From the Question of the Week #4 below:
I put everything together grouping "moments" of one's life, from being born into adult life, and everything in between.
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We all have our own car enthusiast origin story, and here are some of yours. I hope you enjoy them!
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What life situations defined who you are today?
There are a ton of very small, seemingly unimportant situations in daily life.
I want you to focus on moments that are recorded in your memory. Those you can remember more or less vividly. The ones that if missing, you would be a different person today.
These were among my first thoughts this year.
When narrowed down to cars, I can imagine most of us have "that special car memory" that helped shape us.
Today I will share a bit of my experience, and also some of yours.
It's fascinating to see in your stories how every stage in life is some sort of fertile ground for automotive passion to grow.
Kids and "super" things
Usually kids are drawn into "super" things.
Super colourful stuff. Super exciting games. Super hero stories. And of course, if they like cars, super cars.
I was no different. I remember being a kid and getting my attention caught by one specific red car: The Ferrari F50.
At that time I was 5 or 6.
The F50 is turning 30
This single fact is what kickstarted this article: Ferrari's halo super car was launched 30 years ago, in 1995.
I remember seeing it in the newspaper. In the car related section that came out every Thursday. Until one day I went to some auto show in my home town of Buenos Aires and saw it in the flesh for the first time. It blew my mind.
It didn't really end up becoming my favourite car. Or my favourite Ferrari even. But I had a 1/18 scale model one that I kept opening, closing, playing with. The engine bay, the suspension, everything was fascinating to me.
It will forever be an important car in my life.
Some cars in your life mark you forever
Not everyone likes or is even interested in super cars, though.
But every car enthusiast can look back and find important cars in their life.
These are usually ones you make memories with, not ones that you will never get into, let alone own one, in your life.
Your parents car. Your grandparents, even. Or maybe an uncle, family friend or neighbour.
Those cars you have a fantastic memory of.
My dad's Fiat Duna Weekend
Sadly I don't have pictures, but it was the first car I remember being in. It was not the first car I really was in, because my dad owned a saloon Fiat Duna when I was born in 1989. He bought the Weekend in 1994 and it's the restyled estate version of the same car.
I remember going everywhere with this car. We went to my grandma's every weekend, and had oh so many kilometers done in it during holiday period. But the thing I remember the most is how I sat inside of it.
The "weird way" I sat in it
I will not take questions about seat belts at this time.
I used to sit in the back seat, all the way forward, to be closer to my dad who was driving, and my mom who was riding shotgun. But this is not special.
What was very special and specific from that moment in time, is that my arm was the exact length between the two front seats, so I liked to "lock" myself with my right arm parallel to the ground between them.
And my left arm was more often than not, going over the right side of the driver's seat, and down, to be pressed in between the seat and my dad's back.
I have no idea how this was comfortable for him or myself, but it was 100% a special connection between us.
If there's something we both remember from my childhood, this is it.
My dad's Renault Megane (mk1 restyled)
This might be the most important car in my life.
It's the car that replaced the Fiat Duna Weekend in 1999 and the one I was making memories with, in the largest part of my school years (elementary and secondary), including one of the most important things in my car enthusiast life: learning to drive.
If you have nice memories of when you learned to drive, reply to this email sharing your story. I would love to read about it.
This Renault Megane diesel was basic, but trustworthy. Great fuel economy and quick enough for a family car. It had great visibility and one of the hardest clutch pedals I ever used. This is not really ideal for learning, but made other clutch pedals easier to use.
I have amazing memories with this car and will forever cherish it. I'm sad it was sold for my dad to get his next car, but it made perfect sense.
Small pause before the Question of the Week sharing your experiences.
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QOTW#4 What is your special car?
This week's question was inspired by this answer from Michael.
I wanted to know what your special car was, and he shared specifically what car was special for him: the Porsche 911 Turbo.
Not because it was super, or because he was not interested in cars before, but for what it made him feel each time he saw one.
A lot of us can relate to this, one way or another.
This has been the Question of the Week that most answers has received since I started.
I can't share all of them, but I recognised a couple of "categories of experiences" among you all, so I grouped them and picked some of them as examples.
I put everything together grouping "moments" of one's life, from being born into adult life, and everything in between.
We all have our own car enthusiast origin story, and here are some of yours. I hope you enjoy them!
The first place you were in after being born
This is huge.
You are born (usually) in a hospital, and the next "place" you are in, is the vehicle that brings you home.
If that is your parents car (something very common), and it stays in your family long enough for you to see it and experience it as an older human being, you can become attached to it and its stories.
โJonathan ended up becoming a Triumphista after the car that brought him home from the hospital. His dad got one two days before he got him!
