What got you into cars?

[NSXType-R]

Surprisingly simple question! But a very important one.

I'll start off.

My father is a Honda mechanic, and he'd always bring back cars. More often than not, he'd have customer cars that didn't work and he fix them up for his own use. We've had multitudes of Hondas for at least 20 years + now. In fact, the Subaru Forester might be the only non Honda product we've had in ages. I remember an old Honda Accord 2nd generation hatchback, a 1st generation Civic wagon, 1st gen Acura TL, a EG Civic Si, 1st gen Integra 4 door hatch and the car that did it for me- the 1983 Accord sedan. The same car that brought me back from the hospital when I was born, which was also the same car that I learned how to drive and park in.

Honda is deeply engrained in my life.

So how did cars enter your lives?

Edit-

I would also like to add that my father often does "house calls", especially if they're customers that live by our house. More often than not it was just triage to see how bad the damage is or whether it would need a tow, or to replace a bad battery. So my father would very often tell me to come along and I'd always hold the flashlight, ask questions and stuff. It's kind of like when other dads crawl under sinks, except I got to do that with sinks and cars. :D

As a kid I used to devour all the books in my elementary school library, especially in the science and engineering portion. I loved those old cutaway books that talked about tanks and helicopters. My interest really didn't pick up until middle school though.

A lot of times my dad would get model cars or clothing from the local Snap-On parts supplier or other promotional goodies from local shops like T-shirts and calendars from the Toyota dealer and he'd bring it back for me (and he still does).

And of course, my dad is a massive car person, having owned a Mazda RX-3 in the past. He used to fix earth moving equipment, so he's practically been through every common wheeled vehicle, from front end loaders, buses and tractor trailers. The only things he really hasn't fixed before that has wheels are anything that flies and trains. Oh, and cranes, because he's afraid of heights.

Actually, I take back the Subaru comment- we had a Ford Escort wagon right before that- a total piece of crap that didn't last longer than 1 year. My dad drove that too hard and it threw a rod. That was the car that broke our Honda car streak.

To add to this, my dad used to drive and I used to shift for my dad in the Integra. I never looked at the tach, I got good at listening and approximating when my dad would shift (on a side note, I loved the dashboard on that Integra, it had yellow needles). I would also sometimes be able to change gears without my dad using the clutch and not grind gears. Fun car, we once loaded 1,250 lbs worth of stone into that car. And I love those popup lights, even if they were stuck permanently in the up position. I would have learned how to drive stick shift in that car had it not rusted into oblivion way before I got my license. Air bubbles would form in the carpet because the chassis had holes in it when we were running at highway speeds.

[RacingManiac]

Cars I guess.....none of my family is really "car people", sure they like to buy nice car when they are able, but nothing really puts them as enthusiasts. I like stuff that moves, makes noise and go fast, so cars and planes are an attraction to me since youth. Cars being more attainable. Watching racing as a fan, going into engineering and then doing Formula SAE sorta just cemented that...

[Ferrer]

My grandad was an engineer and inventor and of course a massive car fan. He used to take his youngest daughter (my mother) to car races, including the tragic 1975 Motnjuic GP, the accident was seen life by me grandad and mother (fortunately with no consequences for them). Due to Franco's regime his car history isn't very interesting, but highlights include a Citroën Traction Avant.

My mother was raised in this love of speed and cars, and while again her car history isn't particularly interesting (until I took control of it, that is), unlike other girls of the time she didn't fear driving and was quite adventurous so she spent the 60's and 70's at the wheel of many friend's cars, including Alpine and Triumph sportscars.

Unfortunately her sister (my aunt) wasn't interested at all in mechanics, cars or speed. Fortunately, though, her husband (my uncle) is. So I spent my early years in the back of Ford Sierra Sports, Mazda Coupes and Audi Quattros. Usually at very high speeds in the motorway long before we knew what "speed camera" or "points license" actually meant. Actually I remember once, ages ago, we attended the Montecarlo, returning late at night at a (trip computer indicated) 160km/h average speed, right from the Alps all the way to Barcelona.

It is only fitting then than from early age I showed an interest in cars and anything that moved at a speed really. I remember that my grandad had in his library this book (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Arias-paz_1959.jpg?uselang=es) and I spent many hours reading and rereading it, even if I couldn't quite understand much of what it said. For my 18th birthday I was given the modern edition of the book, which I still keep.

