How much of a car dork were you as a kid?

[warch]

9 hours ago, loserone said:

I have designs for a replacement for the discovery I.  

I read Car and Performance Bikes cover to cover every month I could get them, and subscribed to LRO for three years from age 8.  I subscribed to Evo for the first five years.

 

I thought everyone could recognise every car in the dark regardless of direction?

I'm sure I've already mentioned this but I nearly got a job working for them in about 2002 (got down to the last three). I had an article published but never got the job (probably for the best, especially as I'd have had to live near Peterborough, plus they folded last year). 

My favourite Land Rover magazine was the really excellent Land Rover World, which was much more fun than LRO (which was rather more corporate and straight laced). LRW used to have articles about things like the Forward Control they featured in the video and album insert for Tricky's Maximquaye, lots of really strong mechanical articles, especially on things like engine conversions and broadly felt much cooler and a bit more relatable somehow. 

I used to be quite knowledgeable about cars in general, especially due to things like the old Parkers guide, but there are lots of cars models or even brands I no longer recognise these days. 

[sierraman]

It gives me no small amount of comfort to know there’s others as tragic as me. I used to be obsessed with scrapyards, we had one fairly local and in those pre H&S days they’d let me go in with my dad. When I’d get home I’d draw scrapyards as well and lamp posts for some bizarre reason. Avid reader of Practical Classics, Car Mechanics and Top Gear from being about 7-8. When I left home my folks duly binned the lot which caused me no end of time, expense and relationship problems sourcing them all again in job lots from similarly deranged people. In fact I’ve got around several hundred Practical Classics copies hidden under the stairs behind some other crap, the wife doesn’t even know they’re there. I managed to get them out of the car and in place before she arrived home. 
 

I had a Matchbox Ford Sierra as a kid which set me off on a quest to have a Sierra, didn’t get the XR4i - I once rang for a quote on the insurance and it was something ridiculous at the time like £2,500 so I settled for a 1.8 LX with the XR4 wheels on it. Still have the XR4i in the loft but the 1:1 scale one is long dead sadly. If I had the space I’d have another in a heartbeat. 

[Bren]

Always liked cars. Me and my mate would get catalogues from main dealers (" you've got enough now - go on") was something we heard regularly. In high school I even backed my books with pages from a ford catalogue.

Had toy cars from being a toddler. And still have them. If my dad was working on his car I would accompany him - I remember tackling some rust ln his first SD1 and getting shouted at because I got argent silver overspray on the glass.

[warch]

41 minutes ago, sierraman said:

 I used to be obsessed with scrapyards, we had one fairly local and in those pre H&S days they’d let me go in with my dad. When I’d get home I’d draw scrapyards as well and lamp posts for some bizarre reason.

Snap. I also used to like drawing pictures of scrap or disused vehicles, often abandoned railways or railway locomotives and waste ground. I've absolutely no idea why this appeals to me, must be a Romantic thing (in the artistic sense), with ruined old castles reclaimed by nature replaced by a fucked old Austin Cambridge with a tree growing through it. 

I also like abandoned building complexes (I spend a lot of time in and around them on a professional basis). They often get abandoned and left in certain state. I recently did a former workhouse which was subsequently accommodation for a public school. You could tell from all the posters (David Tennant as Dr Who etc) and décor exactly when the place was last occupied. Even fifteen odd years ago felt like going back in time.  

[Alan_Green]

Maybe we were all conceived in cars.

[Sunny Jim]

Like a lot of others here I could identify cars by their headlights and engine noise from an early age. As I got older my interest leaned more towards classic cars and aged about 13 started reading Practical Classics. On my route to and from school there was a shop that was the equivalent of an estate agents but was for cars - I'd spend time each day looking at the pictures and reading the ads.

[horriblemercedes]

I thought I liked cars, but now I'm reading this, I'm not sure I really do!

A lot of people are far more dedicated than me

[GeordieInExile]

32 minutes ago, horriblemercedes said:

I thought I liked cars, but now I'm reading this, I'm not sure I really do!

