OK, so this was supposed to be my story about how and when I knew I was a car and motorcycle person, but dumb me had to go and invite the gang to contribute their own stories. You know, just a little something, because my story wasn’t going to be particularly long or interesting. And thus, the more the merrier.
I didn’t need extra stories, I merely thought it would be nice to include them if anyone wanted to contribute. “Just a couple or three sentences,” I said.
I did not get a couple or three sentences. I got novellas. Well, good! I was just going to say I fell in love with Speed Racer and my Dad took me to Seekonk Speedway on the regular, which sealed the deal. I was a car kid and knew I’d be a car person for life. I was also an Evel Knievel kid, which set the motorcycle hook.
Of course, it was going to be a while before I could drive a car or a real motorcycle, so I had to content myself with Hot Wheels and Stick Shifters and bicycles that did their best to be hot rods and/or choppers, or in the case of the Huffy Wheel, both.
Oh, and I had R-R-R-Raw Power, a must.
But enough about me, it’s time for the show to be stolen:
Alanis King
When I was 13 years old, my mom got free tickets to a NASCAR race from her job. I didn’t know anything about NASCAR, and I didn’t want to go. But she said: “It’s the recession, so if we’re doing anything ‘fun’ this year, it’s this.”
We arrived at Texas Motor Speedway, and it was the biggest facility I’d ever seen — like a tall, shimmering glass kingdom in the middle of Texas. I got to my grandstand seat and felt like I could see the end of the Earth, and when 40 cars took the green flag, the shrieks and ground-shaking could’ve opened a portal to the center of the planet.
That’s when I decided I wanted to do motorsports for a living, and cars just came along with it. I never missed another NASCAR national series race after that day. [Ed note: Hey everybody, go follow Alanis on YouTube – Pete]
Mercedes Steeter
I trace the beginning of my car enthusiasm to the day when a now long-distant uncle gave me a Pontiac Firebird Matchbox car. I think I was maybe four at the time, but I suppose I never realized how that little car would turn into something so much bigger. As a kid, I would go on to collect hundreds, if not thousands of Matchbox, Maisto, and Hot Wheels cars. Every single time I went to a store I figured out a way to bring at least one car home with me.
My car enthusiasm truly blossomed through the help of go-karts. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, Wisconsin Dells wasn’t just known as the so-called “Waterpark Capital Of The World,” but also a sort of go-kart mecca. Basically every theme park in the Dells had a go-kart track, and there were some parks that were nothing but go-karts. My favorite was Big Chief Go-Karts, where the teens running the place tweaked the governors on the go-kart engines, resulting in tracks where you could go so fast that you could actually get airtime.
Kid-me adored driving fast more than perhaps anything else in the world. My mom would come into a bunch of money soon after and treated my brother and I to a pair of off-road go-karts. My kart was the faster of the two, and I spent basically every summer weekend racing the big kids on the secret dirt track they built in a nearby forest. These kids had much more powerful ATVs and dirt bikes, but I made that 5 HP Manco Critter Kart work hard. I even managed to crash it into a tree trying to drift around a corner. I panicked at first, but eventually I brushed myself off, pulled the kart out of the tree, and got back racing.
That kart, diecast cars, and racing games helped me get through my confusing childhood. My body was changing in ways I did not understand and perhaps worse, my brain began realizing that there was a disconnect between my body and its own expectations. Eventually, I got to a point where I looked at myself in a mirror, understood that something was wrong, but couldn’t determine what.
I would go on to experiment with my identity and slowly become who I am today. But I couldn’t have done it without that Firebird, Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport, and a little red go-kart with a bald drive tire.
Stephen! Walter! Gossin!
