Why do you love cars so much?

[Tayne]

I'll agree about the nature of obsession.

 

And whilst you can sleep in Nissan Skyline, you can't do 228mph at Bruntingthorpe in a terraced house in Barnsley.

[vulgalour]

The car thing is there for me, but then it's a family thing.  My late mother's father always seemed to have new cars, usually saloons, I remember distinctly a Sierra, a Jetta and a white BMW which were well posh compared to what I was used to being ferried about in.  My father's late father owned a Blue Star garage before I was born and he and my late Nan would do all the work together that needed doing including changing tyres, oil, attending the fuel pumps.  My late grandad always had a new car every three years too, and it was always interesting stuff, a Landcrab, a fastback Mustang and an Austin Sheerline are the ones the family talk about the most.  My father's sister always had a new car, still does to this day, and she's had some really interesting stuff over the years.

 

So when it came to my Dad it's perhaps surprising that he was more into his bikes.  Later, when my brother and I were born, sidecars were the order of the day and Dad took us to several sidecar races in the 80s.  By the time it got to the end of the 80s Dad decided that Mum, two kids and three dogs was probably a bit much in a sidecar (the sidecar we had was ENORMOUS) so he got his first car; a bright yellow Datsun Sunny estate.

 

That's really when it properly started.  Suddenly we had a car, and it didn't matter that it was a bit rubbish, as a kid all that mattered was that it was bright yellow and all the other Dad's had boring cars, apart from Eddie next door who had a Princess which he followed up with an orange FSO Polonez.  I became properly aware of cars at this point so the shape, the interior trim and how comfortable it was told me how good it was.

 

Our neighbour with the blue Cortina estate didn't have a good car because his car was boring, and the springs had collapsed in the rear seat and besides, he smelled funny.  Neil, another neighbour, was pretty awesome because he had a Nissan Cherry that was cherry coloured, but Ray was less cool because his car only had three wheels, and was a funny brown colour and he replaced that with one that was a funny green colour.

 

And so it went on.  Neighbours and school mates were ranked by how interesting their car was.  Teachers too.  But my ranking system wasn't like that of the other kids.  At Junior school there was one awkward girl who was always brought to school in a mustard coloured Volvo 140 saloon and she was interesting.  The kid that came in a brand new Audi A4 I decided even back then was an arse and wouldn't associate with him.  I liked the teachers with the Fiat Panda and the Mazda 323 but didn't care for the one with a VW Golf.

 

I don't do it so much now, I have a much more egalitarian view towards most cars and their owners.  The fascination for me now is that how one very complicated machine can be so very different in so many ways and mean so much or so little to their owner.  A car is more than nuts and bolts and whizzy things, it's a device for capturing memories and experiences, for telling the world who you are and who you want to be.  A car is as personal, as impersonal, as bespoke and as ill fitting as any item of clothing and since we have favourite shoes why shouldn't we have favourite cars?

[wuvvum]

I haven't a fucking clue.  The vast majority of the hassle and stress I've had in my adult life has been car-related in one way or another.  I'm also poorer than I would otherwise be to the tune of well into five figures.  I've always loved cars though (my mum reckons she first noticed it when I was about 18 months old), and probably always will.

[Tayne]

apart from Eddie next door who had a Princess which he followed up with an orange FSO Polonez.  

 

 

You lived next door to EddieRamrod AICMFP.

[STUNO]

I am like wuvvum. None of my relatives were "into" cars even though the motor trade was in the close family. I do remember my Grandfather having a Lovely Humber Super Snipe he got about 1951. It was of course new, maroon with beige leather and to me real class.That may have been what flicked the switch. Their neighbours had something odd, a big round, bulbous 2 door car with a funny grille that went way too far up the front. It was an Allard!

In 1953 the family dealership was used to store the Royal Tour cars overnight, we children were let loose to look in the evening . No such thing as security then.

Family cars were Vauxhalls or Fords and changed every few years so nothing really exciting, Dad got the first mk2 Zephyr I had ever seen (1956) so it must have been a very early one.That one was a fairly bright green and was two toned in the latest style with the lower flanks in shocking pink courtesy of mother's I wants. And I cannot locate a photo!