And then in 1991 (I was 5 back then), incidentally the day my uncle got his brand new white Mazda MX-6, I attended the first ever Grand Prix race in Catalan soil since the tragic race my mother and grandad attended 16 years before; in the, then also brand new, Montmelo race track.

And the rest, as the say, is history. ;)

[f6fhellcat13]

Excellent thread NSX! UCP needs more like it!

I have no idea where it began. As soon as I could talk, I was talking about cars.
Though I don't remember much of my childhood because I am an elderly man of twenty-one yearw, there are a few things I remember/think I remember or have been told by my family.

My dad is a typical American (European) sportscar fan. He can't understand why postmodern (internet-generation) American car fans like me love cars like the '90s GM B-Bodies and other classic American whales. His philosophy was always lighter and smaller, which is usually hilarious given his 6'1" frame (1.86m,1.147x10^35 Planck length) is a tight squeeze at best in most of the cars he loves. Suffice it to say, his love of compact and light vehicles has rubbed off on me and to this day I can be found on internet forums kvetching like an old man about how modern cars are too heavy/powerful/well-equipped except for those few gloriously-overweight cars whose luxuriousness/Americaness/toughness warrant their bulk in my eyes.

Symptomatic of my dad's tragic affliction was his sometimes-running '69 or '70 Fiat 124 Spider. This car once made the glorious drive from Los Angeles to Walla Walla to take my dad's little sister to college and almost made it all the way back! However, by the time I came along the car looked to be entering its autumnal years, running for fewer and fewer days with each passing month of baby-induced neglect. On the rare occasions that it ran, when my parents wanted to put me to sleep, my dad would throw me in the Fiat and go for a spin. I would get so excited that I would eventually wear myself out and I think the engine's white noise help put me to sleep, too. Sadly along came another kid when I was three and my mom issued my dad an ultimatum: the Fiat (which hadn't run in a year) had to go. Fortunately, a coworker of my dad's showed interest in the car and for the exorbitant sum of $1.00 (worth a lot more in 1994 :p) his coworker purchased the car and picked it up on Friday after work. He left the following Monday for either Washington State or Washington, D.C. the car not missing a beat (to the extent the term applies to late-'60s Italian cars) along the way, so at least the car went to a good home.

My dad has also had a selection of compacts ranging from the Ford Festiva (this 40mpg car carried my dad through the cheapest period of American gas in history) in which climbing hills and the A/C were mutually-exclusive to the three-and-a-half-cylindered Ford Escort that I learned stickshift in a parking lot, and eventually to drive on the streets in, too. Sadly, all of these slightly-silly cars have fallen by the wayside in favor of the godawful '09 Civic. I am hoping that in four years from now, with the kids out of college and the house, with a little more expendable time and money he can rekindle his love for these types of cars. I have been doing my bit to help by emailing him any worthwhile MGs, Triumphs, Fiats, Alfas, and Austin Healeys that I spot on craigslist.

Back in daycare as a toddler (both of my parents worked), while the other kids played, I would look through the fence and name the cars as they went by to anyone whom cared to listen. This probably annoyed the hell out of most people, but I was young and cute so they put up with it.
I later used this skill to avoid getting my vision corrected; even though everything was fuzzy, the shapes of cars were so engrained into my brain that I could identify and differentiate the blobs from a good distance and would.

Once I learned to read, I began to get more and more into planes (modern supersonic jets and Pacific-Theater WWII planes)and have all the "Janes'" books to prove it. However, when I was 5 or 6, I realized (or was told) that I probably would never have the opportunity to own/fly a Grumman cat or an SR-71. It was around this time that my vehicular interest began straying from planes and back towards the automotive side of the spectrum

Around this time, my uncle (the only other real car fan in our local family) and I began our yearly trips to the LAIAS. During one of these trips I was apparently smitten by a Bronco II in the parking garage for no appreciable reason and it was my favorite car for the five minutes before I entered the show and saw something much more deserving of my favor. Whenever I'm back from school we continue to bond over cars; driving to car shows in his (now-sold) Mini, S2000, or one of his BMWs on rotation.