I distinctly remember being around 10 years old and having a Dodge Stealth poster on my bedroom wall above the black & white TV that was hooked up to my shiny new NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). This was in 1990. I recall lying there at night, trying to fall asleep, staring at the curves of that Stealth poster and wondering what my dream garage was going to look like when I got older. 6 years later I bought my first car (’84 Cougar) for $400 that I made lifeguarding and working at a guitar store and immediately removed and rebuilt the 3.8 V6. I’m a lucky guy to still be here, 35 years and 151 cars later, living that dream and doing what I love, each day. [Ed note: You don’t have to use the exclamation points when you say Stephen’s name, that’s just how I do it – Pete]
Adrian Clarke
I was probably only a couple of years old maybe even younger. I remember having a green Dinky McLaren Can Am car in my cot as a baby, as well as a friction car that made sparks when you pushed it. It had lead screws which i used to like licking. Yes, I am old. What age do babies outgrow cots? Like five or something? When I was big enough for a proper bed I had one of those police car bedspreads, which I used to sit on and pretend to drive. Mother Dearest and I lived in a 9th floor council flat on a main road out of east London, and as an extremely child small I would sit transfixed for hours watching the traffic.
Your turn, finally: How And When Did You Realize You Were A Car Person?
Top graphic images: Schwinn; Mattel
17 years old, driving my 1988 Honda Accord sedan out of my high school, a kid pulled an illegal uturn and hit the passenger side of my car. Jammed both doors shut, shattered the front door window. Spent 6 months with plexi taped in to that door and friends climbing over the drivers seat to get in.
That spring, I went to the junkyard for the first time. My stepdad helped me pull a couple of doors and we took those home. Used a big slide hammer to push the B pillar mostly back in to place, then bolted on the new doors. It had only cost us hundreds instead of thousands which I loved (didn’t have much money growing up). Sure the car was ugly and mismatched, but it worked as a car again!
I had so much fun figuring all that out, and I had paid a ton for some engine repairs before that all happened, I decided I would learn to work on cars. Parents bought me repair manuals and a basic set of tools. I joined a car forum or 4. Took on every repair that my car needed from that time forward. Eventually repairs led to modifications. And I have had project cars ever since.
Prior to that, I couldn’t change my own oil, didn’t care about cars. Never had car posters on my wall.
Don’t think I’ve ever heard a gearhead story like that. Love it
Wait… Am I a car person? I suppose I am. Huh.
I made car sounds before my first word, just like my 3 boys did.
Good thing I bought my Ev after my last son was born cause he would be playing with cars while being silent…
My only goal in life as a kid was to get my licence and a car.
I’m betting most Autopians were too young to remember and, as far as we know, were born this way. I bet most of our parents would back that up.
When I was turning six I told my folks I wanted a Jeep for my birthday. When they gave me a toy Jeep I was crushed because I was expecting the real thing. I figured it was my fault because I didn’t specify that I wanted a real Jeep. For Christmas I told them I wanted a real Jeep and they laughed at me. I realized what a cruel world this was.
When I was 8, I asked for a computer for Christmas. This was 1988, so it would have been a Commodore 64 or something. They got me a Nintendo instead.
You certainly could have done worse.
Right? You could play Rad Racer, RC Pro-Am, Al Unser Jr’s Turbo Racing, Bill Elliott’s NASCAR Challenge, Bump ‘n’ Jump, Ivan Ironman Stewart’s Super Off Road, and more.
I always knew. Always. Really any machine or mechanism fascinated me from the get go.
I bet a lot of us share that sentiment.
I hope so! It’s the best fascination there is.
I didn’t really get into cars until after I graduated from college. It came on slowly as I enjoyed my first car that was not a family hand-me-down, a 2004 Mazda3. I enjoyed some racing games but the only car I really was into was my own. I didn’t spend time imagining what I would drive next or what kind of sports car would look great next to it in the garage. That was a good thing, as I graduated from college at the start of the Great Recession and quickly found myself scrambling to find a job with health insurance before the insurance card I had from my mother’s job turned into a pumpkin.