A lot of people are far more unhinged than me

FTFY 

[Datsuncog]

2 hours ago, warch said:

a fucked old Austin Cambridge with a tree growing through it

Just for you... 😉

[bunglebus]

Well I'm in good company here! From my earliest memories, I was always obsessed with cars, I remember not only drawing fantasy ones but also sitting in the street and drawing the various cars owned by my neighbours. Talbot Rancho and MG Metro opposite, orange MK3 Cortina and blue Capri a bit further down spring to mind. Still got all the drawings up in the loft somewhere.

I'd insist on visiting car museums on holidays, used to not only spot the latest registration numbers on the day they came out but also list old car numbers in a notebook, generally pre 66 as they was the age of my mum's Super Minx.

My specialist subject was Volkswagens, especially Beetles, although I've always liked old Fords too as they were everywhere, the thing we all aspired to have as teens, and my dad had a Cortina 1600E, 2.0S MK4 then a 2.0i GLS Sapphire.

I remember doing school projects about cars, car art at GCSE and reading Street Machine, Custom Car and things like Hot Rod and Rod & Custom, Chrome & Flames when I could find them. I then got into Max Power, Revs, Fast Car, had hundreds of them in the end, bought back issues of Street Machine and Custom Car including every free gift, the lot. Sold them as a job lot a few years ago as they just got too much, still have the odd pang of regret, I think I just burnt myself out hunting them down and reading every issue cover to cover.

I also used to know when there was a Mini, Escort, Beetle, 2CV etc approaching by sound, and could tell you what virtually every car on the road was.

The old/decrepit cars and houses have a strong pull for me too, there was a whole housing estate near me that was empty for years, I'd explore the houses and school buildings with my dad, and we would race our BMXs around the empty roads. I remember another empty house with a Bond Bug melting into the lawn, for some reason the Feu Orange air freshener hanging from the mirror is etched into my mind.

Of course I was always playing with toy cars, mostly jumble sale finds of donated by my older cousin, but there would be the occasional rare treat of a brand new Matchbox from the Pied Piper in Shenfield high street.

Thing is, I've no idea where it comes from. My parents aren't especially car people, my dad would fix the family cars and find bits in breakers yards with me (oh how I miss a scrapyard wander), but it was just because he could, not because he was especially passionate about it.

[Spottedlaurel]

My younger days echo much of what has been written above.

 

 

I think it must come from my dad and his father in turn. The latter was somewhat penniless by the time I was born, but I believe he had reasonably exotic stuff in his younger days. Still had an E-Type but I recall it being used to take hay down to the horses! It got sold in the late '70s, probably for buttons. I do remember them having a pair of old Renault 4s, one of which was for spares, and this concept was something of an inspiration.

My dad mostly had brand new cars throughout my younger days (even if it didn't leave much money for anything else) before he moved onto company cars, so I don't remember too much weekend tinkering.

I started off with Matchbox Superfast etc, I cut out photos of real and toy cars from old magazines and catalogues and stuck them into scrapbooks, then got into Scalextric, model kits, collecting brochures and buying magazines from about the age of 12. Also used to draw them, but lack of artistic talent meant they were mostly 2D side profile views.

I still have loads of this stuff, and have accumulated rather more since....

I consider myself lucky that my formative years coincided with the really significant change from wheezy old 1950s/60s cars to the fuel injected, ABS braked stuff of the 1980s and '90s. Even in the '70s and early '80s I don't remember that many pre-1970 cars in everyday use. Some for sure, but most were rough and didn't remain on the road for too much longer. The odd pre- or postwar car could sometimes be seen languishing in a farmyard or garden - our neighbours had the remnants of something like an Austin 7 in their chicken run.

I used to identify cars from their rear lights when we were driving home on the A12 from family visits (so easy with Cortina Mk3s). I also recall asking whether the front spoiler on a Cortina Mk4 was standard, as that wasn't something I hadn't seen too much before.

I found most everyday Japanese cars a little confusing, but it seems like I've got my head around them now.

