Gasser HotRod Forums banner

What got you hooked on cars?

42K views 111 replies 35 participants last post by  HotRodPriest 
#1 ·
Just read a thread where a couple members were sharing their memories of the first encounter that set the car-bug hook and I thought that it might make a good stickey.

Post your experience here.

Mike
 
#33 ·
Anyone remember the slot car tracks that you paid by the hour to race your cars on? We had several back in the late 60's and early 70's around here. Seemed for awhile that everyone was crazy about building cars to go run at the local tracks. A couple tracks even had scale 1/4 mile dragstrips for the drag racer crowd. Then it suddenly all died, and they closed up. Not sure what happened to the couple cars I had once I lost interest.
 
#34 ·
anyone remember the slot car tracks that you paid by the hour to race your cars on? We had several back in the late 60's and early 70's around here. Seemed for awhile that everyone was crazy about building cars to go run at the local tracks. A couple tracks even had scale 1/4 mile dragstrips for the drag racer crowd. Then it suddenly all died, and they closed up. Not sure what happened to the couple cars i had once i lost interest.
OH YEAH, LOVED THE SLOT CAR TRACKS!!!!! :D:D


At the Del Mar fair last year, a guy had a couple of tracks set up ,,,it was a time machine for me,,could not get my dough out fast enough,, coulda stayed there for hours,,felt like a kid again,,very cool :D:D
 
#36 ·
Atta Boy Tom. I knew I liked you from the very beginning, heh. We had a little kids joint in our little town and they set up a track. It was always busy but never had enough money to really buy any cars with it. I was always buying, modifiing and selling bicycles. (not to mention candy and soda etc etc etc). They had the best flavored cokes. MArk
 
#37 ·
Well all great stories . Back in the day when I was approx 8-10 my older brother had a friend that built 2 69 440 6 pack runners in my garage and it was the coolest thing ever to me I would run home from school just hopping he was there working on them he would always let me help ( you know be a pain in the A) he finally bought a 68 or 9 dart dart that he gamed that super commando in fender well headers and all oh yea he would run it open headers in there and my mom would come out and say please keep it down (she loved it to but the neighbors didnt) he took me for the ride of my life in that thing I was prob 10-1/2 but that was it !!! cars rule !! My wife loves them too her 1st car was a 81 z28 4speed but she hates the vet I just finished due to the side pipes and oh yea it's toooooooo loud she needs to yell at me to communicate when she is in it oooops! My Bad :)
 
#38 ·
We all remember the first " Ride of or life" , cool when your wife is into cars too, mine is right there with me most of the time.
 
#39 ·
I remember sitting in my uncles shed reading his American car magazines that he had tons of.... i think i was something around 6 years old back then - and I still remember two VW bugs leave with HIGH wheelies on the drag strip from one of those magz! I guess that was my first love :D My uncle has to be my biggest influence since he was doing private import from USA in the 70`s, he had lots of Mustangs, Corvettes and Camaros. Nobody else in the family has much interest for cars or bikes, so they dont understand my love for them....
 
#40 ·
You guys have some great stories. I love to hear about other peoples lives with cars. There all so different and yet so much alike. I came across a web site where people can relate car stories on. Thought you might like it too.
http://www.oldcarnutbook.com/index.php/current-stories
Anyway, either I am to old or senile, but I can't really remember what got me interested in cars. I could say my older brother got me into them and started taking me to the drags at Lions Drag Strip but, it seems like I was checking out hot rods before that. I grew up in a little town called Compton, Ca. If you don't know about this area, Lynwood, Paramount, Long Beach, Southgate, Maywood, Bell, this was the mecca of hot rod heaven in the LA area back in the '40-'70's. All the big names lived around there. Cerney,Martinez,Speed-o-Motive,Service Center,Ed Roth, Pisano brothers, the Chrisman family and a host of others I can't even remember right now. It seemed like every garage had a hot rod in it. If you want to see who lived there just pick up any hot rod book, of that era, any type and look at the addresses. I do remember stopping by Cerney's and checking out all the T buckets and gassers and dragsters he had there doing paint jobs when I was about 10 or so. When i was little I use to build military type models and it seems like i just got into car models. Now, that's not to say I didn't have influences. I do remember a guy lived about a mile from me on my street that had a '63 Ply Fury S/S. It had a 426 max wedge in it with a four speed. It had slicks on the back, fender well headers, tac on the dash. Just your typical super stock street car in that day. The name on the side was "The Frog". With the requisite cartoons on it and lettering. Anyway, I use to walk by it on my way to school everyday. He had it parked on his front yard. Goes to show how times have changed. Getting back to the story, one Friday, on my way home from school, there it sat. He was working on it and I just stood there taking it all in. Now, I grew up quite poor, so there wasn't much money in the house, no father, on welfare, you know the story. Most everything I ever achieved growing up was do to somebody helping me out. So this guy says to me, "going to the drags tommorow". I say to him, "I have no money, I am just a kid". He says to me "you be here at 7 am tomorrow and i'll get you in" Now, I use to walk the 10 miles to just stand at the gate and watch them go in. So I casually say "hell yes". The next morning I am standing in the same place I had been Friday afternoon. He come out and says "didn't you go home?" "you must really want to go" Then he says" hop in" I get in and it only has one seat for him. I say "where can i sit". "He says "hang onto the roll cage" This thing pulled the front wheels off the ground at every stop he made. I was flying around like a bb in a boxcar. I pissed my pants and was loving every minute of the ride. As a matter of fact, I said I would buy one of them if I ever could. About 50 years later I got one. It's not a s/s, but it will be nice someday. Oh, another thing about his car. One night at another event I was at, he was there too. It was about closing time and he setup a race with a stock '40 ford coupe. The coupe was put 100 feet from the finish line and he started at the starting line. The coupe beat him by about a foot. Now that was fast!!
 