Taking a more enthusiastic view towards cars slowly evolved as I got myself established as a mostly functional adult. I find the way the auto industry connects to so many other aspects of life fascinating, from how public policy towards personal vehicles is in an eternal tug of war with the American mythos of everyone being their own version of the Lone Ranger to how we use these machines to express ourselves. I think enthusiasm includes having a policy wonk view of how our vehicles interact with the society outside of our own experiences with them, such as the endless debate over if it is wrong to drive something that puts other motorists/pedestrians/cyclists at elevated risk of injury or death in a collision simply because that’s what you want to drive. Public roads are the setting of a social contract we have with each other to follow rules (legal and understood) that are to the benefit of us all. Yet we all violate those rules from time to time, even if we don’t mean to. Cue George Carlin saying everyone who drives slower than you is a moron and everyone who drives faster than you is crazy.
I might be on the margins as someone who engages more in topics about cars and society than I do about cars as objects of desire. I’d love to own a sports car, but my logical side knows it would be a poor use of my family’s resources as we face economic uncertainty and my daughter approaches the start of college. That’s going to be expensive and depending on where she goes she might need a vehicle of her own. Maybe I can get that sports car after she graduates.
My parents have told me my first word was “Vroom!” which apparently I said before uttering “mama”. I always had toy cars growing up and at a young age dad put me to work fixing cars since I had still had small hands. I was always interested in bikes, big wheels, gokarts, real cars, riding lawnmowers, etc.
I’m told that when I was age five, the family visited the Smithsonian Institute. My grandfather was a supervisor for a large contractor that was working in the museum. While the relatives were perusing the exhibits, at some point they realized I was nowhere to be found. Mild panic ensued. Eventually they discovered me in the parking lot wandering between the aisles looking at the cars. I raised a fuss when my parents adamantly returned me to the museum. Don’t recall much from inside the Smithsonian that day except a massive blue whale hanging overhead, but I have a distinct memory of a bright red MG TD in the parking lot. From that day forward birthdays, Christmas, and other special occasions were marked by a steady gift parade of Matchbox, Dinky, Corgi, Shuco, and Hot Wheels cars. I even liked those cheap, stamped tin, five and dime store cars that still had the remnants of Japanese and Taiwanese food labels painted on the undersides. After that it was AMT model kits, slot cars and finally a real automobile. Didn’t hurt that I also had two car crazy uncles who always seemed to have a new ride they wanted show off. I was doomed from the start.
I bought a PT Cruiser (shut up) and started modifying it.
Then I bought a Suzuki Samurai and started modifying it.
Then I bought a Jeep TJ and started modifying it.
Then I bought a Miata and started modifying it.
About that time I grew bored with guitars and went looking for a new hobby. That was when I realized it was right in front of me the whole time.
The PT mod scene was so much more than fake Continental kits and stick-on hood portholes. I had an ’05 GT Convertible with the Mopar Stage 1 ECU, slightly-wider Enkei 5-spokes on Eibach springs with a 1″drop, and a Magnaflow exhaust among other things (debadging, better stereo, etc.).
Mine had the Eibachs, strut tower bar, intake, and a Hurst shifter (which was sooo good).
Guy at work bought an early PT Cruiser and immediately sent it to a paint shop to have flames added on the sides. That was his vision and he made it happen. Never did anything else to it as far as I know.
I got mine with flame decals from the factory. 🙂
When someone asked me in a Walmart what gift they should get their similar aged nephew and I said hot wheels. I was 30. Jk. The story is true, but I was actually 8.
I had a history of motorcycles book which just listed a selection motorcycles with pictures and would find the biggest engines, most powerful engines, etc. I would read those auto for sale magazines on road trips. I won a spelling bee on the word rendezvous because of the buick rendezvous (ron-dez-vows).
