Thread: How young did you start, and did it result in obsession?

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Originally Posted by DeepRoots

Only recently have I gotten my family settled in a nice house, and met all my obligations to them to where I could afford to pay myself a 'hobby salary'
So I guess I started at age 10 but couldn't do anything about it until age 30.

All uphill from here,
Drew

Respect.

im in a similar boat but i still dont have the hobby salary ive only got the 48 because my boss is a REALLY nice bloke who has given me a good break.

I started at 11years old (read the first issue of Hot Rod (wish I had kept it), bought myfirst car at 13 (a 33 Ford roadster), brought it home in a wheel barrow and two years later was driving it. Moved up to a 47 Chevy (which I chopped and added a 303" Olds with 37 La Salle trans) then a 40 Ford, etc, etc Sixty-three cars later hear I am at 71 driving my rat powered 76 Seville.

Istarted drag racing in 1956 and ran stockers, modified production, gassers and by 1967 was flogging a Jr. Fueler (7.92 @ 192MPH)

Then converted the fueler to a modified roadster.

I quit cars cold turkey 8 times and took the back up nine times!

A few of the cars are pictured here.

It's a disease, but I still resist the cure!!

And a few more

I also had many cars. Too bad I always sold the last one to finance the next! I could retire today if I kept them all. :-)

Like so many things I don’t think there was a light switch moment when “the car disease” hit. I can remember as a youngster the summer drives down from Chicago (hmmm, that Illinois thing again) to rural Central Kansas to grandpa’s place. I’d do the car identification thing like many kids did. When we went shopping for a new family car in 1957 I was campaigning hard for what I thought would be something really neat; a black, Country Squire wagon, with the woodgrain sides, roof rack and all. Being 10 I didn’t contribute to the buying fund so got outvoted.

The serious escalation happened a couple years later when we joined the mass migration to defense contractorland in So. Cal. Discovered R&C little pages, Hot Rod, Car Craft, and so on. Also discovered AMT model kits. My fondest memory of that is of a ’40 Ford coupe I built, painted it light pearl green, and used thin wale white corduroy to simulate tuck and roll. In printing shop class in Jr. High one of our first projects was “business” cards for ourselves. I chose a ’40 Ford pickup as a graphic for mine. A couple years later our family broke apart which necessitated my quitting after school sports and getting a job. Which is when I saved up to get the first car, a ’51 Merc tudor. Nothing all that special then, just an 11 year old affordable used car. But it was mine! That was followed by a string of cars where I dropped a Pontiac V8 into a ’50 Ford, had an Okrasa equipped ’56 Bug, and then the tri-power ’58 Del Ray. Joined up with Uncles Stovepipe Service which ushered in the beginning of having a driver and a play car that continues, unbroken, to this day. Did some drag racing with an H/Gas, GMC 6 powered ’39 Chev coupe in the late ‘60s.

Then the so called “adult phase” of life hit with marriage, home, full time jobs seeking a career, so on. But there were always those toy cars. And cars bought to break down and sell off as parts for more than the whole would sell for. To keep sanity and discipline with the household budget the toy cars were funded from their own account, a practice that started back in high school with the third car and also continues to today. Like the rest of life, the car life went through phases: sports cars, restored cars, trucks, 4x4, motorcycles, and back around to hot rods about 25 years ago. When I first moved to Spokane in the mid ‘70s I kind of mashed several of those together. Not having much money then (a job would have helped), my daily driver was a ’53 Chev, and in the garage/drive were a ’57 VW van I’d resurrected, a ’41 Plymouth pickup, and the first of several Hudson Hornets to come.

In all that time, like I would imagine many of you, I did a lot of the not too bright things we try to urge others not to do. But each experience helped improve the possibilities for the next project. Life lessons outside of the car hobby improved the outcomes as well.

I still have that list in my head of cars it would be nice to own. It’s not as long as it once was, but it’s still longer than I probably have years left. I’ve missed many opportunities over the years, but snagged many others. For some silly reason I wasn’t very diligent about taking pictures until about 30 years ago, so my gallery here only represents the cars that occupy about 50 to 60% of my car loving life.

Is it an obsession? Good chance, but hey, denial is more than just a river in Egypt. Let’s just continue to call it a hobby, or maybe therapy, or…………..

Hey Don,

Those cars jumped up to $100-$250.00 when I was in the "market" as a high schooler. I remember my brothers (1 yr. older) first ride ... a pontiac 2 dr. with no reverse - $100.00. He had friends that would push him backwards if he got in a pickle.

I was just ball busting on the 1933 .... that'd make you as old as ..... dirt!!! Did they even have round wheels back then??

Paul

Bob,
There is a fine line between hobby and mental illness.

Originally Posted by REGs

Hey Don,

I was just ball busting on the 1933 .... that'd make you as old as ..... dirt!!! Did they even have round wheels back then??

Paul

Actually, I remember fondly the day a caveman down the hill from me invented DIRT.

