When did it start for you?

I was born in 61 , my dad had a old fenderless 32 Ford 3 window he was working on . I used to pretend that I was driving it at an early age .I guess it sounds kinda dumb with all the stuff kids have today but I used to go out under a big shade tree where my dad had a old motor sitting on the ground. I would make a seat out of 2 old wooden Coke crates , grab a old steering wheel laying around and I would pretend I was driving . In the later 60's the Hot Wheels and Johnny Lightning cars. The Hot Wheels and Motor Mouse/Auto Cat cartoon also played a part in my youth. Might sound a little corny now days but I wouldnt take nothing for the memories.

My grandson Mason seems to be catching these sickness too!

 

Sunday drives with my Grandfather in his Dodge. Man... that speedometer looked like it went all the way across the dash! He would fly down these old country roads and I loved it.

Then I saw my friends dad's Model A coupe and I was hooked! My friends dad still has his Model A, and he is a HAMB'er.

 

I grew up in a restoration shop but at about age 9 my highschool aged neighbor gave me about 75 old Hot Rod mags and as I was reading them from cover to cover I saw a 34 Ford truck with a Y block. That was it for me. Four years later I had one.

 

I was 8 Years old when my oldest brother "finally" left me cut off his old rusty exhaust with a hack saw. Man that was living.

Couple weeks later he encouraged the addiction by "allowing" me to pump up a couple of flat tires with a hand/foot pump.

I new he recognized my talent when he said "Here, hold this plug wire"

Then he turned over the engine to test for spark.

Ralph

 

In 1958, after church a freind of my dads, J.W. told dad he was going to go to Okla City for something called a drag race. My nine year old mind went "what is a drag race", "what are the dragging", and CAN I GO!

This was at the old fairgrounds track and I was pretty much hooked from that point on.

 

It probably started in 1964, when I was 3, looking out the front window watching my Brother and his buddies working on his '51 Chevy HT, mimicking their actions (as well as some of their profanity). Ive been told by my family that I picked up a nail and proceded to start "pinstriping" the fender of my Dads '60 VW bug at around the same time. The '51 gave way to a '35 Ford Coupe, a hemi powered '40 coupe, a '33 Ford 3w...and so on, so I never stood a chance of losing the hot rod bug. 46 years later and Ive got too many unfinished projects to think about stopping now!

 

I had a maroon '53 Packard next door to me, and like most of you, it was all about standing on the bench seat and pretending to drive.. You know what my neighbors did with that car? DONATED IT FOR A TAX WRITE OFF!!!

Still steams me.. Then I saw Dreadman's Nash Roadster in Rolls and Pleats, he told me to come here, and I noticed a '29 A-bone down the street from me and started talking to the owner.. Some asshole named Splinter..

 

Back in 1960, My Grandfather would drive out from The Bronx to visit us in the suburbs in Jersey. He had this 1958 Buick. Cant remember the model (it could have been a Roadmaster) but for me that was all it took. Big everything for a 5 year old. He would cruise all over with me hanging out the window like a dog, digging the breeze. NO seat belts! Bliss. Slim

 

I remember when I was 6 (1978) dad had bought a new chev pickup, had the factory exhaust cutoff and had duals with 'big daddys' glasspacks put on. One day going home from somewhere with me sittin between ma and pa, dad punched it on the hiway. The rap of the exhaust and sound of 4bbl howling had me in an instant. Couldn't wipe that grin off my face.
Of course I expected dad to do that EVERY trip thereafter. He mostly obliged.

 

I don't really remember what "sparked" my interest....Mom says I started drawing cars when I was 3 and my dad (as well as the rest of my relatives) always had some kind of old car...
One of these days I'll try to post pics of some of the stuff my dad messed with right before I was born, as it was sold to pay for my newborn ass....haha! Some neat stuff, even if a little OT....

 

I think for me it started the day I was born. My dad has always had an old car. When I was born he had an A coupe. Shorty after that he sold the coupe and bought a 31 Vicky, that he still has. He built a 40 Ford when I was about 10, and then a string of Mustangs. My grandfather raced "Big Cars" on Nor Cal dirt tracks in the 30's. I have been to every Turlock swap meet since I was in moms belly in 72, the old guys used to get a kick outta me, I have been told, cause I would dig through the boxes at the swap meet looking for "treasure" from about 3 on. Hey I still do that, LOL, You find the best stuff in the worst boxes at the swap meet.

 

As long as I can remember

 

Oldsmobile is the key for me too. My dad imigrated here after WWII from Germany. You had to have a sponsor to come here. Over in Germany there was no such thing as credit. After he got married to my mom his German friends told him now that he was married it was important he have reliable transportation. He told them there was no way possible they could afford a car. He was amazed someone (a bank) would lend all that money to a recent immigrant. We had that 1955 Olds 88 4 door. powder blue with white top for 27 years. Spent my whole childhood in that car.

