what car hooked you into modified cars?

yeh, what was it?

The car, colour, wheels,

I had a few that realed me in , one was the winter mint impala 63 of troy trepenia and a nova with injection on top of the blower, I also liked the b&m pink camaro, that's the USA cars , but I'm a Aussie and the car that really got me was Rock3 built by Howard Astill, just awsome colour , grafix, detail was spot on , oh , I forgot Cheeze Whiz 55 orange chev , that's another USA car & that blue 76 camaro with full metal interior and shaved bumpers,

What cars got you in? & Does anybody really like rusty rat rods in matt black,blue,purple  

60's Stepside Chevy pickup with a 454 and 400 and a 55 ford with 251 louvers in the hood I helped my mentor build when I was 6 and can't for get the 60's Fuel Altered that I would sit in and pretend to race. It wasn't really any one car that sucked me in, It was the wrenching and the rush of WOT that got me hooked. Oh and can't forget the posters of topless girls in the garage.  
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It may not be the fastest or prettiest, but i can pretend

thats a hard question.
i always liked ford gt40"s.
then there's kitt. (from the origanal knight rider)
1970 mach 1 mustangs, with the twin ram air , and the spoiler.
my uncle had a 1978 trans am, hugger orange with black. 6.6 w/ 4speed.
he used to pop wheelies with it.  
i had a freind in h.s. that had a blue 84 trans am.he put a mildly hopped up 350 in it. and i remember the first ride i got in it. it pushed me in the seat going up hill, at over 60mph. when he floored it, until he let off. i think that was it. i wanted to build a better one than he had.
and prove that a car like kitt could be real...  

My father sold Chevys and I learned to drive on all the classic muscle cars. His fav car was always the Impala but he would often drive home Camaros, Chevelles and Novas. My fav was always the El Camino and he never drove one home a single time. It was 1990 before I finally got my dream car 1972 ElCo. I also got a '68 383 stroker El Camino but the '72 was my fav by far. Its been gone for 10 years though. But I also drove Cutlasses, Wildcats, 98's (a boat that I loved), etc. A couple years agi I gave my corvette to my son and bought a beautiful Buick Reatta. Now Im driving...ahemm...an MB but hey its still an awesome performer!  

There's a backlash in Aussie about beautiful girls being photographed stradling a old muscle car or street machine, our car mag editors believe married 30+ men with family don't want to buy a magazine like that.

It's only the hot 4s & import turbos magazine that have sexy girls in hot pants leaning over the cars ,with sexy smirk on there face. The young generation here buys those mags ,because they have a more soficeticated coolness, that speaks more to there level. The posters also look better because a hot girl looks better than any car to a 15-18 yo.

There's also alot of flack being shot a trailer sailor show cars that never get driven or raced. My personal feeling is a drag car is for racing , street car for driving, show car for showing, I guess we want to do all three as best we can. I've never seen a car that can do all three and still drive everyday eg: win shows, run 8s, pick up kids & milk & bread daily.

For me it's always been an artistic journey, and the rough idle or polished blower held more that value to me than 8sec 1/4s. Same for most aspects of the owner/builders decisions in areas they chose to modify.

I know it's diffrent for other people, some dream about racing , for me , it's the 8ft tall trophy  in my games room that I dream about. The artist inside me wishes for recognition.  

My first car was a 1972 Plymouth Satellite two door hard top. This car got me started and I haven't been the same since. 318 v8 auto, bucket seats, and slap stick. wish I had her back.  

for me, my dad had a black 55 chevy (with a 396 bbc)he raced back in the late 70s early 80s.  

i got really hooked on the 68-72 chevelles when i was 9, now i have 2 69 chevelle SS projects =]  

when I was a kid, when I was a kid...


It was the same for me!!!!

But what we really need is to have guys comming in in there late 20s,30s,40s,and yes, even 50s!

Imagine, a 50 year old who sudenly relizes that playing with a cool/tuff car might be a good way to pass the time in retirement ! (and pick up woman!!). Most play with toy trains, wood carving,gardening.. I'd rather be playing with a tuff mustang or cuda, impala,gto,camaro or v8 mavrick.

It just goes to show ,to have a future we have to start them young!  That means :sexy girls caresing the cars! And strategic marketing to young kids with bonus cd's, discounts on kids stuff, free givaways to enchorage young boys to take a intrest.