Don

I don't think I have an obsession for cars so much as one for tinkering with stuff, the bigger and noisier, the better. I don't know where I got it from, either; my dad was not at all mechanically inclined, and my grandads were inclined only so far as necessity dictated. I first did something creative with a wrench and other tools when I was somewhere around six or seven, copied the "big kids" roller skate scooters by my self, and caught he77 for messing up that pair of skates. Got my first bike that year, too, and immediately started messing with it, figuring out just how the coaster brake worked, and what made bearings tick. A while later, my dad got a new power mower, the reel kind, and I promptly took the engine of of it and fit it to my "little red wagon"; caught it in spades for that one, and had to fix the mower, to boot. I had to get my mechanical jones satisfied at the well of other kids and their dads, if they were so inclined; in high school, since I couldn't afford my own car, I worked on other guy's cars - for free. I never have built a true hot rod; all of my "toys" have been more in the muscle car class, or in years after I quit drag racin and sold my Chevelle, 4x4 trucks. My '59 Chevy has been the one constant, and it has been well used in pursuits other than as a rod. Along the way, much of the money I saved up for automotive oriented projects got diverted to other stuff, and I just kept on dreamin'. And so it goes, even now. I still "tinker" as my Bride calls it, but for the most part, it is stuff that is more pressing than rebuilding the '59 for the third time. Not to mention, that if I lay down on a creeper, I may just take a nap, instead of making hay, and it will take me a lot longer to get down, and back up.

I think this was the major impact on my life at the age of 6, although not the original because mine was worn out from looking at it so much, found this one at a swap meet about 40 years ago in Lodi Calif. Circa 1951 hot rod trend book #102

I can still remember my first magazine.... a 1958 issue of Hot Rod. I think it had Winternationals coverage. :-)

I ended up with a collection of a few thousand. I even found some used early mags back to '46! I sold them all off (except couple a couple hundred "faves") about 5 years ago.

I never had a choice. Dad raced midgets until us boys were old enough to race carts. Started in them at age 8, moved up to dirt super mods at age 15 (using an older brothers draft card for ID to show I was 18 and old enough to race), then sprints. Along with the dirt burners, all us kids got involved with Hot Rods and drag racing, even Dad had some kewl toys... Got hurt bad in a sprinter, gave up circle burnin' and been drag racing, street racing, building Hot Rods ever since....

Just another old Illinois farm boy here……..think it’s something in the water?

For me I think it was just something that grew gradually in my early years. Dad was a farmer (and that was his first love) but also a damn good mechanic. He just didn’t like working on cars or trucks. I did have a couple of uncles on the other hand that were probably a big influence, 1 was into drag racing and the other hot street cars (when Uncle Curt would come down it was always interesting to see what he would be driving I particularly remember a couple year old 59 Belair 348 Tri-power).

Like most kids I did a lot of models in my pre/early teens, and it didn’t take too long after I got them built to start taking the motors out of one and put it in one it was never intended for (a trait that has stayed with me for the rest of my life). I also remember the Christmas my brother and I got a slot car set. It didn’t take me long to trade my interest in the electric train set we got a couple years earlier to my brother for his interest in the slot cars. What seemed like a good idea at the time was to convert a couple of my hard plastic models to slot cars……they sure looked cool, but the crashes (it usually only took 1) were rather spectacular with pieces flying everywhere.

By the time I was 14/15 I was restoring antique tractors. I started with the 36 John Deere that my Granddad had bought new and did a couple others, by then the tractor pulls were becoming popular and I built a couple for the hotrod class (Car V8s and transmissions coupled to the original tractor trans) plus had a restored F30 to pull in the antique class.

My HS had a program where you went to school half a day and worked the other half in a participating business (and got credits for it). I went to work in the local Chrysler Plymouth dealer (much to Dads disappointment who wanted me in the John Deere dealer). I was in heaven at 16 working in a Chrysler/Plymouth dealer in 68-70, and learned a lot, plus getting to work on the Road Runners, GTXs, and even had a couple of HEMI cars come thru…..and we also had a contract to work on the local districts State cop cars.

At this point it’s just something I’ve always done, and can’t picture myself without at least one active project.

Dad built me a "go cart" out of a 1x12 w/2x4 crossbar supports, wagon wheels and a 1/4hp Maytag foot start engine when I was about 10. Rode that thing all over town for a couple of summers, top speed of about 10mph and had to 'help' it up any hills. Had an old ratchet hand e-brake handle from the salvage yard, and a sliding jackshaft to tighten the belt. I had lots of shirts with belt dressing stripes up the back
Also built lots of models, but lost most of them when a mysterious fire took the local hobby shop out one night, and the owner was not to be found the next morning.... Got a summer job at a local river beach in the summer of '60, and bought a couple of car magazines to pass time manning the gate collecting entry fee - $0.50 day park, $1.00 overnight camping w/free electricity plugs, rest room and cold water shower!
Dad had two cars, a 1966 Galaxie and an old '58 Custom 300 that had been wrecked and rebuilt a couple of times and he was unhappy with the miles being put on his new Galaxie. When I got rear ended in the '58 out on the highway (a new '66 ElCamino did not see the me sliding to a stop to keep from hitting a car that stopped in the middle of the road, and hit the rear end square on going 70or better - pushed the back bumper up just below the front edge of the trunk, folded up even with the roof) I convinced him to buy something I would not be ashamed to drive and I would never drive his Galaxie again. He let me pick out a '60Chevy Impala 2dr HT, and that started my wrenching in earnest. Went through several engines, more 3spd trannys than I want to think about, and a few rear differentials over three or four years. I'm ashamed to say that the first time I pulled that rear pumpkin because it was howling a bit it had no grease in it, and I did not know enough to do different so I put in the "new" one ($20 from the salvage yard) and put it back together. It didn't start whining for several months.

bought a 48 Merc coupe when I was 15 in 1959...haven't been without a hot rod since.

dj