How it all started......

Metzger82

Greasemonkey
Dec 15, 2021
102
95
28
NW Ohio
So I've been curious after reading and watching numerous threads and seeing numerous projects and cars I can't help but think about what started it all. What started your love and passion for cars? Was it a friend? A parent? A grandparent?

I'll go first....... I credit my passion and love to many people. It all starts with my dad and his love for cars, Oldsmobile specifically just like my Grandpa. On one side my Grandpa drag raced a 1972 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser which started my love for drag racing and specifically Oldsmobiles. On the other side of my family my other Grandpa had a show perfect bone stock 1978 Chevy Corvette 25th Silver Anniversary Silver Edition, which I now own in addition to my Cutlass. It's these cars and the numerous car shows, burnouts and Oldsmobile Nationals that I can say started my love.
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bracketchev1221

Royal Smart Person
Jan 18, 2018
1,386
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Mine started when my dad was a Modified Production racer in the 70's with his station wagon when I was little and then a bracket racer in the late 70's and 80's.
 

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Local Hero

G-Body Guru
Nov 24, 2016
729
1,916
93
Northcoast, Cleveland, Ohio
My Dad was a career mechanic along with his Dad before him. Together they owned a two pump, two bay Texaco "Service Station", remember those? I used to go and hang out there on Saturdays, since they were only open a half-day. I learned how to pump gas at age 7 because it was "full service," remember that too? Later Dad closed down the business and went to work at UPS as a bodyman fixing all the wrecked package trucks, and there were A LOT. He was already an old school customizer having learned to work with lead in his late teens and 20s, but working on those truck gave him confidence that he could cut into anything and change it. At that same time, he also did mechanical work on the side at our home shop. I worked side by side with him after school wrenching on cars. On weekends we'd work on our own stuff.

It helped that I grew up in the 70s and 80s when muscle cars and street machines were prevalent in my neighborhood as well as at my high school.

I had always been an oval track fan and after college I connected with a local racer and then worked on his pit crew. He taught me more about the performance side of cars.
 
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Hurricane77

Master Mechanic
Nov 11, 2020
326
656
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Ottawa, Canada
For me, it was probably a series of events. and I'd say I was more of a late bloomer in this regard My father passed when I was quite young, 2 years old. But I spent a lot of time when I was young with my grand father who ran a small garage in our small town. It wasn't a hot rod, garage or even a repair garage. He sold gas, repaired/replaced tires and did oil changes. Not much more beyond that. Not that I recall anyway.

So I really didn't have any experience or knowledge of cars or mechanical things, but did have an appreciation of cars. In university when I finally got my own car(s), and firstly, when stuff went wrong with those cars, I really didn't have the funds to pay a garage to do the work for me, so I started learning how to do stuff on my own. Secondly, because I had an appreciation for cars, I joined our student chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and we participated in their Formula SAE events for a few years. This was a competition where university students design, build and compete in building a small open wheel race car. There I learned more hands on stuff and probably got more experience and appreciation.

I really got in to the whole modification of vehicle when I got into the hobby of offroading. My vehicle of choice was a 1st generation Ford Explorer. Not a real popular offroad platform, so rather than being a typical Jeep guy and just going out and buying bolt on stuff off the shelf, it required more research, creativity and fabrication.

As for G-bodies, one of those first cars in university was a an '86 Cutlass Supreme Brougham, white with olive green interior and landau top :) It was my first real car and had tons of fun in it. Still regret getting rid of that car.
 
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LeftLaneOnly

Master Mechanic
Mar 20, 2020
293
486
63
Well my dad bought me a nice beatup Ford wagon as a first car. what a car I loved it for two whole weeks.
While cruising the long roof with a friend we passed by a 65 Mustang with a blown motor for sale $50.00.
My friend says you know the 289 in the wagon will drop right into this.
next morning swingset, hoist, tools flying Dad pissed wrecker called to hall away long roof and burning tires before dark.

Crazy fast Mustang wheely's and peely's I was so hooked... and it was speed ticket RED
 
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CopperNick

Comic Book Super Hero
Supporting Member
Feb 20, 2018
3,347
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Canada
Grand pa was a stationary engineer out at the grain elevators and Dad was Ex Navy so something of a jack of many trades....., No, not all. Dad was mechanically inclined but not towards cars. His last love in that department had been a 37? Ford Sedan and the war had probably taken it for scrap. He didn't talk about that much. Mostly, for him, cars were for transportation, such as food was for fuel. He enjoyed both but that could be said of many things in his life.

For me the next door brothers were interesting because they were always tearing into something. It was a "Put up or Shut up" moment that got me into motorcycles and the need to be "learned" when it came to taking care of one because there was no dealer and the prices for shop time would have been brutal on a blue collar paycheck anyway. I still have that bike; it and I are of an age and era. It's sort of like the T-shirt sez, "For those who understand, no explanation is necessary; for those who don't, no explanation is possible."

The bike gave me the confidence to pick up, well, first came my Non G-Body -G-body aka my G-10 Van, and then a well used and hard run 78 Monte Carlo. The Monte became my "school room" and I did manage to keep it on the road for another decade past its "best by" date until one summer in the early 2000's when, during the yearly survey of the last winter's salt damage, I found that the two bolts in the rad cradle were all that were holding the body on; the rest were there but there was nothing left for them to hold on to and nothing left to use as a starting point to rebuild those mounts. Dismantled it for all the useable stuff and had the hulk picked up. Found my 85 SS over on the north side of town and got it for cheap as it had issues; most of which were driveway grade solvable. learned about adjusting TV cables and what to do about half wrecked EEE ignition processor systems, went back to using cheap hedmann hedders; two years of winter usually killed them, and made that my summer car.
2010 was a bad year in the family but I did discover my S-10 which I still have and drive.

As I said, my little fleet might be small, but if i expend the energy and cash to acquire something, I do tend to hang on to it, so i have to be highly selective.


CopperNick
 
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