 

I guess that it all started when I was 5 or 6. My grandma had her garage open and there was my grandpas 1961 Chevy Parkwood. Ever since I saw that car I fell in love. That was 1986 I believe. Fast forward to 1997 and it is high school graduation day. I wake up and pop's tells me to come outside. Low and behold there is grandpas 61 Chevy!(looking WAY worse then when I last saw it.) Never the less the love affair with my 61 is still burning as much as it ever did...

 

For me it statred with my father taking me to car shows as a kid pulling me around the seemingly endless rows of cars in a radio flyer wagon.

 

I was sorta born into it. I have fond memories of Flat Rock Speedway, a 36 Dodge PU with a dual quad Eldorado engine under the hood (litterally) The old welding shop in Lincoln Pk, MI and old cars and parts always around. Dad bragged for most of his life how I knew the difference in a Model A and other old cars at 7yrs old (I remember that too). He had a 427 Hi-Riser in an ARCA car and at 8 yrs old had me work just the clutch and drive to the gas station on the corner. I was terrified, so loud and all the tinwork buzzin around inside. Premium gas was good enough to race with back then. After he filled it he took down Van Born Rd in Dearborn Hgts, MI from Southfield to Pelham Rd, then down another 1/2 mile to one of the side streets back to our house. I was inside on the roll bars that took up the passenger seat area, again terrified but in all the right ways. I was done. An addict to speed, hot rods, cool old cars and restorations, then customs. At 52yrs old I'm still a mess. Can't get enuff...

 

I don't really recall. My sister has a pic of a crew cut red head sticking up out of Uncle Ed's roadster @ B-ville that she says is me. But I truthfully don't recall I couldn't have been out of braces yet and I got those off for my 5th Birthday.

I've seen the pic and all you can really see it the very top of the head say from the eyebrows up.

edit damnit
I should add here that the only cars that we considered to be old cars were pre-war. So I guess I've always driven late model if you consider anything from the early '50s to later '60s to be late model.

 

I'm a lifer too! My dad owned a shop called Racing Unlimited in St. Paul MN. at the time I was born. I came home from the hospital in the family Model "A", 'cause the snow was too deep for the supercharged XKE, or the chopped '57 Ranchero, too cold for either of the "T" buckets, too much salt for the '40 coupe. I had no choice!the first 7 or 8 years of my life were spent at the Cleveland road store right down the street from our house. I spent many hours sitting in the FEDs, staring out around the blowers and dreaming of the day I would be making passes of my own.Weekends were spent riding in the back of the El camino push truck chasing the race cars down,wiping tires,packing 'chutes. Remember when the whole team was on the line and in the push truck? By 1973, it was all gone - along with dad - replaced with the nicest step dad in the world - with absolutely no automotive skills! I learned to read super early, and I ended up with dad's extensive magazine collection (which I own to this day!), and that is what kept my interest through my preteens and teen age years. To me childhood was just waiting around to be old enough to get a license and really be a hot rodder!

 

My dad always told me stories about him and his buds getting in trouble with their muscle cars, and I would hang out with him when he was tinkering on his '66 Cornet (that he sold when I was 5, too a guy driving an early 80's Elcamino. This also happened to be the first time I ever saw a naked woman, as I was sitting in the Elco and I opened his dash and all these nude pics fell out haha). As I got older I would always stop to admire old vehicles, the older the better and if they were hotrods/customs that was always the best. When I was 11 or 12 my dad rented one of his 'required viewing' movies (and there have been many, many 'required' movies through the years ha) and told me that I had to sit down and appreciate it. American Graffiti ruined my life. In highschool I wanted an early 60's GM pickup but it never really panned out. I forgot about owning anything till after I got out of college in early '06 and started making 'real money' and here I am.

 

my father backed a loaded trailer over me when i was kid. i wasn't paying attention. kinda been screwed ever since.

 

When we were kids, my Mom used to do research survey work (product testing, consumer research for big companies, etc.) and one of her assignments was to go to new car dealerships without my Dad and to see how the salesmen would treat her. I distinctly recall going into Bridgeville Chrysler-Plymouth in Bridgeville PA and walking up to a brand new Lemon Twist yellow 1970 Plymouth Superbird and being eye level to the big "standing bird" Road Runner decal on the big wing on the back. Trying to "help" Mom, I shouted "Let's get THIS one!!!" Needless to say, I was told to be quiet and we never did buy that yellow Superbird!

I used to help Dad with small jobs on the cars, and it was mainly because kids have small hands and can turn wrenches in tight spots.

