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

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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…………..