hers... the truck is her little brothers... the Lincoln is Papa's... and the new car is Mommas!!!

 

getting involved with cars at 13 is the reason I am not dead,in jail, a shop owner, and know any of the people I know.

I went to school at a place called Cal Farleys Boys Ranch. lets just say I wasn't there for my stellar grade point average.
all boys 13 or older have to get a job at the ranch. (as in required) I decided that the Auto shop was the place to be, and I met the men I admire most there. I also figured out what my calling in life was. now, 17 years later, I have had the same career since before I could buy beer, and know alot more crap than is useful. I got to hang out with a couple of (forgive the term) old school mechanics for 3 hours a day on weekdays, 8 on saturday, and 8 during the summer. the only regret I have is not being there more!

all I can say is, hear out the silly ideas, patience when explaining what a carbuerator does will help, and don't be afraid to break out the directions whenever neccecary.
that, and make sure you are both having fun!

a man that does what he enjoys what he does for a living will never work a day in his life!

 

my dad did it to me when i was 10, brought home a hotrod mag, found a 29 tudoor ford,fixed it and got it running and that we still have. the respect you give a car when you put your sweat into says everything.. way better than going" here bobby now that yr 16 we will get you that bmw you wanted" that he ll wreck in a year.

 

Do it! My Dad let me buy an old 59 Rambler Cross Country wagon for $75 when I was 13. At 44 the only down side has been a problem in my neck. It snaps around every time I see the sun glint off something in a field or behind a barn.

 

as others have said.. this is a good idea..

my dad bought me this

when I was 13.. best 300.00 he ever spent (i still owe him $299.)

the deal was I had to keep my grades up and do all the work.. I saved enough the first summer I had it to buy another "parts car"

so technically had 2 cars of these things before I was 14..

I got the first motor from dads buddy for some work I did for him.. the front clip and rear came from the same car..

It took 5 years.. due to my limited budget at the time.. (so i too would be wary of setting "timelines")

my car never got to the paint or interior stage but I drove it to louisville in 95 or 96..


I owned it till i was 27, about the time I found the hamb and worked out a trade to django to for his/my 48 olds wagon.



ps.. I can vividly remember getting up early during the school year to do small projects before the bus came. and drawing up designs for the dash in drafting class..

there are still notes i wrote on the wall in my dads shop.. dimensions etc..


I say do it..

 

I think you're on the right path. I would kill to have had my dad be into cars and do that with me. If your able to get your son into it, I think you will have the best relationship with him possible, and he will respect you immensly and respect the car and responcibilities in general alot more.

I'm like boristheblade in the way of not having anyone to show me the ropes as i grew up.