Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms When did you first realise that you were a car nut

As soon as I smelt petrol I think .

It's a never ending multi partnered romance but an awful lot cheaper than a divorce.

Started as soon as i could walk..there were several people were i grew up that were old car freaks..so i grew up between cars like very early Citroen 5CV and B2, 1928 Chevrolet, Mercedes 190SLs, Spitfire Mk1,Karmann Ghia, BMW 503, Minor Traveller, 1962 Mercedes 300d and too many others to mention.
My first car was a 1970 NSU Prinz 4L, followed by many more, including a 1961 and 1973 Cadillac, Daf 33, 1967 Chevrolet Caprice, and many Minis.

I became a car nut at about age 8. Dad was not really intersted in cars but my brothers and I were.

We would know all the 1950s makes ( mainly British then!). We loved engines and how they worked. We also loved Motorbikes and their engines. We learnt by trial and error and pestering the local Garage for advice. In those days it was easy to work out what went where and did what!
In 1965 we had rescued a Morris Minor 850cc from a field got it on the road and kept it going with scrapyard parts ( no MOT then).

The love continues to this day ...but have moved on from the Minor.

Thanks to generous employers and my own businesses I have owned and driven very many top marques - lucky boy! The Porkers and the Morgans are the dreams come true though!

It certainly is

I was given and then collected Dinky, Corgi & Matchbox cars from when I was about 2 or 3 and kept on collecting them. Still have them all, most in the boxes. When I was youn and we used to go for days out in hte car my party trick was to hang my head out of the window with my eyes cloased and I could identify the make and model of cars that were coming in the opposite direction (usually up a hill for this!) by the engine sound.

When I was about 10 my sister had a friend who's boyfriend worked in a garage. They always used to turn up in something interesting. One Christmas they cam in a Mini Marcos and he took me out for a spin down the bypass. We hit a 100mph - the first time I'd been at that speed!

I always used to clean my Dad's car every week (got me into that habit!) and then when I was 12 we were on holiday in Ledbury and went to pay a visit to go around the Morgan factory (hooked on that one ever since!). Through my teens I used to buy Autocar & Motor every week and Classic Cars magazine. The classic bit was starting to bite in then. Learnt to drive at 17 & bought my first car Escort 1300XL at 18 and did most of my own maintenance then. Went to the motor shows and classic car shows at the NEC a few times.

The fun of motoring was knocked out of me for a few years with doing 50,000 miles a year in a succession of Cavalier 1.3L company cars for which there was no choice over. brought the fun back in when the company car went by buying a 6 month old big bumper Golf GTi. That helped bring the car nuts bit back into my life. Ever since I've found myself hankering back to the classics and now the Morgan does that with some modern day reliability.

Interesting reading everyone's experiences on this thread

I wouldn't describe myself as 'Car nut' at all, more like a 'Morgan Tart'

I have never really had any experience of wanting or owning a classic type sports car other than a Morgan but once I hired a Morgan a few years ago and visited the factory - I was hooked and as my wife said when I bought mine earlier this year - "it was probably inevitable"

My father did give me a couple of metal car model kits when I was very young as I was a keen modeler - mainly military, Aurora figure kits, anything unusual along with lots of wargaming miniatures.

The metal model kits sat in my unmade kit pile for years until I got the urge to have a go at a metal car model, I think I was about 13 at the time - they were both Morgan's . a three wheeler and a 4/4

I made the 4/4 and was pretty proud of my modelling skills and painted it bright Ferrari red with a black interior, silver wheels

I spent a year looking for a post 1999 Morgan 4 seater within my budget and the only one I found was a Rosso Corsa Red (Ferrari) with a black interior.

spooky

Powerful Morgan forces - way beyond our understanding!

I've liked cars for as long as I can remember, but I think the thing that kicked of an enthusiasm for vintage and veteran cars was visiting my Great Uncle Roger in Norfolk, probably when I was about 7 or 8.

Roger had a large property, and had been one of the first landowners in the UK to mechanize; he certainly had one of the first combine harvesters in the country. In order to keep his farm machinery operating, he had built a highly equipped workshop. In the 50's and 60's he had taken to restoring old cars in his workshop, so by the time I first visited in the late 60's he had a collection of fabulous old cars which he had done up. A 1903 de Dion Bouton, a 1911 Mercedes tourer, a 1927 Frazer Nash TT replica, a 1931 Talbot 105 Doctor's Coupé and a couple of Austin 7's. I well remember the thrill of pootling around the Norfolk lanes with him in the De Dion Bouton.

Roger had always been a car enthusiast; my father has told me that he well remembers the excitement when his car mad uncles visited when he was a child; in the 30's Roger had an Alfa Romeo 8c and my Great Uncle Clare had a Bugatti. My dad had a couple of interesting motors too in my childhood; he owned a Rolls Royce 20hp in the early 60's (which I don't remember), and then in the late 60's an Alvis TC21 (which I do remember well).

I suppose I have always been a car nut. My mother used to tell me I always wanted toy tractors and cars etc, so I had a collection of Dinky Toys - which got well bashed about, repainted, you name it. I also had a Meccano set and just about the only thing I made with it were cars of ever-increasing complexity.
My father wasn't really interested in cars - they were just a convenient mode of transport - but my mother was. The petrol in my veins comes from her father, who was definitely a car nut. I have a scrap book of his from when he was a boy over 100 years ago with pictures of motorbikes cut out from magazines. He had a succession of cars - none of them ever a tin-top. Mother's favourite was his Riley Lynx - I remember his Triumph Herald convertible in which he used to tour the Alps every summer.
My own journey started with a Hillman Imp, through an MG 1300, Triumph Vitesse, TR6, GT6- based home-made Spartan kit-car, E-type, XK8, BMW Alpina, Capri 2.8, other boring ones, to currently a Morgan +8 and Golf GTI. I have always enjoyed tinkering with them and used to do a lot of the maintenance when I was younger, but now I leave the tin-tops to the garage and their diagnostic computers, whilst still tinkering with the Morgan. Next job - replacement windscreen, because the current one is de-laminating.