I've been a car nut since I was single digits.

I use to help the older kid across the street work on his Willy's Jeep, then I got my own at 15 and moved on to a 70 Triumph GT6+, 69 TR6, 73 240Z, etc.

I remember telling a friend online before we met how to change the pads on the 930. Several years later, he was showing me how to rebuild my 930 engine.

I still remember my first hot-rod toy - my grandma (!) bought it for me.

A lime green 76 El Camino jacked up, in lime green- it was one of those zip toys where you put the toothed strip in and pull it, and it spun a wheel and off it went.

Then at 10 I got a subscription to Road and Track magazine. I didn't know superhero's at 10; I knew about the history and legend of the BMW 2002, Porsche, Peter Gregg, Hurley Haywood and the Bricklin SV-1 at that age.

Then, the Chevy bug hit me....It hasn't let up since.

rjp

[QUOTE=yellowperil;10084553] You got me. You win da inter webs today...

Car guy? Didn't know there was a firm definition.

Porsches only? Maybe a hard core drag racer? Street hot rods? What? Evidently just liking cars isn't enough? Have to do all the mechanical work? Yeah, what?
How 'bout the megabucks celebrities who have fleets of cars maintained by pros?

I'm the lucky one to have someone to share my interests with, and to see again how fun it is to be young and experience things for the first time.

I would say a car guy is someone that the time/energy/thought/emotion they put in to cars exceeds the minimal values required to use cars merely as a means of transportation. Providing the reason for that time/energy/thought/emotion is centered on enjoyment of cars rather than using cars as a status symbol.

The car industry is evolving and so are the enthusiests . Back in the day when cars wouldn't run more than 10,000 miles without some type of maintenance you HAD to learn or you just didn't drive much . Today's cars go 100,000 miles on spark plugs ! The modern car guy/gal can be just as passionate as we are WITHOUT doing all their own wrenching but it's great if they take interest with the wrenching .

How is a 20 year old kid going to know what a carb is without one of us old codgers :D teaching them ? Yeah they can Google it but that's not learning . You want to do something positive for our car society ? Find a youngster that has some interest in cars and mentor him/her . It will do both of you some good . As parents/grandparents/neighbors I believe that's the best way we can give back and keep the car culture alive .

The high school near my office is a career and technical high school where the students can specialize in automotive shop, welding, drafting, engineering, cooking, nursing and on and on. Their automotive shop would rival most dealerships. The whole school is really amazing.


I didn't take any car magazines as a kid but the office where my mom worked back in the early 80's took Autoweek. All the guys in the office would read it, initial it, and pass it on to the next office. My mom brought them home to me when they were done.

My high school also had a subscriptions to a few car magazines so I spent my spare time in the library pouring over them.

The whole time I spent my after school and weekend time working in a bicycle shop and then in college a motorcycle shop.

And that explains why my car budget/income ratio is much higher than the average person :)

I for one would like to forget what a carburetor is.....

One of my wife's contractors also races a dirt late models, and was impressed at the questions I was asking him when checking out his ride. I asked about tire stagger, trackbar and spindle adjustments, castor/camber settings, and other various things that only a TRUE car guy would know. There are alot of half interested posers out there who claim to know everything, but soon prove themselves wrong.

Last year's Parade in Spaokane was full of 'car guys' or more accurately 'Porsche guys'...

They all showed up with their first Porsche , typically a Cayman or GT4. It was their first Porsche and they had no concept of anything air cooled.

I had my very early 930 there and they thumbed their nose at it...

Car guys...

Arrive and drive is fine, just too expensive to pay others to work on my cars.

On some days I'm happy just to wash/wax a car and go to a gas station and swipe my credit card for a tank of gas, clean the windshield, still a car guy too.

Although Car guys that use scales and do there own corner balance and alignment seem a little more involved. :)
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1529938487.jpg

I just ran into a guy at a restaurant, he told me all about my car and guessed at the internal mods.....a REAL car guy.

An opportunity to teach, we all start somewhere at sometime.

Even when I was a kid my 1976 Datsun Z had fuel injection.

What’s a carburetor?
:D

“Car guy” comes in all levels. I’m a car guy. I can rebuild a carburetor no problem. Hell it might even work afterwards.

I couldn’t cut out a rusted body panel and weld in a new one. I would hope that a car guy that can, wouldn’t scoff at my lack of bodywork skills.

Some guys love cars and farm out all the work. Their superpower is having the spending power. I’m cool with that. They don’t need to know what a carb is. It’s all good. I vote we stow away the elitist car guy attitude. This is supposed to be fun.

Funny story about my Datsun Z

It was probably over 30 or more years ago It quit in a parking lot

An older car guy came over to help me, this 19 year old kid with his 6 year old rusted out Datsun
He had tons of knowledge and told me about some of the real cool street cars and race cars he built

He asked me to pop the hood, then proceeded to attempt to lift the hood from the front.
(The hood lever forward from the back )

When he finally was able to look under the hood, his eyes got big with shock, he stepped back and told me he knew nothing about what he was looking at, and wished me luck as he drive away

An older neighbor helped me once I got towed home
He diagnosed spark and fuel, but the car still didn’t run.

