Nature or Nurture?

[Mr Lobster]

Hmmm. Not sure tbh. My love of French tat I think comes from family holidays to France when I was young and impressionable, I do remember seeing all these R4s, 12s and the like and being abroad for probably the first time it obviously seemed all exciting and far more interesting. I'm told that even as a toddler I liked cars though, peering into workshops as I was pushed past, turning my buggy upside down and playing with the wheels Don't really know where it came from though, Fatha Lobster has always bought new cars and wasn't / isn't a massive car enthusiast although does take an interest.Great topic btw!!

[brammy777]

Well for me, it was growing up in the early nineties, alot of tat was still around then you see.Apparently when i was two (yes, two) i could tell what make and model of car it was by the body outline, and used to test my mum on what make and model of car was approaching haha.So i suppose thats what attracted me to it, and i always liked older cars, ever since i can remember. My uncle was really into cars as well, particularly older ones as well, escort MKIIs, Imps and all that stuff, so that had a pretty big influence on me.My first autoshite spot was on my uncles farm when i was about 3, there was a Cortina MKIV and Allegro dumped in his field by ex workers, and they were left for a while

[whitevanman]

difficult to say as my family had no real interest in cars, though I get my miserlyness from my Dad and my make do attitude from my Mother..so I guess nature

[Milford Cubicle]

I was a bit of a car identification prodigy too.My dad's to blame, he'd point out all the makes and models to me. I could identify light clusters in the dark at 5 or 6. Not being very well off, the old man always ran bangers - he passed the disdain for paying more than £500 for a car to me.He also passed on a love for 'unusual' cars too, he owned an Austin 3-litre when he was 18 and a Mazda RX-4 at 21. I need to work harder on that side of things.

[Timewaster]

Apparently when i was two (yes, two) i could tell what make and model of car it was by the body outline, and used to test my mum on what make and model of car was approaching haha.

+1My dad had all manner of shite:1968 Hillman Imp1972 Renault 12 - bought 3 years old, driven till it died many years later with red oxide patches all over. (Looked great on a white car!)1976 Austin Maxi HL - replaced the 12 despite being only 4 years newer.1985 Mini Mayfair. Bought new, eventually became my 1st car.1987 Volvo 240GL Sublime to the ridiculous.1988 Talbot Express camper1987 VW LT camper1992 Kia Sportage2006 Suzuki Wagon R Mums were worse?1967 Triumph Herald 13001979 Skoda Estelle LS (Would you like a head gasket with that thermostat sir?)1980 Ford Escort 1.3L - Which taught me a thing or 2 about P38 and rattle cans. Last seen in 1990 with one side stoved in. :(Is it any wonder I have a reputation for buying any old crap!

[dollywobbler]

If anything, my automotive lustings somehow came across to me from my Aunt. In the Seventies, she was a mechanic. Yes, you read that right! Sadly, she was merely a van driver by the time I was born.During my childhood, I would be ferried around in her Moggy convertible, then a Morris Oxford Series VI. These were seriously uncool by the Eighties but I loved them. If that wasn't enough, when I went to visit my Aunt, she had the gearchange mechanism of an Allegro for me to play with.She has a lot to answer for.My love of French cars is completely unexplainable however. I've always loved them.

[Station]

I was about 4, a lad over the road have a matt black Capri mk1. It had (what must've been) 15 inch wheels on the back, but they were over 1 foot wide, with an extreme 'dish' in the middle. It was hiked up at the back as well, prob with blocks. I've always had an attraction, but I think that kickstarted it, I love thinking about how awesome I thought it looked back then.

[j-j]

Great topic! I'm not sure - I am certain that I 'just loved' cars from an early age. There's a photo of me around 2-3 years old looking undearneath my Aunt's lime green Mk1 Golf. I recall the day very well, I wanted to see how different it was to my Dad's Sunbeam.I reckon my love for old and odd cars comes from a desire to time travel and to be there when these cars were new - the fact that so many are shite is a fact of their age I think..French cars because I grew up with 2CVs as family cars so I learned the way of the chevron. I thik i got into the big Citroens much later such as teen years after discovering BXs in the late 90s and as a 14 year old in '94 my mate and I found a 1980 CX Athena in a used car lot (shite spec portacabin and stone chips) - I was captivated by that car there and then - it was the oldest car in the lot and by far the coolest.I just have memories of the end of the bad old days of cars in the 80s when you'd see a capri ragging around town with dukes of hazzard horn and when everything just looked scruffier. For some reason it always seemed to be summer(?) Also I suppose my interest in fixing up cars plays on the shite thing too. Overall now that it's spilled over into every make from every country - if it's old, rare, once common, expensive or cheap I'll be interested - especially if it's still going...

