for me, the biggest influence on me to move towards cars has to have been my dad, and uncles. Since i can remember, i would always be asked to help when it came to working on cars, and slowly, it grew on me. Also, my parents have pictures of me , when i was about 8-10 months old, trying to work the steering wheel of the first car my dad had (a pontiac grand prix from 1979, im born in 1987). so, as you can see, i've loved cars with a passion from a very, very young age .
and what catches me the most, i think is the like besides the whole mechanical partwould have to be the pure excitement of how far you can push yourself to make your car represent who you are.