What Car/Moment/Epiphany Made You Become A Car Guy/Girl?

"wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series" (wpudvah)
01/09/2014 at 14:10 • Filed to: Beginnings

Mine was birth.

...or the 1979 Super Beetle that's been in my family since before I was born. What's yours?

DISCUSSION (32)

PanchoVilleneuve ST > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 14:14

Kinja'd!!!

My god, it's full of cars.

92CamaroZ28 > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 14:14

Forza 4.

oldirtybootz > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 14:14

My father bought a 1969 Camaro when I was in the 6th grade and it was like someone flipped a "car nut" switch in my brain to 'on' and then cut the wires to it so it can't be shut off.

RacecaR > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 14:18

I always liked cars. Matchbox/Hotwheels, slot car racing, radio controlled cars, real cars (neighbors, my families, just cars I'd see out and about), but my real love did not hit until I started driving. The feeling of control, while not totally in control. The relationship between driver and automobile has always fascinated me. It's been a love affair since.

jariten1781 > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 14:22

It had to be a divine gift for me because there's not a single other person in my family who knows or cares about cars.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 14:24

It might actually have been the revelation of purpose of the skis hole between the rear seats of my family's 70s 240d. At that point, I started to take all the little things in the car more seriously: stuff designed for a purpose. Kid me was all

Such leather

Many trim design clevers

So air conditioning vents

Much Germany

Wow

CalzoneGolem > oldirtybootz
01/09/2014 at 14:25

... and then twisted those wires together, soldered them and wrapped the whole lot with electrical tape.

EL_ULY > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 14:26

Trying to help my dad get our 1981 Mustang started on the drive way. I was about 3-4 years old and was just interested on was he was doing. I ran inside and grabbed my plastic toy hammer, smacked the hood alignment screw a couple times and wham, the car started :] Been turning wrenches since then. I'm not a car enthusiast though :]

dmcfan > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 14:30

When Doc Brown drove the Delorean out of his van in the Twin Pines mall parking lot.

Hey Julie > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 14:30

For me it was when I started shopping for my first car, previously I had little to no interest but Craigslist, then Top Gear than Jalopnik got me hooked for life.

The Real Dacia Sandero > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 14:35

I've LOVED cars since I was born, but my first moment of true infatuation was riding in my uncle's E38 740i when I was 7 or 8 years old. I'd loved cars before and whatnot, but this was the first car that was truly special. There was something about it that was so different than anything I'd been in prior. That's the moment that got me hooked on BMWs. I haven't bought one yet(I own a NA Miata) but an e30, e34, e38, e39, or e46 are all on the want to own list.

Jagvar > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 14:37

Kinja'd!!!

Probably this Matchbox Datsun 280 ZX, which I absolutely loved for many years...and stupidly crushed with a cinder block when I was 12, while screaming, "Look out for that meteor!" I'm kicking myself for destroying it (and other toys that I should have treated better).

PRBot II > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 14:37

Kinja'd!!!

Sometime during the '90s my friend's older brother had a red Stealth, and I had never seen anything like it before. Something about that boomerang spoiler sealed the deal for me.

briannutter1 > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 14:39

Are you saying there's transgendered Oppo's?

camaroboy68ss > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 14:42

Kinja'd!!!

Mine was birth for sure. I was at a car show right after they let my mom and I out the hospital when i was born. But what solidified my passion was growing up around hot rods. I grew up in a 1933 ford pickup my grandpa built right before I was born (thats now mine) and they have a 55 Chevy that been in the family 40+ years.

JR1 > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 14:52

Kinja'd!!!

I was maybe 7 and I saw this exact model of the Murcielago in yellow. It looked like it was going fast standing still, I was hooked. I then got Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 and "drove" the Murcielago and the rest is history!

Kugelblitz > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 14:56

Right about the time Sizzlers came out (little electric Hotwheels) one of my Christmas gifts was a Ford GT/ I think it was red. At middle school we had race days a few times a week and that one sizzler crushed everyone else's car until I retired it. It was unique.

SAround the same time my best friend's dad bought a new Celica GT and I thought it was the coolest big car I had ever seen. So this was probably 1970.

Hoccy > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 15:05

Must be at birth or maybe before that. I've been told that I could identify all regular cars by manufacturer when I were two years old.

StoneCold > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 15:06

Kinja'd!!!

It was younger me going around shows and swap meets, saying, "I like that color" and "That one looks fast." I remember being floored by one of the 1000HP Vipers at Goodguys swap meet in Joliet; NOTHING could have that much power.

