There’s no question that we all share the enjoyment of vehicles here, some more than others. The question here is, what sparked your interest?
For me, it was being outside with my dad around dusk at the the front of the apts where we lived when I was little, like 4-5yrsold. It would be him and his friends hanging out doing what they did. The one thing I could really remember was the lowriders. These were early 80’s lowriders, all different colors and they all had the same style wire rims. And they all had hydraulics. The thing that peaked my interest however was watching the cars go down the street at a dececent rate of speed with the ass up and front end dropped. On the front they all had scape plates, so that when they went down the street youd hear the scrape and see hella sparks flying from underneath the car. I thought that shit was so cool as a kid. After witnessing that on more than a few occasions, me and cars were joined at the hip!!!
I discovered the big local used car listing site “nettiauto” and found an RX8 on there, started looking into the RX8, found a Top Gear segment about it, started looking at more used old cars and was fascinated about the idea of owning one some day. We were never a car family, so it didn’t come from home.
No idea, hard to tell in case of a 3(?)-year-old gremlin, and even harder to remember myself whatever that happened then There are some recordings of such young me babbling about cars while looking at some catalog or sth like that. And I have a little notebook from a similar moment in time with some car pictures glued in and titled with the car names.
I took my first trip as a newborn in my father’s 1965 Volvo Amazon, which had a B18 bored to 2 litres, dual SU carbs from a Jaguar XJ6 (2" instead of the 1 3/4" Volvo SU units) on a ported manifold, exhaust manifold from a fuel injected B20, “K”-type camshaft and a Volvo Competition cylinder head…and a quite open exhaust so the thing was LOUD… …my father said I was grumpy and crying until he started it up when I got all quiet and looked like I was in 7th heaven. A gearhead already then? Who knows. Unfortunately that one got hit in the side by a 240 not long after that, so the myth that two Volvos crashing will create a black hole is probably just a myth.
Then my maternal grandparents lived very close to the VAG dealership in town, and according to my grandmother, when I barely could speak and walk and long before I start to remember, I always wanted to pass by just to check the cars, and very early I was appearantly able to tell that “that’s an Audi”, “that’s a Golf”, and so on. Nothing that I remember myself, I was that young.
I actually remember being a bit ashamed when I was 3 and said that a toy car I had was a Granada and was corrected by my father that it was a Taunus Lol.
Did it help that my father and grandfather were gearheads too? Probably, but for some reason cars was my main interest so early that it hardly can have affected things all that much - and my brother is not very much into cars at all.
Pretty sure my interest in cars was partly an extension for my interest in trains. My dad use to work for the national railway so we were always near to and exposed to trains from what I remember in my childhood. I just have a heavy fascination with a lot of more mechanical things in general.
When I was six years old, in 1990, while attending, whit my father, the International Rally of Sicily-Targa Florio, I saw the Lancia Delta integrale 16 V in action.
Gosh, I’ve been asked this before, but it’s a question I honestly can’t answer. I can pinpoint why I like certain cars, 70’s and 80’s vans, pickups, and wagons due to what members of my family drove, 60’s muscle cars from video games and movies, odd and old European stuff through my years of racing.But why I like cars in general? That I can’t say. It’s just something I’ve always have loved, I can’t remember a period of time where I wasn’t into cars.
That being said, I do know that my father did help grow this love of cars. He was some-what of a petrolhead, even if he didn’t really own anything one would call an “enthusiast’s” car when I was growing up. There did seem to be a fair amount Hotwheels and R/C cars about, and I recall going to several monster truck shows and dirt track races (both my youngest uncle and oldest cousin raced). And he did often get me involved in working on various crafting projects that helped stimulate a love of working on and making things, which helped when it came time to fix the cars I’ve owned.
A story my parents like to tell occasionally (as I obviously have no recollection of that time):
When I was 1 or 2 years old, we lived in a place where a big window from the living room looked directly on to a farmer’s field. I apparently could care less about stuff happening outside… except when the the farmer showed up driving his tractor across the field.
We moved back to the city shortly thereafter, and then I could care less about farm machinery but cared very much about every car we passed, and everything went downhill from there, you could say.
Neither of my parents were much into cars so that wasn’t a factor, really.
There are others, but here’s a really short video of exactly how I remember the cars coming down the street. The video even has one of my bucket list cars, a 2nd gen Chevy Monte Carlo. I specifically like the '77 because of the double stacked headlights. It wasnt until later in life that I found out that scrape plates were illegal and that my dad wasnt the model citizen that I thought he was lol smh.
My first ever video game was Gran Turismo 4 on the PS2, which I started playing when I was around 5. I also loved watching Top Gear when it was still on TV, but honestly I think the thing that left the biggest impact on me was the movie Herbie: Fully Loaded.
I got into motorsports first and then got into cars.
Alonso started winning when I was 2, and F1 got really popular in Spain during that time. A lot of people stopped caring when he stopped winning, but I stayed.
I also loved racing games on the PS2, although I never got Gran Turismo until I played 5 on the PS3.
The first Need For Speed game (specifically, the PC port, and in particular the Special Edition reissue) contributed more to my early childhood love of cars than any other:
During this time, I was introduced to the world of American motoring magazines, and bought a plethora of diecast models from various brands, which ignited my automotive passion even more.
As many others here i cant recall exactly how i got that love for cars but it exists.
Instead of that i shall express how this car enthusiasm was manifested for most of my life
Auto Bild is German car magazine but has lot of variants beyond German borders; one of which being Serbian one
Their site makes you miss out on too much: Technical data and Scoring are simply not present
Refer to Auto Express (UK) Auto Week (NL) or Car And Driver (USA) for some noteworthy examples
This is one of first comparison tests i easily recall reading.
Comparison test above was featured here:
Enjoy pictures of some more magazines that i used to own from moment when they were new (which applies to one above). They were sadly thrown away some years ago
(Pictures are from Internet and not taken by me)
Some others happen to be elsewhere and are present in lesser quantity but are still very big pile that may require big cardbox box or two to properly fit
Bag would be under lot of strain and there is non-zero chance this wouldnt be possible anyway due to handles being broken. Magazines would be packed tightly into them.
Possibly Mario Kart Wii, which would explain why my cars are so deranged.
If not that, then Gran Turismo 4 since from that point I started understanding and learning about cars.
My dad being a car enthusiast helps too, of course.
Quite hard to say, really. Maybe the games (mainly the original Forza Horizon) played their role in this.
A lot of my childhood memories from when I was 4-5 was about my family going to different car dealerships.
Oh, and one of my favorite toys when I was small was a red RX-8 pullback, this might’ve not started my general car obsession but surely has to do with Mazda still being one of if not the favourite brand of mine.
There are some recordings of such young me babbling about cars while looking at some catalog or sth like that. And I have a little notebook from a similar moment in time with some car pictures glued in and titled with the car names.
…my father said I was grumpy and crying until he started it up when I got all quiet and looked like I was in 7th heaven. A gearhead already then? Who knows. Unfortunately that one got hit in the side by a 240 not long after that, so the myth that two Volvos crashing will create a black hole is probably just a myth.