[RedSparrow]

Its the stuff I remember being driven around in as a kid. Dolomite (mums friend), Allegro, Mk1 & 2 Renner 5s (Mum), Metro, Renault 14, Sierras. Plus my dad runs a small garage, and I was brought up living in the flat above it. From a young age I could identify cars. Was always hanging round the garage as a kid asking the mechanics silly questions.Grandparents motors:MK 2 FiestaAllegro 2Renault 14 (nicknamed 'the shit car' by my Grandad)Jag XJSMetro 1.0LDads motors (NB before running a garage he was a Rootes salesman):2 Fordson trucksMatra bageeraTalbot Sunbeam lotus2 Talbot Sunbeamsvarious CaprisLotus Elan +22 Sierra Cossies-there are loads more which I can't remember!

[trigger]

I've loved cars for as long as i can remember, I used to play with my toy cars all the time and collected car magazines from the age of 8.

 

I used to talk about them all the time and knew every model and number plate year from a very young age.

 

I had a massive car magazine and brouchure collection that took up most my old bedroom as well as all the posters of cars that covered the walls.

 

My dad was into cars and was always changing them which is where i think i get it from.

 

I think I've posted theis before but here i am aged 3 helping my old chap with his car, So you can see i was into cars even then!.

 

 

And even me getting ran over and breaking my leg by one of the first Renault 19's in the area in 1989 didn't dampen my emthusiasm!.

[Cavcraft]

I've just always loved cars, no particular reason but my dad having various shite company cars (Austin 3-Litre, two Maxis, Cortina Mk4 and Mk5 estates, Talbot Alpine, Cav Mk2 Sr etc) probably helped.Mum had a Fiat 126 (hateful car), couple of Renner 4s (loved them), Riley Elf and others.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I have no idea why I'm into old cars, particularly shite. My dad's company cars were never more than four years old. No-one else in my family had old cars, although I do remember being shown an uncle's mothballed Escort MK2 around 1992, and being interested by a decrepit Minor abandoned in a garden near school. Wasn't until I bought a copy of Practical Classics in WHSmith that I realised it was a legitimate hobby!

[pogweasel]

I can't explain it. Really I can't It's like that folk who are abused as children go on to be abusers. A very extreme comparison, but about all I can manage at the minute.

[Claypole]

My dad had amongst others, a Yellow Reliant loooong before they were trendy, a mini, original Cavalier, and the first car I drove after passing my test a MK1 Opel Kadette.

[r.welfare]

I have no idea why I'm into old cars, particularly shite. My dad's company cars were never more than four years old.

+1. My dad's of that immediate post-war generation that's really into aircraft and tried to pass this knowledge on, but it was cars all the way for me from a very early age - things like pestering my mum to buy me copies of CAR when I was 6, etc. I do tend to like the kind of crud that my dad used to have new back in the 80's and 90's best.My folks think I am quite mad for running old chod when I could afford something much newer and shinier (quite happy to call me in when they want something big/dirty shifted though!); I'm more interested in keeping my spare cash for a bigger house, school fees etc. than splurging it on a newish BM or Merc or whatever. The mechanical tinkering side of things has kind of developed by osmosis, starting off with simple oil changes 5 or so years ago and then just developing in confidence. I still don't much like doing cambelts or drum brakes, but most other stuff I'll have a go at; did the front discs and pads on the 405 the other day, whereas a couple of years ago I'd have just chucked the car into the local garage - 'course, this is simple stuff compared to some of the knowledge/skillz I see on here...

[mattblack]

 

No, I can't understand where I got my love of tat from... it's a mystery!

 

That 404 was pretty typical of one of my dad's buys... bought it from a mate who dragged it to our place with his Austin Gypsy. Most years seem to have involved my dad taking a brush painted Maxi or somesuch for an MOT, minus seats and bits of trim, on the friday before we went on holiday on the saturday... and my mum doing her nut

 

Happy days (maybe...)

[gtd2000]

I was always into cars as a young lad, went though the usual phases of liking certain marques, identifying models, lights in the distance and even exhaust notes at one point but I think that is more difficult these days... I'm pretty specifically into East Asian shite to be fair although in the 70's and 80's it was mainly Western toss that inspired me.When I was old enough to get on the road it was on two wheels due to the life of poverty while studying.Once I had enough money to buy a car I was firmly in Japanese territory due to the reliability factor.These days I actually enjoy having an older, possibly less desired car (by the masses) as a sort of inverted snobbery statement The Proton changes ownership in a weeks time (if all goes to plan) and I'll be running round like a hairdresser in my newly acquired Hyundai Coupe I can take it - no penis compensation necessary!