#42 ·
Gary,
great times, great story. thanks for sharing that. I always wanted to go to California. Don't know if I'll ever be able to do that trip. So I watch american grafitti and get my kicks.
mario
 
#44 ·
I grew up next to raceway park in Englishtown NJ since i was a kid all i new was drag racing i saw big daddy don garlets have his top fuel blow over i saw scott kalleta have his fatal crash and i was on the starting line for the last race between "BIG DADDY" and "CHA CHA SHIRLEY MULDOWNY" not to metion every gasser on the east coast for the last 30 years
 
#45 ·
I always wanted to live there. I'm stuck on Long Island where we lost all our strips. I was at that last race with big daddy too.
Chacha asked me to watch her helmet while she went in her trailer a minute.
When I was a kid all my friends had cars but I didn't. My father knew nothing about cars except maybe an oil change. My neighbor raced his 69 super bee 383 which he opened his pipes before he would drive it or flat towed it to national speedway or Islip speedway. My next door neighbor bought a 66 nova with a balanced and blueprinted 283 that would pull the front wheels off the ground. One of my classmates drove a tunnel ram 440 69 gtx to school amongst the camaros and whatnot
So I knew what I wanted to do then for the rest of my life one quarter mile at a time.
Couldn't afford to do it at many times during family life but whatever I could do I cherished and would always remember it.
Mm
 
#46 ·
my high school was filled with muscle cars i drove a 68ss396 impala fastback i got from the orig.owners for $425 and my fathers GS riviera and my brothers 70 ls6 chevelle all when i was 17.. my fathers now mine GS riviera has a Islip speedway class winner sticker on the vent window still. my life has been cars cars cars but gassers have my heart. i watched Ronnie sox race Dyno don nickolson when i was 15 and i was hooked. later on in life i worked for power aid and it was my job to bring sponcers and hob knob with the pros.. it was great i became friends with larry dixon and DON THE SNAKE but my best car memory was in 2004 at E-town we had a sponcers race with 4 of the 2004 GTO'S and the winner of the race went up against Cory Mac. the top fuel driver.. well i won the race and faced of againt Mr Mac. I TREE'D HIS ASS WITH A 003 light but i still lost i went to deep and he got me on the big end but what a memory..
 
#47 ·
I was there for that GTO race. In 04 I caught a double shot of Nitro in the pits from 2 funny cars running at the same time, and almost fell to the floor. It burnt my eyes so bad I had problems with my cornea for quite a few years after that. Doctors didn't take me serious about the Nitro. But I know it was that day forward when I had the problems with my eyes. Memories,,, LOL
 
#50 · (Edited)
Way back in 96 or so I made plans with 6 guys to go to the Nats at etown. One by one they all canceled by sunday morning. Made one last ditch effort to call another friend and he connected me with the rug doctor pit crew. They fed me and showed me the works and I got a t shirt to boot. I also got a bent exhaust valve and a jim epler autograph. What a Cinderella story that was for me that day. They even let me lend a hand with the rear wing. I was in heaven that day. Never thank them enough.
Mm
 
#51 ·
good stuff .. my brother work for a company called blue water witch is owned by victor cagnassi (Cagnassi racing) the sponcer erica enders prostock car and before jeg went mopar he sponcerd them well my bro is a computer geek he set up the computer in Ericas car so im in all V.I.P. and last yr she won E-town i can go on and on about the track stories and who i met.....
 
#52 · (Edited)
Here's the car that started it all for me.... a '41 Willys..... one of the first model cars I built. Long before I was old enough to get a driver's license, every attended a drag race or custom car show I built this Willys 1/25th scale model kit by Revell.

Its been put away for quite some time and I found it again the other day. It's missing a lot of parts but even so it symbolizes my early days as a hot rod lover and how it all started.