Then not until mid-high school, when my dad got more time when he was self-employed and we'd work on the car that'd been in the garage since before I was born.

wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series > Hoccy
01/09/2014 at 15:10

I've been told the same thing! Been able to do that since before I can remember.

MIATAAAA > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 15:37

Birth.

Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 16:17

I always collected diecast cars as a single digit, and had a civil engineer as a grandfather, who was an enthusiast his whole life. I always pretended to drive my father's abandoned white VW Fox in the back yard. (not the one pictured, but you get the idea)

Kinja'd!!!

My interest reached new levels in 2003, which at the young age of 10, I heard of a classic Mini laying around in a garage in the countryside, 11 years later, and I'm still interested in it. Now I'm into fixing cars, I wish I could fix the Fox if it were still around, but shamefully it's likely been scrapped.

Goshen, formerly Darkcode > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 16:30

Birth.

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 17:03

There was no "moment" at some point I just realized I'd been, for years, reading about cars every single day and/or playing racing video games. So I decided I was probably a car guy.

Korea Miéville > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 17:54

I guess I had some kind of affinity for cars from birth, since one of the baby stories my parents loved to tell was how, when riding with my parents, I could identify and tell the difference between makes of cars, before I knew or could read their actual names. When I learned to read, I had catalogs for Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars that I literally read to tatters.

My all-time favorite Matchbox car (for some weird reason I preferred Matchbox to Hot Wheels) was a yellow Mustang Cobra with black racing stripes and staggered wheels. I was OBSESSED with this car and swore I'd own one someday. I guess if there's a seed for my car love, it'd have to be that Cobra.

Funny thing, though, somewhere on the way from childhood to adulthood I lost a lot of my fascination with cars. I should have become a teenage gearhead, but somehow didn't. I didn't lose my love of cars, but for some reason I can't define it went underground and became sort of a secret.

From adolescence until a few months ago, I never talked about cars with anyone or openly expressed in interest in cars. But when I'd hang out at the bookstore or in the waiting areas of auto shops, I'd discreetly, furtively pore through car magazines as if they were Playboys. I don't know why I never talked about it with anyone, even my wife. I didn't try to hide it, but just never brought it up.

That's how it was until recently when my wife and I decided to get a second car. I was going through Craigslist looking for used cars, figuring on getting a pickup truck or minivan, and came across a bunch of listings for Mustangs. Looking at those Mustangs, something just clicked inside. I thought, you know what, screw it, I'm getting a Mustang.

A week later, I had the keys to a 2004 GT convertible! People who knew me, my wife included, were shocked, because I was pretty near a lifelong owner of a succession of Honda Accords, who had never expressed the slightest inclination towards anything other than a sensible four-door sedan.

As crazy as it sounds, buying the Mustang felt like coming out of the closet. People would see the GT and be like, "Wait, you're into cars?" And I'd be like, "Uh...yeah...." Suddenly I was registering at Mustang enthusiast forums and reading Jalopnik on a daily basis instead of just sort of occasionally allowing myself to take a peek. I went from the kind of driver who rarely if ever opens the hood of his car, to a guy with Rhino Ramps and a creeper who can't wait for the weekend so he can spend all Saturday tinkering with his ride.

Again, I know it's crazy, but I feel like this whole other side of my identity has suddenly been let out of its cage. I don't know why I caged it in the first place, but I feel more whole than I ever have. I'm still a massive newbie in this world and have a great deal to catch up on before I could feel comfortable calling myself a car enthusiast, but I'm very much looking forward to where this path takes me. Who knows, maybe I'll end up with that yellow Cobra someday after all!

wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series > Korea Miéville
01/09/2014 at 18:16

dude. that was AWESOME.

The Millennial Falcon > wpudvah: GTI, Super Beetle, now with more 80-Series
01/09/2014 at 19:25

I grew up in a '72 karmann-ghia, E34 touring, and E39 M5. After the first time I rode along for an onramp launch in the M5 I saw mecca.

Zibodiz > jariten1781
01/10/2014 at 04:40

I always thought that about myself (heck, most of my family doesn't even have driver's licenses anymore, they cared so little that they just let them expire), but a couple years ago, my grandfather (dad's dad) passed away, and my wife & I drove to Seattle to help settle his estate. I only met him twice and can barely remember what he looked/sounded like (aren't divorces wonderful?), so it was quite a shock when I went back and discovered that he & I had a lot in common, especially things I don't have in common with my dad. Turns out he was a total gearhead; daily-drove a project Acura 3.5RL and a restored Wagoneer, rode a Shadow during the summer, and back when he was a teen, he was a motocross racer. I've decided it must just be genetic. You're probably a distant relative to Henry Ford or something.