[Guest]

No one really pushed me into liking cars - my dad tended to run around in fairly rubbish cars on account of little money, which got gradually less rubbish as time went on, but none of it was particularly rare/spectacular/knackered and he wasn't very interested in it as long as it could get him to work. Though in the mid 80s his car was a MK1 Escort 1100 Base (2-door) which broke down on the motorway and was given to the recovery guy as payment.

 

Once I was able to read, I learned a lot about motors. Funny thing is even back then I was more interested in ordinary saloons over sports cars, probably because I'd be more likely to see them. I also spent a lot of time pushing various cars around one of those "play mat" things with roads/buildings printed on them. One of my favourites was a cream Mercedes-Benz W123 saloon, which I'll still have somewhere.

 

I also lay a lot of the blame on this character:

[Dukestar25]

I get it from my dad who, when I were a toddler, used to work part-time in Barber Motors in Standish. Sometimes I'd get to go with him (and yes, he had a penchant for buying/repairing/rebuilding old chod at home too...)This is where some of our cars came from. The best example was the Triumph 2.5pi which he sold his Mk2 Cortina to buy. It had been brought in as it had run out of petrol and, after a refill, still wouldn't start.It turned out that the Lucas fuel-injection system had a vacuum build up in it once the petrol had run out and the fresh stuff couldn't get through and the only way to rectify this was to subject the Lucas bits to a stripdown and rebuild (major bill without doubt).He then bought it as a non-runner, repaired it and ran it for several years maintaning it himself for the duration of ownership .

[Mash]

I'd always been into cars as a kid although ironically my parents didn't have a car until I was about 13. This brought about the move towards shiteness as the vehicle in question was a sick-green 12 year old Allegro, already becoming a rare sight by 1989. Suddenly I had a need for all knowledge of British Leyland and it spiralled out of control into the monster that I struggle to keep at bay today!

[Mike D]

My folks haven't really got much of an interest in cars, so I'm not sure where i got mine from, apparently i could identify cars by the wheel trims when i was small, I reckon it came from my Grandads Beetle, and a V8 Sierra that lived down the road. It sounded IMMENSE to me as a kid. Incidentally, the guy that had it also had a Hyundai Stellar, in beige in his garage, also V8 motored. I never saw it on the road though. Shame!

[Mr H Sceptre]

My Dad has zero interest in cars. When I was a nipper I had the usual toy cars/car books etc, but then again I suppose most lads did.I always remember when other kids were banging on about Porsches, Lambo's, Ferrari's etc etc, I was always more fascinated in the day to day mundane stuff.Just the way its always been I guess,

[ashmicro]

My extended family is all a little car-nutty. I started off taking mopeds to pieces when I was a teenager, and moved on to cars. A couple of my schoolfriends had fathers who were mechanics, and they always had some interesting chod for us to tinker with. One memorable motor was a Renner 12 with a BMW 320 engine and 'box. Said mate's father helped my build my V8 Mk2 Scrote tooMy uncle used to build rally cars, one of which was a a Lotus Sunbeam "Turbo" in Marlboro colours with fibreglass bonnet, boot and doors. That was bastard quick and road legal.Carrying this on, I now have a 3 and a half year old niece who knows the difference in sound between a V6 Jag and a K Series Rover!

[FredTransit]

Neither of my parents could drive, so I didn't get it from them.....

[STUNO]

Neither of my parents could drive, so I didn't get it from them.....

And they are still wondering what they did wrong !As for me, my parents both had cars, but for transport . Family had a rootes/chrysler dealership but that was a business, not a passion. I think what got me started was my grandfathers fabulous (to me at 5) new 1952 Humber Snipe, Maroon with beige leather. I still think it was a wonderful car. He must have liked it too, as he kept it 10 years and replaced it with another Snipe. Sadly I have never found a photo of his '52 Snipe.

[Parky]

Nurture for sure.1) - One of my earliest memories is my Dad rebuilding a 1200cc Ford engine (Mk 1 Cortina) on our kitchen table2) - I could name virtually all cars on the road at the age of 6 - seems to be a common theme amongst us lot!3) - Dad worked for a Plastics company that made switches and various small components for Talbot amongst other things such as Rawlplugs...4) - Grandad worked in the draughtsmans office at Ford in Dagenham and would tell me excitedly about new developments coming through (usually new design of wiper stalk or something)Most of my friends had parents who were Doctors or Accountants and none of them had any interest in cars because quite simply they'd never seen a car in bits or enjoyed the pleasure of watching their parents swearing their heads off because of a seized bolt/realisation of special tool requirement/fault still remained despite 10 hours rolling around in the cold.Wife much the same, cant understand that just because something is old doesnt make it inferior to a new one.