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!!