Who knows, if we get them to spend money on cars, they might not get into drugs, street gangs, crime..... They might learn a trade, or do a it degree so they can buy that car theve always wanted.. They might enjoy there life!!!!!! Cars are a great hobby, you learn science, engineering, mechanics, ....  

smokey and the bandit go tme hooked on trans ams then when i saw the 82 trans am on bandit pt 3 i was hooked, ive been in to em'm ever since.  
ttp://memimage.cardomain.com/member_images/6/web/378000-378999/378176_25_full.jpg

A rusty blue '75 Monza with a the tiny (well displacement anyway) 4.3l V8. I got it with a bad clutch, no exhaust, leaky valve covers and a bad radiator. I was 16. I bought it for $800. I made so many mistakes on this car. LOL!

I changed the clutch out but because I'd never done it before and I made a bunch of mistakes. I didn't know what that wooden dowel was for it the kit. LOL! SO getting the trans back on was a nightmare. Did I read anything? NO. LOL. I didn't know anything about surfacing the flywheel. Didn't get that done. SO when I finally got the 110 lbs. Saginaw 4 back on and took it out the clutch slipped. SO I had to take it apart again. Started reading. Brought the flywheel to get surfaced, used the clutch disc tool this time and put it back together again. BIG DIFFERENCE!

I figured it was about time I did a burn out about an hour later. Lucky for me this car had the optioned 3.23 posi! I discovered. I went to get my buddy and we found a good spot in the industrial park and cut'er loose. It was AWESOME! A nice WWWAAAAAHHHH with a polyglass like eeeeEEEEEEEEE. It seemed like it was going to burn out forever! It was really great. I finally had to stop the burn out at the end of the short road only to hear something wrong. I pop the door open and duck my head to peep under the car. Coolent EVERYWHERE! I open the hood to find the fan had carved a cartoon like hole right out of the center of the radiator. OH CRAP!

SO I fix the fan, fix the rad. Take it out for another burn out… same thing happens. LOL! I decided not to burn out again. SO a couple weeks go by. I figure I'm going to do a tune up. I find it is literally impossible to get the spark plugs out without loosening the driverside motormounts. I get under the car to do that and find it is already loose. LOL! That was why the fan was coring the rad the whole time. WHAT A DUMMY!

It was a really fun car. It got me hooked into the H-body too. I still have one. Now it's an early Vega GT, and I can actually afford to spend some extra money on it. I've built a Buick/Rover aluminum V8 for it using parts from Ford and Chevy too so I guess it's more like a Buick/Rover/Ford/Chevy V8. FUN!

Great thread. THanks.  
-Nic '73 Vega GT, Aluminum Wildcat 5.0

Know what did it for me? The Max Carter-owned, Mike Moran-driven red '66 Chevy II. Back when the Fastest Street Car thang was just getting going, that car knocked me out. I loved it so much I went and got me one. It had totally rusted out quarters, floors and didn't run. The radiator was in the back seat. I bought it anyway. Brought it home and Bondo'ed it up, painted it red, and drove the snot out of it. Still have it. But finally the rust monster ate it.  
"I've cut it off twice and the damn thing's STILL too short."

I was already hooked on hot cars by the time I took a ride in the most hairy street car ive ever soiled the passenger seat in, so it was just a reinforcement of my speed adiction. "IT" was one of my friends- mechanic boss driving his triumph TR-7 powered by a built sbc 350 & muncie 4-speed! can you say power to weight ratio?!!! I was hanging around the shop one sat.afternoon somewhere around 1984 waiting for my buddy to get off work and checking out this beast when Mark said he just finished installing new struts and did I want to ride shotgun for a test drive. HELL YA!!! the lack of traction made that car feel like it was on ice until he finaly got up some speed but once rolling, full throttle made it feel like being shot from a slingshot! truly one of the scaryiest cars ive ever been in. (I'd do it again in a heartbeat today)  

When we get older and fatter it is much more difficult to lean over into an engine compartment, lay on the floor or creaper, and worse yet- get back up from the floor. (hmmm how badly do I need that 9/16ths deep well in the tool box all the way across the garage?) So I can understand why older guys who arn't already into cars buy instead of build  

there's nothing wrong with buying and tinkering, alot of old boys muck around with lawn mowers, I know!, I brought a mower out of the paper that a old guy had restored, only a small problem was , he didn't tighten the blades!!!

So as I'm happily cuting away, sudenly the blades fly out from undernieth it and lodge themselves into a nearby wooden retaining wall!!

Some people are afraid of hieghts or flying ,or even cotton wool (ha..) Im afraid now to cut grass!!