[vulgalour]

That colour scheme sounds dreadful, the only thing I've been able to find anything like it is this diecast car.

[Pete-M]

I grew up around cars with my dad owning a large independent car sales and service garage. I was parking the cars on the forecourt at the age of 9 and putting them back in the showroom at the end of the day. My dad got the car bug from his dad who didn't drive but was an army mechanic in WW1 then for the gas board in the 1920s. I said my first word in the back of a P6B Rover - NFF355K. Mexico Brown 3500S with the box pleat leather interior and PAS.

 

I've always worked around cars and since passing my test have normally had a couple on the go. 15 -20 years mainly working in car hire means I've driven lots of weird and wonderful stuff, most of it when new.

 

A game me and my brother used to play was recognising cars just from the headlights at night. Then there's the daft things like knowing loads of registration areas off by heart. KA, KB, KC, KD, KF and LV were the Liverpool codes and the first ones I learned. I still do that now, see where cars are from when I'm on a long journey somewhere. I was very happy to spot a Liverpool registered Sierra Cosworth on a recent trip to Görlitz in Germany. A bit pissed off that DVLA gave my Mk2 a Manchester sequence age related plate though.

 

My little nephew has also got the car thing. Last weekend on a visit he spotted my Jag and commented, unprovoked, "The 2.5, that's a 4wd one. Must go quite well". He's 8 years old and hasn't been force fed cars (although his mother was a Bentley test driver for a while before he was born so he's got the bug from both sides).

 

I'd love to do something non-car related but I'm 43 now and don't know a whole lot else.

[twosmoke300]

Dad was a motortrader ( vans ,mainly) for most of my years so I guess it was gonna happen . Stripped and rebuilt an HA gearbox at 9 years old (with guidance) .Then we had a farm in scotland so always had field cars .

 

Bedtime reading used to be haynes manuals .

 

Thing is , now I run a garage , I find myself increasingly CBA on working on my own cars / bikes.

[STUNO]

That colour scheme sounds dreadful, the only thing I've been able to find anything like it is this diecast car.

 

 

Close, very close. But you must remember it was 1956 and so fashionable that TWO others in the district were done to copy it.

[Mirkin]

I can't remember ever not being obsessed with cars, even before my parents had a car.

Suppose it was due to my Grandads unofficial weekend garage where he used to do daft things like mating a Ford Crossflow to a 1.3 Viva box in a Viva, my Aunts first car that she learnt to drive in.

Also my Dads Mk1 Celica obsession when he got a licence when I was 6 has a lot to do with it. Being dropped off at school in a Snarling, debadged, lowered and heavily tuned 1.6 GT celica with Wolfies and no air filter when everyone else was in bog Standard scrotEs and Festas just felt special.

My shite obsession started with a daft idea at school. I wanted to cut the roof off of a Lada Riva estate, lower it and stick a Celica twin cam in it. Still kind of want to, but through that I realised how cool they are standard. Now I see the appeal of so many unloved motors, hence the 126 we now have. Brilliant thing. So much fun. My face still hurts from smiling everytime I drive it, apart from when it breaks, and this is after having it for three years!!

[vulgalour]

1956, the year the colours went bad.

[Anglevan]

I blame airfix and matchbox, as a kid I had loads. I used to endlessly play with my matchbox cars. Used to smash em up, set em on fire ! Repair and repaint them.

I then progressed to radio controlled cars, including various tamiya kits. Loved running, bashing, repairing etc.

left school and started working as a panel beater at a mitsubishi garage. Hence my obsession with this make.

I no longer work in the motor trade, not done so for a number of years.

Now a day I just enjoy tinkering, fixing and driving. It's my therapy away from the day job. Some people smoke / drink I just pick spanners up and try and fix pieces of junk that no one else would touch. ....

[oman5]

With me, its probably a symptom of my aspergers. although I am a sucker for nice sounding engines, hence the long list of 5,6 and 8 cylinder cars I've had. my ideal would be something with a detroit diesel in it.