My grandfather, though living 300 miles away, was a speedfreak back in his time but appeared to have mellowed by the time he was finished having kids and drove around in a burgundy Chevy Caprice known quasi-affectionately as "The Whale" whose space and comfort suited my grandma's declining health well and she also appreciated the practicality of it. When she passed, with no one to impose such frivolous things as practicality on him my grandpa soon went out and purchased a 2002 Pontiac Firebird with a 350 and a six speed. As his health declined my dad and his siblings told my grandpa that he should get something a little slower, prefereably with an automatic, so that he wouldn't have multiple things vying for his attention. Taking this advice to heart, he went out an bought an '06 GTO with an extra 70 ponies over the Firebird and one pedal fewer.

So, though I can't pinpoint where exactly my love of cars came from, I would assume it's from these guys.

[pimento]

I usually get in via the doors.

BOOM BOOM

Anyway, I find the engineering interesting and driving is fun. Also racing games from a young age.

[NSXType-R]

Wow, there are some excellent stories in this thread.

The more I think about it the more stories I come up with about my family and all the cars we have been through.

Keep 'em coming! Glad you guys like this topic!

Pimento- I think the correct term is *ba dum tish*. :D

I remember I had wanted to be an astronaut at one time, but then I stopped after realizing how physically vigorous it would be and when I was young I was in bad physical shape. I still am to some extent.

But kids now can't even dream to be an astronaut when there's no space program!

[henk4]

My Grandfather already drove a car in 1902 (I think he was about No.700 with a drivers license in Holland). I lived very close to him and could spend hours glancing through the books he had, including bound volumes of "La France Automobile" from the beginning of the 20th century. I was very much able to identify individual brands from the Edwardian period (now not any more so :o). He was one of the first members of the Dutch Pioneer Automobile Club (PAC) and later became their first Honorary Member. Their annual gathering once took place on his premises (1957-8 or thereabout) and I still have pictures of many old cars driving up our lawn. At the time My grandfather drove a Horch 853.

I started buying German and French car magazines (Auto Motor und sport and L'Automobile) as soon as I was able to read them and when my father finally bought his first car (when I was 17) his choice was very much influenced by me (between a Honda S800 and a Fiat 850 Coupe he choose the latter) We lived about 125 km away from the Zandvoort Track, so I went there only three times, to watch a touring car race (With sir John Whitmore, Hubert Hahne and Jacky Ickx) the 1968 Grand Prix and a Formula 2 race, which ended tragically as Roger Williamson got killed.

In the seventies, while studying my interest waned considerably, but by the mid-eighties, when your host grew up I took him to a historic race in Zandvoort (1987) and as Ferrer said, the rest is history, and he is the reason that we can now write our stories down for everybody to read.

And Ferrer I've got a copy of "El libro del Automovil" from 1973, which seems to be readers digest publication.

[pimento]

Pimento- I think the correct term is *ba dum tish*. :D

Not if you ever saw Basil Brush as a kid.

[Ferrer]

Excellent thread indeed. :)

The more I think about it the more stories I come up with about my family and all the cars we have been through.
So do I. My uncle and my aunt have had no children, and I've had no brother and pretty much no father (long story), so they've been pretty much like my parents and I still visit them pretty much every weekend.

He has a lot of car-related stories, including running highly tuned Nissans as course cars in Catalan and Spanish rallys in the late 80's and early 90's (a friend of him was in the RACC and involved in the organisation of Spanish National Championship rallyes), putting bags full of gravel in the boot of his Dauphine Gordini to try to balance the weight distribution and making replacing shock absorbers a routine or pushing his best friend's brand new, bright red Alfetta GTV up to a fuel station because they ran out of petrol.

I'll try to scan pics, If can find them and post them this weekend.

And Ferrer I've got a copy of "El libro del Automovil" from 1973, which seems to be readers digest publication.
Never seen it before. But in any case, I also used to devour car magazines. I've got many early 90's copies of Automovil and Autopista, and once I could read in other languages Sport Auto, Car and more recently Evo.

There was also a tradititon, which was bringing me a local car magazine when anyone from the family went on travel.

[blingbling]

i saw one

[NSXType-R]

Excellent thread indeed. :)

So do I. My uncle and my aunt have had no children, and I've had no brother and pretty much no father (long story), so they've been pretty much like my parents and I still visit them pretty much every weekend.