[danthecapriman]

As a kid, even very young, I used to be obsessed with pretty much all types of vehicles (except planes weirdly! I’ve never really been interested in them!). Apparently as a toddler when out with my mum on the bus to/from town I used to stare out the windows watching with interest all the vehicles going by. 
As I got older the interest got stronger as you start knowing what things are etc etc. But even then I had little interest in exotica, racing etc etc. For me it was the average every day stuff I loved, Cortina’s, Capri’s, Granada’s, Marina’s & Ital’s, Transit’s & CF’s, that sort of thing. Naturally this made me a weirdo in the eyes of most of my peers! 
I remember opposite our school playing field was a house with a mk4 Cortina estate on the drive which I used to absolutely lust after every time I went passed or went out on the field! 
That school had a mk2 Transit minibus at the time too which I used to love. Funny what you remember from so long ago!

I think it was all that stuff that started my desire to get a Capri as soon as I possibly could. To me they were the car to have. Nothing looked as good as that classic shape in my eyes. By this time those cars and similar aged stuff were becoming quite undesirable and, as usual, I got taken the piss out of for liking them. 
I used to pick up those free paper car sales mags from the local petrol station on my way past and read them. I’d always completely ignore the new cars, or the modern (at the time) used stuff, and go straight for the P/X bargain lists… that’s where all the gold was! All the years old chod that was interesting and stylish but about at the bottom of its value and probably destined for the crusher after the tax & test ran out. But there was some fantastic old cars and vans around for very little money then.

As soon as my miserable school days were over at age 16 I went out and bought myself the car I always promised myself. Still the laughing stock with my idiot peers, but it mattered not one bit. I had a Capri, they all had silly little granny cars!😆 It didn’t matter that the Capri was already over two decades old or that it was covered in rust! In my eyes I’d made it!

All these years later that cars still with me, looking somewhat different now, but I’ve never lost the love for it. So, yes. I was a total nerd as a kid and nothing’s changed since.

[inconsistant]

Our poor parents.

[omegod]

I recall teachers being a bit bemused when on school coaches I would be reading the latest Auto express aged 11 ish. Classic and Sport's car mag was put a heavy dent in my pocket money too 

[riek]

31 minutes ago, omegod said:

I recall teachers being a bit bemused when on school coaches I would be reading the latest Auto express aged 11 ish. Classic and Sport's car mag was put a heavy dent in my pocket money too 

Are you me?

Regularly had to tell people I wasn't just looking at the pictures.

[Dyslexic Viking]

A lot.

[sierraman]

6 hours ago, Alan_Green said:

Maybe we were all conceived in cars.

No, a guesthouse in Bridlington in September 1985. Apparently. 

[MiniMinorMk3]

I have been obsessed with cars since forever. I have no idea where the obsession came from but from my earliest memories most of my time was spent thinking about cars.

I had a lot of Matchbox, Corgi, Dinky, Husky and HotWheels. I would have a new one most every week because I was lucky enough to get pocket money from an early age. Also every time we went to my Grand Parents they would get me a new Corgi or Dinky.

I always enjoyed going on those trips to, as we went along the M4, and that's were you saw the fast stuff. I could tell a V12 E-Type because of teh 4 tail pipes, but to see an Aston, Ferrari or Maserati was a real highlight.

Every August my dad would say the first to spot w new reg would get a shilling (5 pence for you younguns born after 1971).

For the trip I also had a selection of books including

Bed time reading for me was not Janet and John, it was

and

And my favourite game back then was

At the age of 10 I started building plastic kits of cars and motorbike. At 13 I got my first issue of Hot Car, and then Custom Car and then Hot Rod and Custom. Some times I was lucky in WH Smiths and got a copy of the American magazine Hot Rod. 

I am still car obsessed and have a large collection of models and books.

[Barry Cade]

Been daft on anything with wheels since I was in my pram. I was told I could name every car when being pushed along in my buggy. I seemingly had a proper meltdown because a new car appeared in the next street and I didn't know what it was. I had to be taken round to see it and find out what it was.. it was a Moskvitch.. I also get reminded from a neighbour banger racer about an argument when I was 4, about the differences between a Rostyle wheel and a Magnum 500. 

I suppose I had a lucky escape as my mum wrote to Jim'll fix it because I wanted to drive an artic when I was 6. Never got a reply. Phew!

There was a Fiat X1/9 Lido parked in a drive across from my nursery. That's what started the lifelong obsession with them . They were my life for nearly 20 years.

I still have the Which road test yearbook from 1979. It's what I asked for ,for Christmas. I was 5..

