How did you get into cars?

[JonMad]

Shoot me if we've done this already.

Following a couple of posts in another thread, how come you're here?
A few things for me
- My Dad having a Triumph Toledo and showing me handbrake turns round Rushmoor arena when we went there every year for the steam rallies.
- He also bought an old Mini at one point and had a Talbot Rancho as well
- A playboy uncle who smoked cigars, read, err, Playboy (or it may have been Penthouse) and had a Datsun 240Z that he took me up to 100mph in on a dual carriageway.
- A next door neighbour having about 5 Avengers, maybe more if you counted bits in the loft or garage.
- A bunch of close mates from school also sharing an interest in cars.

[scotta]

Doors...

[DeskJockey]

Can't remember, just always been interested. Nobody around me growing up were into cars.

As for the forum, it was moving to the UK that changed me from lurker to active participant. Having to establish anew was far harder than I thought, but on here (whatever version of the forum it was) I felt that I had a connection and shared interest with a group of people, so could build on that.

[Zonda_]

No idea, my dad's cars were certainly no inspiration,

[Swervin_Mervin]

I think I was just born this way. Could name several cars before I could really speak and used to shout them out from my booster seat apparently.

No one else that close was hugely into them either tbh, although the family did have a thing for French stuff so driveways were a bit more interesting than the usual crap of that late 70s/early 80s era

[PaulJ]

Doors...

I've owned four cars that didn't have doors and I definitely got into them.

[scotta]

Doors...

I've owned four cars that didn't have doors and I definitely got into them.

Didnt stop the dukes of hazzard either i suppose.

Ive also driven cars without doors

[ZedLeg]

My dad was a panel beater and spray painter and my grandad collected vintage farm machinery so I was always around mechanical stuff.

My dad was also a marshall at Knockhill so we'd be up there most weekends during the summer. My job when I was young was to sit behind a fence at the start of the pit lane and blast an air horn if anyone was coming in.

Not many really nice cars at the house unless my dad had managed to borrow something cool but I got rides in loads of cool stuff. My favourites from memory were a blast around suburban Edinburgh in a 288 GTO from the old Glenvarigill showroom in Colinton and rallying around a MK1 Ford Zephyr with a Rover V8. It didn't have a passenger seat so I was on an upturned milk crate, holding on to the roll cage .

Learned to drive when I was 12, by the time I was 15 I was working for my grandad and if I was really lucky he'd let me drive the Unimog if it needed moved on a job.

[Barry]

I had toy cars as a kid, fixated on the things until I was 15 and dug out my dads old moped from the garage, and thus started my motorbike fixation.
A few years later as my mates go into the RS Turbos I got drawn back into cars. A few more years on from there I joined a car forum which got me interested in improving my driving. This forum.

[V8Granite]

The noise from watching F1, fascinated by why they sounded like which peaked with Michele Alboreto in the Ferrari.

Sounds and experiences of cars are what I’m in it for, not really the acceleration or top speed etc.

Dave!

[GG.]

if I was really lucky he'd let me drive the Unimog if it needed moved on a job.

[simon_g]

My dad subscribed to Car through the 80s and 90s. There were always a few issues around the house so I read a lot of Cropley, Setright, Bulgin and the like. We'd always watch the F1, rallying, etc and the odd trip to Brands Hatch to watch the racing. Evo magazine came out in my second year of uni, along with a forum to waste lots of time on.

[McSwede]

Dad was always into cars and bikes. When mum was preggers with me they had a metallic purple MGB GT which mum wrote off. He had a 3.0 Ghia Capri when I was very small in a lovely metallic brown with vinyl roof. Mum then pussy whipped him into a series of dull family vehicles. The when I was 15/16 he went and bought a dealer demo phase 2 R5 GT Turbo in gunmetal grey. That was an awesome car and he used to spank it everywhere with lots of LOO. I'd even get to drive it occasionally when I first passed my test.

Also when I was little we'd go to my friends farm and I'd sit on dad's lap and drive round all the farm roads with him doing the pedals. Also went to Lombard RAC most years or bike racing at Donnington.

His bro was also into cars and when I passed my test he rocked up in a Granada Scorpio and let me use it for the day.

Before my time he bought a DAF variomatic just because it'd go as fast in reverse as it would going forwards

Most of high school was spent with various car mags in my bag and I'd bore people senseless with facts and opinions (2nd hand ).

I've probably averaged at least 30,000 miles per year since I passed my test in '90.

I love driving, any kind of driving and in any kind of car. The less perfect they are makes it even more fun extracting as much pace as possible across country roads. It's one of the reasons I love the M140i so much. It's rather fast and a bit of a challenge to drive X-country very quickly because it's not perfect. I really enjoy that.

[Rich B]

My dad had a Mk1 Capri before I was born and an SD1 V8 when I was little. Other than that, a string of 2.0 2nd hand rep mobiles. Not sure where my car love came from, but I've always had it.

[speedingfine]

Dad's fault like most, no choice in the matter given the following He was a motor trader and 10+ cars for sale were always strewn round our garden through the eighties until he retired. He built his own dealership in the 60s. He had an MGB GT, XR3I and a Jeep when I was young, 1961 E Type... In 1961. Used to take the MGB up the lane we lived on to the 'yeehas' big bumps in the road to see if 'we'd take off'.

[integrale_evo]

I guess my dad was the catalyst, he had various Alfa’s through my early years, and although never the top of the range sporty models were different enough from the default choice for a young dad of the time that some thought must have gone into buying them.

I assume because of that I had car toys from very young, moving into Lego, technic Lego, model kits, Rc cars etc. He was always a handy diyer so guess I picked up some of his practical skills and combined it with my obvious love of cars.

It wasn’t until around 12/13 ( 92/93) that I really got into actual cars, when the bigger boys in the street started driving and when I discovered rallying and touring cars on the tv. In 93 my dad took me and a mate to snetterton to watch the btcc, that’s the first live motorsport I can remember, and probably why to this day the e36 saloon is one of my favourite race cars

It wasn’t just cars, I was fascinated in all sorts of machinery, and loved going to my grandads to look in the tractor shed or sit beside him in the tractor for hours while he did some ploughing or something.

[dinny_g]

Best mates Dad used to do Auto Testing so Sunday mornings were often spent at old crossroads, initially, then in industrial car parks when they changed the rules.

Dermot Carnaige was one of the drivers and his Rallycross mechanic pretty much built every mini special racing at that time.

As we got older, we used to hang about his house as he worked on the 6R4 and then one if Colin McRae’s old Focus’s

[Rich B]

I used to know the stats for pretty much every car - I'd read them once and it him just stuck. all the magazines had those back pages with all the prices and performance stats for every car - I miss that!

[McSwede]

I used to know the stats for pretty much every car - I'd read them once and it him just stuck. all the magazines had those back pages with all the prices and performance stats for every car - I miss that!

Yes. Likewise.

I'm sure this is what made me such a hit with the ladies when I was younger

[speedingfine]

I knew all the % scores of games from Mean Machines Sega in about 1993... Then switched to 0-60 times and power outputs in car mags soon after

Edit obviously, someone's scanned them all - https://archive.org/details/mean-machin ... 9/mode/2up