He has a lot of car-related stories, including running highly tuned Nissans as course cars in Catalan and Spanish rallys in the late 80's and early 90's (a friend of him was in the RACC and involved in the organisation of Spanish National Championship rallyes), putting bags full of gravel in the boot of his Dauphine Gordini to try to balance the weight distribution and making replacing shock absorbers a routine or pushing his best friend's brand new, bright red Alfetta GTV up to a fuel station because they ran out of petrol.

I'll try to scan pics, If can find them and post them this weekend.

Never seen it before. But in any case, I also used to devour car magazines. I've got many early 90's copies of Automovil and Autopista, and once I could read in other languages Sport Auto, Car and more recently Evo.

There was also a tradititon, which was bringing me a local car magazine when anyone from the family went on travel.

Very cool. Apparently when my dad was very young he helped prep a Nissan GT-R for racing in Macao. He didn't do any crazy tuning, but he was still learning how to fix cars so he helped strip out the interior for them. The owner and driver was the son of the company he was working for at the time.

Right around middle school was when I started reading a lot of Motortrend, then Car and Driver and Road and Track.

And then I realized Motortrend is very American car biased, and I stopped reading them after a while.

[Revo]

My journey is somewhat different than ones above.

My family has no car history to speak of. Lada, Opel, Ford and likes. Sensible cars.

In my teens I had no interest in cars or motorsports. Actually back then, I developed a sort of hatred towards BMWs. That was a period when every idiot in town had an E30 or E28.

I did not apply for my drivers licence till I was in my early twenties.

After getting my licence, still no enthusiasm. Driving was a mundane day-to-day necessity for me, nothing to get too excited about.

However, about 10-12 years ago, I began following sites like autozine.org and ultimatecarpage.com. Also, I was exposed to old Top Gear which was...well.... different is the word, I suppose. So the seeds were planted, I was mildly interested now.

Everything fell in place when I got my first car. I loved the smells, the sounds, the look, everything. Futhermore, thanks to my newly acquired knowledge, I was able to appreciate its pedigree. I felt I had a piece of automotive history in my hands. I liked that feeling.

And the rest, as the say, is history. ;)

Last month I even cleaned my engine bay thanks to fellow nutter Man of Steel who challenged me to do so. I guess I am officially an enthusiast now...:D

[Cobrafan427]

The one trend that i've noticed was that nearly everyone's grandfathers got them started and so did mine. He has a '66 Chevelle that he's had ever since i've been alive and he used to take me to car shows when i was a little kid. I've always been an inquisitive person so i'd always ask what kind every car was and eventually i started memorizing them. He also has a very large library of automotive books with just about anything you can imagine, for example, he has a book strictly dedicated to Invicta, so i also had plenty of different cars and pictures to look at.

The one event that really made me serious about knowing as much as i can about cars though is the Vintage Grand Prix in Watkins Glen. He took me there for my bday when i turned either 11 or 12. I'm one of those people that has to categorize everything so being around such a wide variety of cars and not knowing which ones were faster and why some looked like race cars while others looked like road cars with roll bars bothered me. Also, i wanted to know if what i was seeing was a special once and a lifetime opportunity (the first time i went, there were 3 Cobra Daytona Coupes and one of them actually led a lap before being passed by the winning GT40). One of the two brightest memories i have of being there was the most beautiful noise in the world, 30-40 big block V8s thundering down the front straight in the Trans-Am race and the other being the time i warmed up the AMC Javelin Trans-Am

[drakkie]

Our family is really into cars; I cannot really define anyone that really got me hooked. Every single time we meet the men ask "How's your car?" before anything else. My uncle has quite a collection of cars (and toys like a 15 meter long Scalectrix track) which even increased my love for vehicles. Combined with a liking for engineering I decided to make my dream come true. Now I work for DAF as a Production Engineer. My job is to make sure the assembly process is running well, making sure tools and equipment is in order, the men instructed and the assembly as lean as possible. One day I will definately go into testing, but that's still future!

[Rizaven]

Matchbox cars, anybody else remember them? My brothers and I had about 70 of them more than the rest of the neighborhood kids put together. We even built towns for those cars. My all time favorite was a Lamborghini Miura, I still want one today. One of our all time favorite was a truck, I recently found out it was White 3000. Now I want one.

[henk4]

i saw one

Good to see you back.