And if you are lucky enough that your parents took good care of their car for a very long time, you end up enjoying and cherishing it yourself. Here's the irreplaceable E36 owned by Andreas.
I'm a huge fan of his specific story.
It's remarkable that the car that brought you home after youโฆ you knowโฆ spawned into life itself (no biggie) is not only still in your family, but being used, loved and cherished by you and the sheer love you have for it.
I can imagine for him this is not "just a car" or "just an 'old' BMW".
It's a drivable representation of himself.
Something that was alongside him for his entire life. It grew with him. It has been a foundational piece of what he is today and even with the possible annoyances of a 30+ year old car, I imagine he wouldn't change it for anything else.
What a great story.
Family bonding, memories and childhood cars
Many of you turned car enthusiasts because of a car someone in your life owned. And it only makes sense. We got to know Jim thanks to his mum's car.
When you're young, your circle of trust and people you know, tends to be small.
People you gravitate around share their passions and interests, and in a way, shape yours if they are contagious as car people tend to be. Matteo's dad here, for example.
It's no surprise that for many of you, this was a huge reason why you are into cars.
Specific memories of bonding with grandparents, what being in the car felt like, or even things like "sliding off the back seat into the footwell when my father braked sharply" like Estelle here, will be with you your entire life.
"Cars Are Fun Times" as Jenny said.
Some of you bonded with your sons, daughters, parents, and even got inspired to become engineers or mechanics for these reasons. Beautiful.
And there are many more stories of you and your family getting cars into your life like Stephen's, Mark's or William's. I can't share all of them, but I wish I could.
Special shoutout to Steve's grandparents who daily drove a 1956 Porsche 356A all over Europe and looked so cool while at it.
Impactful memories and imagination
โBrendan ticked THE box.
As many, he had a Ferrari F40 poster on his wall for years. But at the time I can assure you he never imagined what would happen to him later in life.
One day a friend opens his garage and tells him "Now, I'm going to let you drive it, but there are a few things you should know."
And there it was. A Ferrari F40 for him to try out. That's stuff out of movies, not real life.
Amazing.
A kid's imagination is nothing short of amazing. We have Andreas again sharing how the ice chase in Die Another Day blew his mind, and of course, one of the dream cars of many of us: the "feels like cheating" R35 Nissan GT-R.
For Vincent it was nothing exotic though. Very reasonable but special French trio that he kept seeing as a kid and loved them.
Shoutout to the mighty Renault 5 that appears a lot in this list!
Inspired by video games
I grew up in the 90s.
This means that during my kid years, I played some racing games in the Sega Genesis, like Virtua Racing or Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II.
Then the Playstation and Playstation 2 were part of my teenage years, with stuff like Gran Turismo, Need for Speed, the TOCA series (later Race Driver), Burnout and more.
Video games were always a huge part of how I lived the car culture before the internet, and also after.
People like Kacey and Unusual_Infuriation, among others, have been inspired by games when picking up some iconic cars to represent their love for cars.
Race cars, rally cars and homologation specials
These kind of cars leave a mark.
The first time you hear a race car roaring, see a rally car flying or get your eyes on an homologation special that makes you think you could drive "that rally car" on the street are one of a kind moments.
Those experiences are not easily forgotten and can no doubt shape a kid.
Our friends MMOC, Dani Verglas and Maaronweber sent some examples of these experiences.
Adult car enthusiasts
I was wrong and want to apologise.
I assumed that every car enthusiast started as a kid.
As both Andrea and Caleb share here, you can also become a car enthusiast as an adult and I'm all in for it.
Special shoutout to Andrea's car names.
Life defining experiences
There are some times where things that happened early in life defined who you become or what you liked later.
For Josh it was riding a Pantera. Not a literal one, but a De Tomaso. First exotic and quick ride he will probably never forget.
โBlake spent his entire automotive life trying to recreate the feeling of driving an MK1 Golf GTI when he was 15.
I will share why I think Why pursuing memory do-overs is futile in a future article, but I do appreciate the effort and think nothing inherently bad can come from trying, as long as you can handle disappointment.
โMarcus lived near a Ford dealership.
Sometimes you only see regular cars coming and going, and nothing special is formed. But this was not his case.
The fact he had MK2 Ford Escort RS2000's delivered often nearby, as well as watching these being awesome on TV made him interested in cars, and thanks to that, we have his amazing art today.
As mentioned, there were even more stories in the original Bluesky replies and quotes. If you crave for more, don't hesitate to look for them there.
I really enjoyed going over all of your stories here, and I hope you did too.
That's it for today. If you enjoyed it, let me know! See you on the next one.
All the best,
Juanma from Creating Lightly
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