But I think that the real reason was that my Mom's brother used to manage a car dealership's body shop in Pittsburgh and used to buy wrecked (1960's!) Corvettes as a hobby and would fix them up in the shop after hours and on Saturdays and would drive them for a while, get the bugs out of them, and then sell them for a nice profit and would start over on another one. He used to take us for rides around the block when we visited and he would always burn the tires just to make my Mom mad. That's probably what got me hooked on quick accelleration!

That's my uncle on the left in a 1961 photograph that my Mom just gave me (check out his ride in the background!!!).

 

I first got into cars when my stepdad had a guy that owed him some money paint my 79 dodge longbed truck. Once it was all one color I got into stereo's and all kinds of other stuff. Until recently I have been a late model guy. I have a 97 GMC that is fully custom and up until about a year or so ago, I was all late model. Then I went and picked up the 66 econoline from my grandpa and started tweaking on that. I was hooked as soon as I started working on it. The more I work on it the more I have come to appreciate older cars. I go to car shows now and spend more time looking at early cars than I do late models. I would say that I am officially a converted minitrucker.

 

Amazing.

 

It's a hobby. It started for me after I retired. I had to sell my airplane because of my limited retirement income. Never gave a shit about old cars before that, other than having grandpa's Model A as a family heirloom. Didn't have time, was busy with career and family. No hobby should sell career or family short.

Of course memories of my childhood, with Model As and old Chivvy influence my direction now. I build my jalopies now, kind of like I might have when I was a kid, if I had been able to. As a kid I couldn't play with cars.

Now I'm a kid again..................

 

I guess my obsession started in the mid-late fiftys. The small Massachusetts town that I lived in didn't have very many cool cars but every young guy wanted one. AMT 3 in 1 models had a lot to do with the infection. Monogram also added to the fire. Rod and Custom, Hot Rod, Car Craft were my favorite reading materials. I was a pretty good artist and picked up a few bucks doing Roth inspired Tshirts and posters in the early 60's. My uncle gave me a 41 Ford pickup that inspired a lot of dreams, however, I had neither the money or the knowledge to pursue those dreams. My mom and I moved to Florida in 1964 and I still had gears instead of brains. I messed with VW's for many years, still wanting a hot rod, but back then, money was tight and insurance was next to impossible to find for a modified car. Finally in 1978, I built my first rod, a 27 Track Roadster. Then another track roadster. I built a 35 Buick 2 door sedan, next. The Buick was followed by a 47 Ford tudor. i kinda lost interest for a while but started on my coupe in 1999. I still have it (longest that I have ever owned a car). I have two sons that are also gearheads, so I guess this disease must have some heredity elements.

 

My Dad, who had no mechanical experience, overhauled a Henry J flathead four in my uncle's junkyard when I was maybe 6 or 7. Got it apart, found a bent valve, replaced it and put it back together using borrowed tools and a Motor Repair Manual. I was so impressed that I wanted to take apart an engine, too. Got my chance when I was 15. Overhauled my Dad's 53 Willys F-head. Ran like a top when I was done.

Also helped that Ed's Drive-in restaurant was just across the highway from our old two-story farm house, and I got to watch all the local hotrodders coming and going each night. My ears perk up every time I hear a flathead.

 

i started wayyy back! all the way back to 2009...just kidding, im just getting into it and love this hobby/sport.but my family has always been tinkering with something so its only natural for me to get into it. I have been going to shows and what not ever since i could walk but didnt start actually building one until last year.when i was little, i use to play in my (grandmas at the time) 53 and pretend i was driving it while sitting in the garage. well she gave it to me for my 17th bday and it has really just taken off from there.

 

I grow up in Downey, Ca. in the 60's I had a paper route and one of my customers was "Keff Rentals" a small rental yard on Downey Ave. One of the sons had a red T bucket.He let me help him wax it before the shows,seems like he always came home with a trophy bigger the me
Just before we moved in 1969 he started a stagecoach car.Went by a few times and never caught him home then they movednever did find out were thy moved to or what happened to the stagecoach been hooked ever since!

 

Grandma rocked a '53 Hardtop?? How awesome is that!

 

First started when I was 2 or 3 in the early '50's. My dad started to work for a loan company and the entry level job was "repo man" back when it was a bit more respectable. They would send him out with a Ford or Chevy 4 door with a tow bar. I would go with him sometime and stand in the front seat trying to spot the car before he did. I learned all my brands and colors from those trips. The job was a little safer back then.

My dad was not a gearhead and his best friend Joe knew everything about cars but he was so obese that he could not bend over under a hood (really). They would sit in chairs in the driveway and Joe would give me instructions. I replaced the generator on a '57 Chevy when I was in the 4th grade.

It was those early years that got me hooked.