Had a paper round later on and got paid in car magazines. Years back we were moving and I had to dump them all, nobody wanted them.. over half a ton of paper. Filled a 6x4 covered trailer.. sad day.

Left school at 15 and spent every day since involved in things on wheels as employment, then as soon as I finish work, I'm doing something else related to things powered by fuel.

Never did models, could get the real thing for less money few years back. Have owned 500+ cars and about 40 bikes since I was 14. 

Haven't got a pot to piss in and would have probably been better off having a crack habit. 

[High Jetter]

9 minutes ago, Barry Cade said:

Have owned 500+ cars and about 40 bikes since I was 14. 

I'm just glad it's not an obsession for you! 🤣

[matt79]

I've always been mad on cars (in fact anything with wheels and an enigine) ever since I can remember.

According to my mum, she was once driving back from a shopping trip with me in the back seat of the family car (a mk1 Escort estate in Daytona yellow) & she kept thinking that she'd left the indicator on, until she realised that it was 2 year old me in the back, mimicking the 'Tick-oo' noise made when the indicator was activated.

By the time I was a double digit age, I'd filled various scrapbooks with pictures of cars and car adverts that I'd cut out of magazines & amassed a huge collection of car brochures that I got either from manufacturer stands at shows, going to showrooms or sending off a request to the manufacturer direct. I used to love going to the Motorshow at Earls Court, and would leave weighed down with as much as I could physically carry in handouts / brochures etc. I also had a huge collection of magazines, I particularly liked Street Machine, Top Gear, What Car, and (as I entered into teenage years) Max Power, Fast Car, Revs, & Redline.

I'd always wanted to be a car designer/ stylist & would spend hours drawing & sketching and I even sent off various designs to car makers. Some (to my surprise) even took the time to respond & I'd occasionally get sent a 'gift' - I got sent a very early 90's multi-coloured 'Volvo' branded hold-all (which I still have some 30 years later),  various models, brochures, keyrings, books etc.

If I was walking beside a line of parked cars, I'd try & guess the registration year /  letter of the cars in the line before I could see the registration plates (I still do this now occasionally, although my partner says its one of my 'less endearing' traits. Pffft, what does she know?)

I'd build scrapyards with my model cars, and if I'd made a car park with my models, I would have to include an 'abandoned' car in the car park, I still have a strange attraction (fetish?) for a scrapyard or an abandoned car, these days I could spend hours online looking at pictures of scrapyards & abandoned cars.

F'kin wierdo 😄

[Lord Sterling]

I've loved cars since I can remember and I could certainly identify some cars but my parents never took much notice, so I guess I was a dork in the making.

Most of my toys were cars but occasionally I think the parentals tried to steer me away from cars (?)

I always had toy and model cars and from the age when I could buy magazines, I sometimes bought auto trader (along with a Beano and Dandy and later Max Power) to dream about which cars I'd own when I was older.

Of course nowadays my place is full of car books/magazine and model cars.

[Marina door handles]

Dork/Geek/Saddo? Yes I am...

Were to start? I think it started not with cars but with spaceships about age 3 or 4, it was the late Seventies and I think its the fault of Blue Peter doing bits on NASA and the moon  landings. This was followed by space Lego, which led to regular Lego with cars and trucks- which led to my obsession with vehicles of all types. 

American TV shows had a huge car, bike and helicopter influence thanks to CHiPS, Nightrider, Airwolf and others.

Then there were outside influences like my various neighbours, some of the young lads across the road had a couple of tarted up Mk2 Escorts back when they were cheap fun, rather than over priced tat taken far too seriously. A neighbour a few doors down was always tinkering on their cars and this dismayed my mum who called them tinkerers? I thought it was great! 

By the late Eighties I had developed an addiction, I started buying car mags World Sports Cars CAR, Autocar, Performance car, Super Car Classics, watching Top Gear, RAC Rally Report, F1 and BTCC.

Then I eventually learnt to drive and bought my first car, a 1980 mini, that didn't cure me either.... I don't think there is a cure.....

 

[warren t claim]

I spotted my first bent MOT at the age of 11.