Does anybody remember, beyond fuzzy impressions, when they were a baby? Or a toddler? My first memories from childhood revolve around cars. Hot Wheels, Matchbox, the great 1/64 Tomy cars when you could get them at K-Mart. The Lego chassis with the 4-cylinder engine with a transmission and actual moving pistons. I devoured the “World Cars” books ranging from the early 70s to the early 80s at the public library and learned about a whole world of cars I’d never imagined… crazy Citroens, staid Rovers, cars shaped like wedges and bubbles and spaceships. I built models (hell, I still build models) of everything I could get my hands on. My parents were indulgent (glue marks on the dining room table notwithstanding) but they understood. Summer trips to visit family in Ohio inevitably wound up with a detour to the Henry Ford Museum or the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg museum.
I don’t know why I’m a car person. But I could never imagine not being one.
Oh man, I forgot about Tomy. One Tomy car I distinctly remember is a white 1978 Toyota Celica Supra. I looked it up on eBay and prices range from $10 to $100, depending on condition. I’m pretty sure I still have mine, but I’m not sure what kind of condition it’s in. I’d never sell it though.
I have yet to find a photo of me from when I was a toddler where I’m not holding a Hot Wheels or Matchbox car or something. Apparently I have always been this way.
Well, I was probably 8 or 9 years old, and helping the old man fix his car. Since he was already old at that point, he’d have me do things that he couldn’t, especially under the car. I remember engineering an exhaust solution that saved him money, which should’ve garnered me a lot of praise, but no.
It really picked up when I started bringing home issues of Car and Driver from the “drug store”. Csaba Csere was my hero.
Of course, it also coulda been Smokey and the Bandit and Dukes of Hazzard.
I blame being raised on Transformers, Power Rangers and Legos for my love of cars and all things mechanical
“Well Doc, it all started with Richard Scarry and a cat driving a weird fucking car….”
HOW DOES THAT WORM DRIVE?
Scar(r)y thought…..
We need an article from Torch on this crucial question.
Like this
Beat me to it. Engineers’ humour par excellence 🙂
Oh is humor what that was.
German opinions on humour have traditionally been controversal, I think.
Bravo!
I was born this way, to borrow a phase. Most of my favorite toys were car related, Tonka, diecast cars, Stompers, 1/24 model kits from MPC, Revell, Jo-Haan, ERTL, Slot Cars, Transformers, RC Cars, Go Karts, and now real cars. I hope it warms up soon so I can get back to playing with my 03 Civic in the backyard.
I honestly can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a car person. All of my childhood memories are of cars and camping, which is probably why I love off-roading so much. I remember being four or five and helping my dad work on cars. I remember being nine or ten diagnosing electrical issues on my dad’s car, which led me to being the go-to person in my family for electrical diagnostics and electronics repair, which then led me into going into electronics and electrical engineering as a career. Cars have always been an integral part of my life, and I don’t see that ever changing.
This is exactly where I am, I have zero memories of ever not being a car person.
I took everything apart to see how it worked. The TV, radios, vacuum cleaners, the 2-stroke Jacobsen edger and the 4-stroke Tecumseh lawn mower and finally the 225 slant 6 in my Plymouth. More of a how-does-it-work-and-that’s-fascinating person than a car person specifically.
The Leaning Tower o’ Power and the three-on-the-tree in the family’s ’71 Plymouth fascinated me as a very small kid.
The car is long gone but the fascination is still there.
I used to buy broken electronics equipment from an old guy at a flea market and take them apart. I’ll never forget that one capacitor that somehow still had enough charge to shock me.
You never forget your first capacitor.
On another note I still remember sticking a metal nail file into the electrical outlet by the TV at 3 years old.
And waking up against the wall on the other side of the room.
I’m the same. A car is the most complicated contraption to try to figure out that I own. Probably why I’m also drawn to rotaries and Citroen suspensions.
When I was growing up, I had slot cars and my dad and sisters had some interesting cars: a Datsun 240Z, a couple Gremlins, a Dodge station wagon, etc.
But I never considered myself a “car guy”. It was actually watching the Top Gear foreign challenges that woke that part of me, as if it had been dormant for decades. Like James May is my spirit animal, a cocker spaniel perhaps.
