Momma don't let your kids grow up to be gear heads. When were the signs obvious?

How old were your kids, the ones that grew up to be gearheads, when they showed signs of the car disease? My 3 1/2 year old grandson wants a car bed for Christmas - grandma says it's my fault so pony up. Everywhere he goes he has at least 2 toy cars with him. Grandma says it's because I take him to car shows, cruises, burnout contests, monster trucks and the drag strip and some e ticket rides in the jalopy. I mentioned this to my Mother and she said I was the same way - but no one ever took me to any car events until I was ~ 7. Maybe there is hope for the little guy

 

Well, my first born went to his and my first rod run in Waco when he was about 18 months old. He was a gearhead from then on until I lost him when he was 19. His sister now 31 was five weeks old in 1979 when we took her to her first rod run and stayed the weekend in the travel trailer. She still wants a steel body 41 Willys. Her 26 year old brother isn't all that much of a hot rod nut but is one hell of a welder and can fabricate about anything out of metal.

 

My Mom wanted kids just so she didn`t have to help my Dad build Hotrods...

 

12 years old

 

i was a car nut since i was 4-5 yrs old my dad took me to car shows all the time now i have a 3 year old that is car crazy look at my avatar he love cars and tools im in big trouble i can relate he goes every where with his pockets full of matchbox cars and hot wheels i could not be more proud likes motor cycles too

 

I can remember being 3-4 years old and getting pissed as hell if I didn't get to go for a ride in the "cool" car (didn't matter what "it" was as long as Dad was driving it) whenever it fired up...

Yeah, you're stuck with it once it gets in your blood. Any of you chemists know how blood and petroleum are able to mix without killing us? I know I got it if you need a sample...

 

My earliest memory is of helping my father shoot primer on a yellow 55 chevy....he swears that it was in the spring of 77(around May) , I must have just turned 3 (birthdays April). Been like this ever since.

 

My mother has a picture of myself and my father when I was about 5. He had a car up on jack stands, and I had my PowerWheels Jeep up on ramps, likely changing it's oil or the like. So I guess I really can't say when it started, but I was in over my head by the time I was 5!

 

......My old man had a 1949 shoe box.back in 1957....at 10 years old ...he let me drive......I was hook since.....

 

I started my career early. That is me behind the red sort of arrow. Despite my size I am only 4 years old. My older brother has his back to you. The picture was developed in 1954 and I was born in 1950 just before the running of the Indy 500. In 55 Dad bought a 53 Chev. This old Ford was one of the ones that had a floor shift. I have never seen another but Dad tells me they came both ways.
My Mom never said anything neg about car stuff as her brothers were all skilled tradesmen (Welders)In fact her nephew my first cousin works for the #16 car team in Nascar.He is like me an Ontario trained mechanic.
My Dad however was as negative as could be. Although he was the only member of his family to go to university (Electrical engineer ) he was most upset when I began working in the garage business. He told me when he found out "You will just wind up being a greasy old mechanic". (I did!;>)) His older brother was a very well respected mechanic and although he passed away over 20 years ago people still remember him. I was fortunate enuf to have served some of my apprenticeship under him. He was a man who could simplify the complicated. I learned especialy ignitions and carbs from him. Nothing phased him. I wanted to be like him. It is interesting to note one day later in life my dad stopped by and we went for lunch. I was service manager then. I had just gotten my pay stub and when putting it in my pocket I handed it to him to see. He said "You make that kind of money? I have an engineering degree and a MBA and I never made that much! I take back everything I said about being a mechanic"! I was probably over paid at the time but also beat him by 4 years to retirement. My hobby became my career and is now my hobby again. The secret is to do what you have a passion for. Its not about the money. (But it doysent huyrt!)
Don

 

My brother told me when I was 5, I could name any car, make and model, and get the year within 3 yrs.I guess that was the start.

 

It bit about the time I turned 12! But NO OnE in my familly has ever been into cars. Ive been a mechanic and hot rodder all my life. I wouldnt trade it for anything! Ive got more cars in my garage and yard than I'll ever get finished, but you can never have enough! Headed to get a 1965 Crew cab ford pick up soon!

 

I think when they brought me home from the hospital in my Dad's 40 Ford Deluxe 4-door. Rumblin Smitty's on the flathead. Hooked and happy about it. Dad was a mechanic and had a used car lot, I couldn't help it. ~sololobo~

 

I think my son was born with a Hotwheel in his hand. He's going to be a terror on the street when he's older. My daughters are into cars as well just not as bad as he is. One day after a cam install I picked up my oldest daughter at daycare. She got in and asked me if I put a thing in my car to make it faster. She asked if she could open the door and listen a bit more. She was 8 or 9 haha I was so proud. She found an old T bird convertible sitting in the woods and had dreams of fixing it up...yup she's got the bug alright!

 

eh, 2 years and 3 months. guess the truck's gonna stay in the family
that's the kid. me: my dad took me to crazy race (mud track with VW bugs w/ Porsche engines) and to ice speedway (dirt track on ICE with motorcycles, old Jawa 2-stroke, 2 inch spikes on the tires) and grand prix motorcycle racing in the late 70ies/early 8ies). well that got it going for sure

 

I think some kids are just born that way. My son is 14 months old now and he runs to the garage door about ten time a day. He will pound on the door until I open the door so he can see the model a.