[Brix]

Well, as most in here i guess i was born with it :).
My Granddad, dad and older brother was/is all hugely into cars, which naturally passed on to me :).
There really isn't any one in the family who has a career or worked in the Automobile industry in any way, other than me.
I however is getting pretty deep in it, as i have worked in a Autoshop when i was young, and now wants to take a "Car economic" education so i can work at a car dealer and hopefully an car import (the biggest in Denmark as we have no real marques). Other than that, i'm a massive Motorsport fan especially Le Mans, and is a Marshal at Ring Djursland. So contrary to my family who started it, i'm getting involved big time in cars :)

[TVR IS KING]

Cars I guess.....none of my family is really "car people"
This is me. No one I know has been into cars for my whole life. My mother and two aunts have no interest, either do my father or uncles. I have a twin brother who doesn't care much either. Even my grandparents have nothing to do with cars, I'm the only one in the family.
But they aren't against cars either. They appreciate a nice car, and they don't regard spending money on a car or sports car to be silly like some people do.

Talk about nature vs nurture...I was literally never pushed for or against cars, I just like them and always have :P

[bobble]

Watching Stirling Moss race at Castle Combe in the UK when I was 5, hooked ever since!

[henk4]

Watching Stirling Moss race at Castle Combe in the UK when I was 5, hooked ever since!

welcome, one of the better reasons I have seen so far.:)

[Man of Steel]

Last month I even cleaned my engine bay thanks to fellow nutter Man of Steel who challenged me to do so.

Epic win :)

[NSXType-R]

This is me. No one I know has been into cars for my whole life. My mother and two aunts have no interest, either do my father or uncles. I have a twin brother who doesn't care much either. Even my grandparents have nothing to do with cars, I'm the only one in the family.
But they aren't against cars either. They appreciate a nice car, and they don't regard spending money on a car or sports car to be silly like some people do.

Talk about nature vs nurture...I was literally never pushed for or against cars, I just like them and always have :P

I remember as a kid my dad put me on his lap while he was driving on some local roads. Maybe that was bad parenting, but hey, I had fun.

It's interesting to note, my dad wants me to have nothing to do with cars as a career. It's fine as an interest, but he would not want me to be a mechanic. It's hard work, and he wants a better world for me. It's fine, I'll be a human mechanic instead. :D

[kingofthering]

I didn't choose the automotive life, the automotive life chose me. :D

But no, i was sort of born into loving the automobile. From as early as I can remember, I've always been involved with them some way or another - whether drawing them or playing with the toys.

It's a family thing: my grand-dad was into cars. He owned some sort of English Ford in Hong Kong and later some hopped-up Buick wagon that my dad claims my grandmother made him return to the dealer after he bought it. That love got passed onto my dad who came of age in the era of the American muscle car in America. As you can imagine that meant he had: a '70 GTO, a few Camaros, a Coronet SuperBee, a much-hated '76 Trans-Am and many other great great cars that Barrett-Jackson has priced out of reach of anybody. Of course, people grow up and the cars came and went until the only thing he now drives is a pristine, garage-kept '85 Toyota 4WD pickup so original that all the pieces you can't NOS anymore are still legible and like new.

But despite losing all the fun cars my father could still drive them. And my cousin just so happened to have purchased a Grand National when I was four. Pregnant wife with child be damned, my dad took us around the block in that thing. Seventeen years later don't remember much of that, except that it was the most sinister car I have ever seen and encountered and that my mother hated that car.

Fortunately the genes got passed down onto me. As early as four or five I used my newly-acquired reading skills to read Car and Driver. I didn't really understand the adult jokes at the time (I figured them out fifteen years later perusing the archive in my school's engineering library) but, hey, I knew what a Viper GT-S was! Thanks to a local PBS affiliate, I also watched the hell out of Motorweek. Despite it being as boring as watching paint dry six year-old me loved watching that, even if it was something like a Lexus ES300 or Buick LeSabre.

I would be remiss in not thanking Gran Turismo, though. Without it I don't think I'd have been able to get a concrete idea of WHAT the Nürburgring or 500hp/2000lbs was. Despite it not being as realistic as I'd have liked, I don't think I'd have expanded my automotive world-view as much.

By the time I hit the awkward fat years something came around called the "Fast and the Furious" and at the same time I discovered something called the internet. You know where this is going right? After being a total dumbass on the internet and getting called out for it, I did a full 180. I no longer obsessived-fanboy'd over the NOS'd turbo wing'd goddess, instead to see what the hell was up with the rest of the world. And I'd like to say it's been good to me as the 1000hp Supra in my fantasy garage is sharing space with a Lotus Cortina.