I still don’t know if I consider myself a “car guy” though, because a lot of “car guys” seem to be people I don’t want to get lumped in with, frankly.
There’s a recording of my parents recounting a story of how when I was 4 and we were staying with my uncle in Europe for the summer, we were roadtripping and staying in some fleabag hotel on the French Rivera and I was playing outside in the pebbles making little roads for my matchbox cars along with the kid of people who ran the hotel. I spoke no French, he spoke no English, but two little boys in the dust with little cars, there’s communication in what my wife calls the “male engine noises gene”. Anyway, I’m sure we were having a wonderful time until his mom came out and yelled at both of us in French, and that was that. I still love cars, though.
I have imposter syndrome, so still don’t consider myself a car person, even having had similar experiences as everybody else. Herbie? Check. Slot car track? Totally. Hot Wheels/Matchbox? Absolutely. My first car was a ’74 Beetle. But I never learned how to wrench until I was middle aged and cheapness made me start. I like little practical econoboxes more than super high performance. I worry about ecological impact more than a lot of gearheads. So I still don’t think I’m a car person… but I’m adjacent.
There are lots of ways to be a car person. You found another one. 🙂
Actually, a better one story answer probably is when I ran across one of Jason’s blogs on the old site about a connection between the Dymaxion car and the Chemex coffee carafe. All of his weird articles are what drug me along over the past (not going to mention how many years).
Torch weird? No way, say it ain’t so!
Wrenching does not make you more or less a car person and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I can do a bit, but choose not to mostly because I don’t enjoy it much.
Nothing bolsters creative cursing like bloody knuckles.
There’s no right way to be a car person, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. My daughter doesn’t even have a license and I can tell you 100% she’s a car person.
The Autopian demonstrates the great breadth of car people that can exist, and why it’s such a cool site. Mercedes with her fleet of cars and interest in RVs. David with his Jeeps and wrenching. Torch with his Pao and enthusiasm about automotive lighting. The Bishop covering design. SWG with his wrenching.
Then you have the commenters. People into fast cars, people into slow cars. People into EVs, people who have no interest in them. People who drive old beaters, people who drive luxury cars. Guys like me who ignore Corvettes at car shows, but would make a bee line to a brown Datsun 210.
This is such a diverse spot of the car internet, and we’re all generally pretty cool with each other.
There are probably some other earlier memories, but the first one that comes to mind is sitting in an MG Midget at a car show at the Cape Cod Mall in 1975 or 1976. I was somewhere between 4 and 6 years-old at at point and I could reach everything!
Also at that point when I wasn’t in school my dad would take me with him on his route, selling tools off a truck to mechanics.
Years later I made a quick $20 off of one of my dad’s co-workers by being able to correctly name Indy 500 winners.
It sort of snowballed from there.
I guess it was when I was an infant I gravitated towards the hand-me-down toy cars from my older cousins and just kinda went from there
My folks first showed me the Herbie movies when I was three or four. Shortly thereafter I had a small collection of Beetle toys as well. My dad had a friend then who still daily drove a Beetle (I was born in 1993 so they weren’t very common) and there’s a photo of me at age four sitting in the driver’s seat. I even remember the photo being taken, I had been napping and my mom took me out to see the car. Probably one of my earliest memories. So I guess I’ve been a car guy for as long as I can remember.
An aside. One of my friends has a son who is a little over a year old, and is apparently obsessed with cars. He does all the things my mom said I did at that age, transfixed by every car driving by, wanting to go look at any car in the immediate vicinity, and getting excited any time a car appears in a picture book or on TV. When he’s a little older and starts to enjoy movies, we want to show him Herbie. If he likes them, he can meet my ’72 Super Beetle. Just like my dad’s friend did for me years ago.
Show him Cars as well. But just the first one.
It’s amazing to me the power that the original Beetle has to captivate. When my daughter was about 5 she told me that she had decided that the perfect car for her was an original, pink Beetle. What’s funny is that she’s 20 now and said the same thing to me a couple of weeks ago