 

I don't get it. I've been a gearhead ALL my life, and my kids watched me bend wrenches, build models, and draw Hot Rod Cartoons for cash at cruise nights, but they've never been interested in them. Gave my daughter a Falcon Coupe for her 16th B-day. She loves the idea of driving it (honest Honey, it'll be done any day now) but she has no interest in working on it. I know what you're all goin' to say, and you're right...DAMN computer games

[/IMG]

 

I was doomed at conception. Born into a Hot Rod family I didn't know any better and I still remember the day when I discovered that everyone didn't have a Hot Rod at home in the garage! I couldn't believe it, what was wrong with these people, no hot rod?? Crazy.

Doc.

 

i think i started helping my dad about 8, just working on the family car and his truck. not hot rods . no one in my family has rods till me. took my little girl to the fall grand run in pigeon forge when she was about 3 weeks old. she is now 4 and loves to be around me and helps when she can on my stuff. she even painted the head light extensions on my 55 fairlane , my wife was on the porch just shaking her head. then we went to the garage when they dried and she used the screw driver to change them. then she changed the spark plugs in my father inlaws honda while i held her from falling off the bumper. he couldnt beleive it. had to tell all his freinds about that. he still talks about it, lol.

 

May be when I was 11 and made a go cart out of my uncles gas powered lawn mower, wood frame with lawn mower in back.........

 

My dad said i was a gear head at a very young of 8yrs old and thats was about the same time i was into pretty ladies also for some reason he said it was blonds !! Lol but any ways i remember going to the junk yard and pulling parts off pontaics i grew up on gto,lemans,t-37's. 389,421,400's as the years passed i grew fond to gassers so when i was 16 we built a 57 chevy gasser 283 2x4 and ran for a few yrs. We did so many cars and had so many over the years it was not funny. 3 yrs ago in june he handed me over all his tool in his box and told me it was my turn to carry on the trade, he passed away 3 weeks after that !! I lost my best friend and a man that taught me everything i know !

 

When I was 4 my dad had a new '50 Ford sedan, he owned a Texaco gas station at the time, and I wanted to be just like him.....so, I filled his new car's gas tank with the water hose playing gas station attendent.

 

First family photos, my dad, mom, and me when I was about 1, dad and mom are sitting on the grass, and I am playing with a Tonka truck, I remember helping my dad put the silver base then the red spiderwebbing on the roof and sides of his 64 impala ss and that must have been in 71 when I was about 4 or 5, and have super 8 footage of me playing in the racecar my dad was crewing on in 72, age 6. Then, when MY son was about 1 or 2 i would take a box, draw wheels, a number, dash with guages and put his car seat steering wheel on it, and let him play for hours.....yup its genetic

Louie

 

I grew up on a farm in southeast Idaho. I remember riding with my dad in our old international tractor, the one with the sloped window behind the seat. I would lay on that window and watch the ground go by.

I built a motorcycle out of wood when I was about 7, not much of a bike but it was fun.

I guess I was doomed from the start, my dad had an AMC Javelin and a Barracuda.

My daughters have been gearheads since they were old enough to know what a car was. My 15 year old now is working on her own car getting it ready to drive when she gets her license. Not my favorite car, 63 VW, but she picked it out and purchased it herself. (Don't crucify me for her choice)

She is also doing all the work on it herself.

 

My kids don't seem to have the disease. But I was hooked on things mechanical early on. When 3 years old, my favorite toy was a wooden box full of pipe fittings. Mom said I would come out of the box looking like a coal miner.

I remember spending many hours in it, assembling and disassembling fittings. Can't remember exactly WHAT I was trying to build. I do remember the frustration of different sized pipes. Some things just wouldn't go together. They still won't.

Bill

 

This is my boy he is around 12 months here.

And this is him with great mama.

 

I've got pictures to prove it...







Was there ever any doubt?? Actually.. to be technical, I was born in September so the whole racing season that year I was at the drags in the womb... Not sure anyone can beat that...

My mom tells the story of people asking her if she was worried that loud cars would bother me. She says she would tell them "Nope..He justs gets this excited look on his face and does a two fisted arm pump whenever we fire up the racer.. "

I been known to still do the same thing even today...

 

Well lets See,

Here is my youngest at 15 months.


Here he is at almost 2yo:


And this past November sitting inside Texas Thunder (Thanks Mark and Dan) He also got a ride with Mark at the wheel. If he wasn't bad before, he is ruined now. He came home that night and announced to his mom that he was getting a JR Dragster for his birthday (will be 8 in Feb.) I think it is due to that crowd of old drag racers he hangs out with hehehehe. Made his first confession at church that morning, went to the track, came home told mom he was getting a dragster. Then the next day when he got out of Sunday school he gets in the car and tells his mom he lied to his Sunday school teacher about why he had missed a school event. I think I am in trouble hehehehe.

-Dave

 

I corrupted my boys early about 3 and 4 years old. My older boy ,Aaron , is now a total gearhead at 10. Went to help a friend start his 12-71 blown 509 Chev powered altered last summer,when it fired for the first time Aaron startled and ran to the car.
Went to check he was ok he said yes but the huge smile on his face told me he is totally addicted . My younger son is not that interested but thats ok he has other things that we share together . They both love to go to the drags and stock car races and I love having those moments with them. Rob.

 

I tore my first engine down at age 5 . It was Dads push mower