And now I'm expanding my interests in the mechanical way: by studying mechanical engineering and participating in my school's Baja SAE team (hopefully I'll be able to contribute more this year!)

[Fleet 500]

What got me into cars?

Three reasons...

1. My parent's '60s Cadillacs which I admired before I was driving.
2. My brother's '66 Plymouth Fury III of which I was a frequent passenger.
3. Numerous '60s and '70s car magazines.

[Man of Steel]

Back on topic. How did I get into cars? To start with, as indicated earlier, excellent question.

My father is an truck driver (international) and has a deep passion for cars, mostly American car's from the 50's, 60's and 70's but also all other (classic) cars in general. Due to his interest in the technical aspects of the automobile he was close becoming a mechanic, but ended up driving trucks starting from his 18th. He passed his truck driving exams on an old Opel Blitz (small truck). Nowadays completely different, but those were the days back then. He is now 61 and still driving, daily Germany but more to destinations in The Netherlands as well. I joined him to various destinations as a kid, from which I have good memories. He has never been involved in any accident or damage during his truck carrier, so I can say he is definitely a good truck driver. His dream is to retire in a few years and buy an American classis car, with V8 of course as a hobby car (he is only home in the weekends now).

My mother lived in Canada in the 60's, so she is also into the big old American cars from that era. Just like my father. she likes to visits car shows and museums displaying the old Detroit iron. But she also likes other cars, mostly classic. She is not that much into modern cars.

Just like (almost) every boy I had a wide collection of toy cars to play with. I also played a demolition game with them, smashing old toy cars with a hammer in the back garden to pieces, which I enjoyed greatly. Maybe I needed therapy back then but for me it worked, plus I never hit anyone. The pieces of toy cars could still be found in the neighbour's garden five years later after we moved from that place. But the smashing of cars ended and I grew older, collection them now in 1/43 scale (Bburago). I still have 50 of those cars.

My interest and knowledge in cars kept growing. I joined my father and mother visiting car shows and museums. I started reading car magazines and collecting larger model cars in 1/18 scale. First Ferrari's, alter on American muscle cars. Needless to say my passion/preference became oriented to classic American cars and later on the Italian makes. Yes, Alfa Romeo also became part of that.

On my 20th I aquired my first car, a '91 Toyota Starlet. Many years later I joined an automotive forum (one of many) where I could chat with fellow car idiots.
Since February I have my first pride and joy to drive, my first Alfa (147). The rest is future...

[Ferrer]

Just like (almost) every boy I had a wide collection of toy cars to play with. I also played a demolition game with them, smashing old toy cars with a hammer in the back garden to pieces, which I enjoyed greatly. Maybe I needed therapy back then but for me it worked, plus I never hit anyone. The pieces of toy cars could still be found in the neighbour's garden five years later after we moved from that place. But the smashing of cars ended and I grew older, collection them now in 1/43 scale (Bburago). I still have 50 of those cars.
I also did that, along with my friends. We used to destroy toy cars. For fun. :p

However, at school, we also raced them. There were two types of races. One was what we could call "endurance racing", which was raced by turns along a very long, bumpy and twisty slope where you threw you tiny little model cars. If it ended on its wheels, you'd throw it again from where it stopped after everyone elses had thrown their car but if it ended up side down or the wheels didn't touch the ground you had start again from where you last started. First to get to the bottom (on its wheels) won.

And then there was pure speed racing. This was done down a very smooth and relatively short slope. This had very clear rules, everyone would let thier cars go at the same time from the top and the first to get to the bottom won. I remember clearly that Majorette's Cosworth Merc 190s were among the best, and I along with my friends used to assemble teams of Benzes to dominate the opposition. I had three in the different colours.

Ah, the memories... ;)

[jcp123]

I learned to read in phone books, and car emblems with the letters beneath were a good starting point.

Kinda was not into cars at again all until my adolescent years. When my drivers license was within visual range, I got back into it, researching cars and what I wanted to have. Gran Turismo 4 didn't help :P In the end it was a good thing because it taught me to be a discriminating buyer, though...all the money I save on other stuff and the value I get from purchases are more than offset by the money I spend on cars :D