 
#53 ·
Model cars was my way of fulfilling my automotive creativity too before I had a license. Our family car was a '63 Chevy Impala and I used to find every mag I could dig up and make sheets of parts lists and how I planned to build the 283. Get a four speed and put ladder bars on it. I had a full folder with different builds and ideas for the car. I never did do any mods but I did get a '55 Chevy with a transplanted 3 deuce ('59 or'60) 350 HP 348. Once I learned how to tune it and the guy at the gas station I worked tuned the carbs, (he was a Super Stock racer with a Chevelle), it was a fast car. Anywho, I was the kid always building the models into gassers. I remember one was a '67 Rambler Ambassador 2 door. This was the first (and only) car I've ever had professionally painted, LOL. The car tuned out so well that I took it to good friend (Mike) that was an award winning model builder and a great model painter. I had it painted in a fine metalflake deep Purple with a black textured vinyl roof and he hand painted all of the body chrome by hand. It had radiused rear wheel wells, I used big slicks off of a front engine dragster which were tall but still not real wide, and a chrome tube axle that I made up from tree stock. I entered it in a big city car show model contest and won second place. Only to Mike. His model was a completely hand built '67 Camaro funny car. He narrowed the body and lengthened the front fenders/front end. He hand built the frame from tree material, where he hand sanded the tree stock down because it was too thick and looked out of proportion. He drilled the supercharger and the engine block and placed a really small little electric motor in the block. It turned the crank and he had a little black rubber band that went up to the supercharger and tuned the supercharger. He even drilled out the blower scoop and added a thin wire shaft in the 4 port injection throttle under the scoop, that bent out and was all connected to the foot pedal in the car. You tilted up the body and you could touch the foot pedal with a pen and make the linkage all work. He was a model building genius and more than deserved first place. I also entered a '67 Chevy pickup and won 4th place. After watching him paint my car it gave me ideas on how to paint the truck and it turned out pretty nice. That was '68, the year I got my drivers license, and I stopped building models. I've got a small collection stored for the time that I can't work on real ones anymore. Someday.

OK I'm done jabbering. Mark L
 
#54 ·
Sir Markus TestorGluesAlot I was the same way..... practically all the model cars I built in those early days of my "hot rod" formation had a "gasser stance". If there were no parts for an optional straight axle I would use pieces of scrap plastic to raise up the front end.

What's left of my Willys was build for a model car show at our local hobby shop which is probably why this praticular car has survived all these years.
 
#55 ·
Same here John and Mark! I got .25 cents a week allowance, and model cars were .99 cents at the local dime store. I saved all month to buy a model, and then saved another month to get paint and glue. I had over 4 dozen models when I finally advanced to real cars. That's about 8 years worth from around 6-7 yrs. old when I started. Never did get into planes, ships, etc, just cars.
 
#56 · (Edited)
I already responded to this but now I found the pics of what got me hooked. Recently I found a car on ebay that would replace the one I lit on fire to complete my original purchase again. I also found the 41 willys which I never new I would love as the king of the gassers. When you're an only child your imagination is your best friend. I was driving cars in my head at 9 yrs of age. Those were the days. The collection meant so much to me I kept an eye out for garage sales. Found cheetahs mustangs and gt40's also found a willys and ac cobra.

mm
 

Attachments

#57 ·
few more shots
 

Attachments

#59 ·
Yes they are Val. I treasured them since I was a kid
I have more but no pictures yet
 
#60 ·
Mario, your comment of "I was driving cars in my head at 9 yrs of age. " brought back a really funny memory of my little time years. My Dad was a truck driver (hauled Ramblers out of Kenosha WI). So when he was on the road I was daydreaming/pretending to drive where ever he was heading for. I used to put a dining table chair up on the end of the couch, with my feet up on the arm rest and pretend to be driving the semi. That way I was up high and even had to climb up on to the chair like I was climbing up into the cab. HEY!! It worked for me!!! LOL. But now the interesting part.
We had a river running thru our town. The side of the river that we lived on started at the river and constantly rose up hill to the edge of town, then over the hill and down as the land ran out of town. There was a big subdivision built on the hill with the biggest (richest) family perched up on top of the hill. There was a single straight street that ran up the hill to the west of the family, but it stopped there, tee-ing to the west for more subdivisions and to the east continuing up farther to the rich family. While driving my imaginary truck I pretended that the trucking company owned the land up that street, over the hill, and down the other side. Where, in actuality, sat an old abandoned gravel pit. I pretended that I owned the land and that was where my company had all the trucks and repair buildings.
OK, I should have bought all that land when I got older because some rich business man did buy up all that land and made a giant thriving business park. And darn it, there is a big trucking company setting right where I used to pretend my company sat. He also sold some of it back to the city for maintenance buildings, and from what I understand, this guy made a fortune off of the land sales.

I didn't know I was so smart when I was 9 yrs old. I guess I peeked back then, LOL. I always thought that it was interesting that I saw that in my play time.

I've had a couple of cognitive instances in my life where I knew something was going to happen and something did. One time exactly what I predicted. So I guess that was the first that I remember.

(And you guys thought I was just A LITTLE WIERD, HA!!!!)


Mark L
 
#62 ·
........I've had a couple of cognitive instances in my life where I knew something was going to happen and something did........ Mark L
So Mark..... all we need are now are the winning "Lottery numbers" for the next BIG jackpot!!!! :cool:
 
Top