[Mr Livered]

My parents owned a smallish business (nothing to do with cars) when I was a kid. One of their staff had a rusty Horizon, and I remember my father explaining to me that the business was going to supply her with a shiny new Fiesta mk3 instead, as a company car, and what a good deal that was because the company car rules were more lax in those days. She got a lovely new car instead of her nasty rusty old one, and it hardly cost anything.

 

I must have been about ten years old - I remember thinking that it was a bit of a shame, to replace something with character with such an uninspiring motor. Looking back, that was the beginning of my interest in shite.

 

The funny thing, looking back at those days, is how young everyone's cars were, and by implication how short-lived most cars were. In the late 80s, my father had an L reg TR6 as a second car, and it seemed really old. Actually it was only about 15 years old then, like a V reg car today - which doesn't seem old at all.

[quicksilver]

I think my car obsession is partly genetic as my dad has always been enthusiastic about them. I very rarely played with anything other than toy cars and as soon as I could read I preferred car books and magazines to kids' stories and comics. When not reading about them I used to draw cars and I must have done hundreds of sketches, mostly from my own imagination - they're still the only thing I can draw properly.

 

My Granny used to take me on walks around the estate looking at cars and she still remembers taking me to the newsagent at the age of about 5 or 6 to buy a magazine, expecting me to choose something for children - I was most insistent I wanted the Auto Trader and spent many hours reading it! I'm told I learnt to read at an early age by reading numberplates and pronouncing them as if they were words

[AnthonyG]

I particularly hate driving. It's other people that cause this more than the actual cars.

Yes, I'm not that keen on driving anywhere busy, I now actively dislike it in towns and avoid commuting/school run times like the plague.

 

Nothing beats a good, quiet, country road though. Or a empty motorway.

[AlabamaShrimp]

I can't really say when is clicked for me. My dad had a garage* well an ancient wooden shack with a surrounding stone wall nearly in the centre of Huddersfield where he fixed cars up until I was about 11. I don't remember going much other than to use it as free parking on a weekend and would get really bored if we had to stay there for any length of time.

 

Eventually that got knocked down and as my dad worked from home fixing and selling shitters I sort of got roped in after leaving school and being a lazy twat.

 

As more work came in we got a car pitch and now I had to know what was what, what trim it was for parts or on a trip to the scrappers. In the end I realised that I could name 99% of stuff and tell you if it was standard or not.

[Junkman]

I like cars for as long as I can remember, and my mother insists even before that.

A proven track record in owning Autoshite and a 2500 strong model car collection manifests my love of cars.

I don't know why, and frankly, I don't care.

But I remember an event that got me hooked on yanks.

My father had to bring his R16 to the garage for a service and I went with him. I was a toddler at the time.

We dropped the car off at the dealership, and walked to the nearest station for the train home.

On the way to the station, along came a metallic turquoise '59 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 Special.

I knew right then and there, that I will own a car like this later in life.

Little did I know at the time, that it was the very car I would own 15 or so years hence.

[cort16]

I like them but they don't like me

[purplebargeken]

Dad was a manager at Fords in Halewood. He started there in 1963 as a crane driver when it was all still part of Speke airport. 

 

He had a stream of Fords, a new Mk1 Escort that he won from a suggestion box entry. He swapped that immediately for a brand new Corsair 2000E in gold. That car was wrecked and he bought a newish Cortina 1.6XL in Daytona Yellow - XAK 363L, ha! He wrecked that and Ford arranged for him to be collected and dropped off. He liked a drink. This is where my car thing started. I used to poke fun at the bloke down the road as he only had a 1.6L hehehe.

 

Mum had a wonderful collection of chod that she adored. A couple of Mini estates, a Clubman Countryman, Hillman Husky, Simca 1000, Talbot Horizon, etc. She then went on to the new Fords Mk2 Fiesta and then a Mk4 Escort shortly before she died in 1993. 

 

Cars don't nag or whinge. They get me away from the crap I have to contend with and they are a significant distraction. I was one of the first to have a car in my group of mates. Now I have six of the bastard things and can't seem to ever successfully thin out the herd no matter what I do or think about doing. Meh!

 

I am at home on here.