Did you grow up around cars?

[e30onBBSs]

I'm 18 and am still very inexperienced in many many many skills related to cars and all the other skills like welding; 0 experience, electrical; very little experience, etc. I just read a thread and F34R said he was doing his first engine swap at my age! How many of you guys grew up with wrenches in your hands, and a dad or mom who was always in the garage getting greasy? I'm curious because the crazy good skills and talents you guys have with e30s obviously don't just happen by the flick of a switch or something. Did cars appear in your life during your childhood, or as a teenager, or adult? Did you have to financially support yourself for tools and parts? Did you have to buy your first car? I'm really interested in your backgrounds because many of you on this forum are crazy good, and I want to know where it all came from? From the eyes of an inexperienced rookie, so much of the stuff I see on here blows my mind!!

[JasonC]

Been around cars since my birth. My dad's 65 when I was born, 36 Plymouth when I was in third grade and his 72 Nova with me and him. Think I was in fourth grade in that picture. These are all I got on my phone, but are many many more.

[Hooffenstein HD]

My father has been building old Holdens with burley V8's since well before I was born.

I bought my first paddock basher hack car when I was 10. It was an LJ Torana 4 speed manual. If I remember correctly, we scrapped it because it almost snapped in half over some jumps.
Did my first engine swap at 14. MK2 Ford Escort, 1.6 Kent to 2.0 Pinto.
Bought my AE86 at 17.
Got my first E30 at 20. E30's are what have taught me the most. 5 years on and I'm planning a locost, or GSXR powered mini buggy build for next year.

[UlrichFennec]

I grew up around a lot of cars when I was a lad. I never got to work on them much internally, but I did get to help with cosmetic add ons, putting on wheels and installing headlights.

My parents have had cars from Z28 Camaros to Ferrari Mondials. Dad was always big on Porsches and BMWs. My mom used to have an old MG B.

[Mr. Burns]

nope.

it wasn't until highschool where I developed a want/desire to be around them and tear into them.

[BobombETA]

Definitely got it from my dad.. While I was growing up he had a 1967 Mustang, 66 Impala, 60 Austin-Healey Sprite, an MGB, and various Audi's.

I had a go kart as a kid too which helped me understand basic mechanics and legos were always my favorite toy so putting things together and taking them apart were always fun for me.

[StereoInstaller1]

I am the youngest of 10 boys, no girls. "Brady Bunch" style, each had 4 boys when they met.

My Dad was a bodyman (panel beater for you Aussies) since he got home from "The War" (WWII for you youngsters), and when I was an infant, he opened a body shop in Saugus, CA.

I spent many long days being free slave labor starting roughly age 8.

By 14 I had rebuilt a VW Bug engine, had completely re-wired a '39 Chevy pickup bumper to bumper and had cut/painted/sanded for many many hours, both for pay and as punishment.

I did my first radio install at age 14, in a VW thing....that's where it all started

[Stanley Rockafella]

yup

[flyboyx]

as a wee lad, i watched my dad do an engine swap in his 77 ford f150. at 13, we bought a 67 mustang from one of the neighbors on my paper route and restored it together. in high school, i had several 65 gto's. did an off the frame resto on one, a cosmetic resto on another one to resell. in college, i bought a bunch of triumph tr7's and rebuilt one from all of them.

knew a guy with a dealer's license in michigan when i was in college. we would go to auctions together. i would buy a car under his name, fix it and resell it in the news paper. i did that about 4-6 times a year for a good length of time.

was out of the game for years. pissed around with tractors/ skid loaders and such for a few years. then my neighbor had a 91 318i cabby that she got into a fender bender with. this was circa '09. been back into fucking with and working on cars since.

[packratbimmer]

My dad was firm but kind. I got my first car from him at age 11 and worked 200 hours in his upholstery shop to get it. It was a 1965 Triumph TR4. By the time I was 16 I was paying for my own gas money and insurance, but my mom slipped me a few bucks on the sly.

[dirtbag30]

nope. Even when i lived in washington i never even looked twice at cars, and when other people talked about the cars they wanted it went in one ear and out the other.

it wasnt untill i moved back home where my love for e30s kicked in.
now i fix cars for a living and it somehow works.

[mucoyekul87ETA]

It goes back to my parents' first new car they bought, which was before I was born. It was a '79 superbeetle convertible. I grew up with that car. Although I wasn't immediately into cars, at about age 12 I became friends with a kid who's older brother was all about the air cooled VWs. From age 13-18 I was all about air cooled bugs. In 1998 my mom got t-boned in the '79 bug, and much to my delight they bought an identical '79 beetle from the original owners.
When I was 15 my dad snatched up a 1957 t-bird which we partially restored, but we never had the money to go full-on with any of our "father/son" projects. (My Pops is a Corvette guy, retired now he's got a minty '59 'vette). I enjoyed VW's and early American classics until I went off to college. At this juncture I was largely irresponsible and broke until my mid-twenties. During this time, I lived with one of my best friends who drove a beat, but mostly there, '91 318i that had an m20 swapped in after the m42 went out. I fell in love with the e30.. and I grew up. I bought BMWs and meddled with trying to be a responsible adult...
(I've always had to be financially responsible for my own (cars/tools/parts, etc, no matter what I'd be driving).

To most sincerely reply to this post, the BMW e30 and its culture has made me the car guy I am. And now for the past 6 years I have had a full blown, ongoing e30 love affair. It could be called a BMW affliction, but I love the e30 the most, and more every time I drive down the road, whether its because I'm taking my 265k m20 to the redline, or because I see newer model BMWs that just don't do it for me.

[Vincent Brick]

My Dad was a street racer in the 60s-70s, and when I was born he was an NCRS member with an original '58 fuelie Vette, a '63 roadster and a '67 SS396 Chevelle. It was all I cared about as a kid, but as a teenager we had to move to a very depressed area and no one in my age group could afford to have nice cars so it became something I had minimal interest in, and I didn't really care for having to perform my own repairs. Eventually I started doing car stereos for a living though, and in my 20s finally had enough money to buy a cheap Neon to mod and do a little racing and cars have been a bit of an albatross since.

[ravenlord89]

I have a natural talent for ripping into mechanical things and being able to understand how they function... surprisingly it took till I was 21 till I actually did anything. Engine swap on a Toyota pickup when I blew the original engine up.

Now I am an aircraft maintenance engineer apprentice. E30 half torn apart, R6 half torn apart, waiting on the Volvo to eat its turbo so I can put a bigger one on, and waiting on the Focus RS to come out so I can go buy one.

[ak-]

Nope.
The closest thing to growing up around cars were racing simulators and toys.
Bought my first car (E30) when I was 19 I think and have learned probably 90% of what I know now from reading online and applying it myself.
I'd like to say that I'm better at understanding how things work and go at a quicker pace rather than physically doing the work itself.