[Richard_FM]

4 hours ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

I have been obsessed with cars since forever. I have no idea where the obsession came from but from my earliest memories most of my time was spent thinking about cars.

I had a lot of Matchbox, Corgi, Dinky, Husky and HotWheels. I would have a new one most every week because I was lucky enough to get pocket money from an early age. Also every time we went to my Grand Parents they would get me a new Corgi or Dinky.

I always enjoyed going on those trips to, as we went along the M4, and that's were you saw the fast stuff. I could tell a V12 E-Type because of teh 4 tail pipes, but to see an Aston, Ferrari or Maserati was a real highlight.

Every August my dad would say the first to spot w new reg would get a shilling (5 pence for you younguns born after 1971).

For the trip I also had a selection of books including

Bed time reading for me was not Janet and John, it was

and

And my favourite game back then was

At the age of 10 I started building plastic kits of cars and motorbike. At 13 I got my first issue of Hot Car, and then Custom Car and then Hot Rod and Custom. Some times I was lucky in WH Smiths and got a copy of the American magazine Hot Rod. 

I am still car obsessed and have a large collection of models and books.

My brother had a set of Car Capers, which is probably still at my Mum's house.

[bunglebus]

4 hours ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

 

I've had this version since I was a kid

[RayMK]

I seem to have the necessary traits to qualify.  My mechanical graduation* as a kid was helping my dad to lap the valves/seats of his 1933 Austin 7 using jeweller's rouge and a twirling stick with a rubber end grip. It seemed as though the A7's engine was on the kitchen table every couple of months for this de-coking activity.  Prior to that I  was always drawing cars and weird mechanical vehicles and had a similar taste in reading material to @MiniMinorMk3.  I still have Observers Books of automobiles going back to the early 60s but the Ladybirds and I Spy books have long gone.  I had the Meccano magazine every month for many years to keep me posted on the latest Dinky diecasts and motoring magazines were passed to me by adult relatives.  I tested all sorts of suspension of my own design on meccano chassis, later realising that there's very little that's new in auto design.  When about 13,   Observers books began to disappoint me because they did not include suspension details, meaning I had to hand amend a few editions to satisfy my obsession with suspension.  Car and commercial vehicle identification was second nature for me and my younger brother but my interest in newer cars began to fade after the early 80s.  Now, I can only identify about 10% of the cars SUVs which are clogging up the roads.    

[Low ontime]

Got me its not summer without the sound of the banana grill transit DI screaming its head off….. ice cream van ahoy!

[eddyramrod]

It's so nice to see my early years weren't as odd as I've always thought!  My mum always said she taught me to talk using the names of the cars we would pass when I was in my pram.  Back then of course, cars tended to be called things like Austin Cambridge and Ford Anglia, not the collection of foreign nonsense we're lumbered with now.  Almost all my pocket money went on Matchbox cars, which cost all of two shillings; coincidentally the weekly value of my pocket money!  I remember buying Hot Car magazine for the first time in the summer of 1971, aged 12.  That started me on a very slippery slope!  Classic American on subscription, anybody?  My bedroom walls were covered with pages from the magazines, especially fifties Americana from the occasional copy of Hot Rod; in between Kate Bush and Debbie Harry that is!

[RayMK]

9 minutes ago, eddyramrod said:

It's so nice to see my early years weren't as odd as I've always thought!  My mum always said she taught me to talk using the names of the cars we would pass when I was in my pram.  Back then of course, cars tended to be called things like Austin Cambridge and Ford Anglia, not the collection of foreign nonsense we're lumbered with now.  Almost all my pocket money went on Matchbox cars, which cost all of two shillings; coincidentally the weekly value of my pocket money!  I remember buying Hot Car magazine for the first time in the summer of 1971, aged 12.  That started me on a very slippery slope!  Classic American on subscription, anybody?  My bedroom walls were covered with pages from the magazines, especially fifties Americana from the occasional copy of Hot Rod; in between Kate Bush and Debbie Harry that is!

Was your mum an athlete, always in the fast lane 😀 ?   Matchbox toys were 1/3d when I was a kid.  My brother and I received 1d weekly pocket money for each year of age.  It took a while to save 1/3d when allowing for the occasional* temptations of aniseed balls or sweet tobacco.