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

I'm going to say it was obvious around 11 or 12 years old. I was always drawing cars, putting models together, listening to NASCAR races on the radio, etc. I was lusting over all the cool cars the "big boys" were driving and I was reading Popular Science and Hot Rod. I couldn't wait to read, "Say Smokey" in PS each month and I loved Hot Rod.

My Dad was not a car guy but y uncle owned a Chrysler-Plymouth dealership and my mother kept books for him. I spent a many an afternoon after school just hanging out. I remember looking at Barracudas, Belvederes, Satellites, etc. but I really remember the first GTX he got and the first RoadRunner he got. Oddly, those cars don't excite me now. I like them earlier than that.

He had a mechanic who had a '57 Cameo pickup. I thought that was the coolest pickup I'd ever seen. The signs were there early and they continue today. I'm cursed.

 

Soon as I was old enough to tag along at car shows, collect hot wheels and do models. It really became apparent when I got my first nice bike (maybe 10 or 11) and every weekend I would take it apart, degrease and clean everything with a tooth brush, re-pack the crank bearings, true the spokes, adjust the brakes, etc.

 

didn't have these downloaded last week

 

I didn't have a chance, came home from the hospital in a 427 impala, with 2 uncles who were mechanics, its a bad habit but it keeps me out of the bars...

Ohh and I was hooked at about 5 when my 17year old uncle dumped the clutch..blew the doors off a new vette in his 396 elcamino...with me in the passengers seat..thanks uncle Steve...

 

My mom told me she knew I was gona be a gear head before I was born. Mom was pregnant with me when she was helping my dad one day on her '59 Pontiac. Well the car fell off the jack and dad was trapped under it. She couldn't get the jack back up cause it was bent (bumper jack). So she used a board on top of a log that she slid under the car and stood on it. The extra weight of me (cause I was a fatty), with the leverage she had was enough for him to squeeze out from under the car.

 

5 yrs old and dad took me into his workshop so I could pass him a spanner or two
The 15 when I found my first Hot Rod Magazine
15 1/2 when I took the teachers car to the panel beaters for him and ended up taking the looonng way there - any attempt to divert me away from cars or pickups past this was futile

 

Oh yeah thats right - having an uncle who helped build a dragstrip and raced cars didn't exactly help either even though he didn't get too many wins. My Mum was not amused however it was already too late!!!

 

I think my Dad knew when I was about four years old. I was beginning to read, but only just beginning. I don't remember this event very clearly, but I heard my father tell it several times

We went to a store, and he left me in the car while he went inside (remember when you could do that?)

When he came out, he pointed to the car next to us. "Look at that. It's a green car."

I guess I told him "It's a green Chevrolet."

He looked back at the car, wondering if I was right, and how I knew. He said there were no emblems on the car, and that even if there were, he didn't think I would have been able to read them. He looked at the hubcaps, and noticed that each hubcap had a small bowtie emblem in it, and wondered if that was how I knew.

When we got home, he decided to test me. He drew a bowtie on a napkin and asked me what kind of napkin it was. According to him, my response was:

"It's a Chevrolet napkin."

 

my first actual memory, i mean i have no memory of anything before this (always thought that was strange) is playing with a hot wheel/matchbox in the kitchen. a purple wedge thing with a dial like an old phone that would spin when the car moved. i was probably 3
my dad was a ford mechanic and raced asphalt oval 83-92 and he always had some project going so i was always exposed to it i discovered some creative talent building model cars. I even got my first chrome frame bmx in trade for rebuiling and customizing my buddies model cars

 

my parents bought me a couple car magazines for my birthday when I was 14 where i saw v-8 vegas, big block chevelles, jacked up novas and etc. never been the same since. I think hot cars are like meth if you dont want to be hooked dont even try it once!

 

I think my 3 yr old son has it. The other day, we went out to a restaraunt next to a lot that holds monthly shows. He got excited and started jumping up and down yelling, "We're gonna go see cars! Yayyyyyyyyyy" He looked so hurt when I told there were no cars that day.

 

My mom tells a story of me at ~18 months patting hubcaps on the walk back from the park, saying "car"....
At 5, I got a bicycle for my birthday. My dad came home from work this next day to find me almost done removing the training wheels (had a problem getting the chain straight and tight, he helped me finish the job).
I could name darn near every car by then, of course, including year.

 

My Dad was never a "Car guy", but my grandad was. Too bad he lived many miles away in another state. My boys came home from the hospital in a 440 Dodge and both like car stuff, but the oldest is far more into it than my youngest (ages 40-35 now). I could name al the cars on the road by age three and was stripping my bikes at age 6, riding my buddys "Doodlebug" at age 9-10 had my own H-D 165 at age 11-12 and my own car at 14 (1956 Chevy I traded a Cushman Eagle for). The list gets REAL long after that....

 

I have always been a gearhead and always will be, my kids on the other hand could care less about any of it or what it is about, I am pretty sure that they think cars just sprout out of the ground or land on earth from outer space instead of people actually building them, as long as you take them where they wanna go they could care less bout the rest!!

 

On trips to Grandma/Grandpa's house, I literally cut my teeth on the vibrating gearshift knob in Dad's '65 Vette. Yeah- it's in my garage.

 

my first word was "dar" as I was pointing at my parents cars around a year old. then came my first hot wheels and it was all over after that!

 

oh yeah--and one of oldest daughter's first words was HEMI--named her favorite toy Hemi.