I later self diagnosed that 5lbs fuel pressure was not enough. The fuel pump ran, but it needed to produce 60lbs

Not many car guys knew that 30 years ago.

( these days I’m learning about Webers from an old car guy)

HOOT! Reminds me of the beginning of the end as far as I and PCA went. Historic races, of all things. Corral marque parking. A guy with a brand new 996...black/black was there. When the guy directing parking motioned me to park next to him, he said; "I don't want that old POS parked next to my new Porsche."

Since he was so obviously all about money & image, I parked elsewhere.

(edit)

A video posted on another board I visit. Hell yes, I'd consider the owner of this very much a car guy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VXPi_3uzOQ

We've all got to start from somewhere. I've never played around with carbs and why would I? It's not like i can purchase an older 911 that has them. they are all being bought up by wealthy collectors or exported back to the homeland.

i know a lot about bosch k injection, though. i could probably learn about repairing carbs pretty quickly. ;) I probably will learn eventually when i own lawn equipment.


i'd be drolling over your 930 and asking the gt4 guys how their shock towers are :D

http://thumbsnap.com/s/yjz77U9D.jpg

Everybody starts sometime in life except for the next child prodginy.

Some of us learn by hunting into the woods to find a prop to hold up the car and fix it during a rainstorm to get to our destination such as future promise of vageena.
Pain and hunger is also good inspiration but secondary.
For the most of us, we don't have to worry about tribal street warfare here at the moment.

My parents both considered cars an expensive appliance that gets parked outside. Dad had a little more car appreciation than mom when he was younger. In 1967 I actually talked him into test driving a a 911. I was thrilled, he like it but said it was way too small and expensive. He ended up with a 4 door Delta 88 with a 454. In later years he started driving Toyotas.

At the recent Porsche Palooza in Eureka Springs, AR there were tons of new 718s, GT3s and new 911s and Boxsters. Even one 918 covered in bug hits and road dirt. I was in my 85 911. I had tons of guys with new cars come ask about my old 911. They all loved the shape, and look of a classic air cooled 911. It happened all weekend. There are some real great roads around there. Best in the country hands down.

The other day I was out with the targa, young guy in his early twenties says nice car but I like American muscle. I politely said yes my son has a 65 tempest and a blazer we stuffed a 5.7 in. What do you have ? He says a Honda Civic with a turbo. I hope he does not think that a Honda is American muscle cars!!

Good news is he probably can't drive 3 pedals, so you'll never have to say no to letting him drive one of yours...

One of my favourite that has happened to me is the young Harley Davidson rider that was really excited about my Toyota Supra, wanted to know if it was a Turbo.

Since that day to help maintain confusion I've been making the badges less obvious.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1529951850.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1529952244.jpg

You guys are slipping.

I didn't notice that typo. I got a good laugh out of that. Of course, I'm not, you know... Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Same here. I started building model cars as soon as I could handle the glue without mucking things all up. The minute one of the older kids on the block would pop the hood to start working on his car, I was there to hand them tools and and pester them with lots of questions.
The first car magazine I remember reading was Sports Car Graphic...might've been around 12 or 13 at the time.

I'll second that...

My main activity in engineering school was Formula SAE. My second or third year, there was a guy who showed up who drove a base-model Mitsubishi Eclipse with an automatic (come on, we had to tease him about that) and didn't know how to do anything more than check the oil. By the time he graduated he had been chief engineer of the team for two years. When they graduated, he and another teammate started their own company. There's hope for everybody with some curiosity and the will to learn who isn't discouraged by smarty pants' making fun of their lack of knowledge.

No such thing as a dumb question if you don't know

If ever you get conceited about your "car guy" knowledge, remember that the rest of society just thinks you are a dork.:D

nice. our mini baja team was one ME (team leader), and 4 CE. the ME department put all their resources into the official ALL ME team, and let us go in as independents with one condition; we gather all the financing on our own. we did. we got a computer company to write us one big check. one month before the competition, they shut down the other team and gave us the college uniform. that other team built a turd. UTEP was lucky we were there, since the competition was at our school that year!! they saved face. we came in 16th overall.

the team leader almost didnt graduate because he wanted to keep the car. his arguement was that we got all the money. it was a fun fun year. i almost failed out that semester.

I was at that Parade too! But, since my Porsche wasn't happy on the street, I took my BMW E92 M3. We stayed at the Historic Davenport, which had wall to wall Porsches in its courtyard, plus a couple of Parade-related Porsche displays. As I gave the key to the valet, he said "Beautiful car, man!" and gave me a wink. It cracked me up. Car guy.

I think true car guys/gals are formed in utero, and pop out looking for the keys and the gas pedal. I know I sure did.

Almost all Civics are built in Ohio or Alabama.
The newest type R Civic has 306 hp 6 speed.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1529970050.jpg

I started off with Matchbox cars.
Next were Hot Wheels
Then HO slot cars
I was also building 1/25 scale model cars at the same time.
Bought my 914 at 20 years old. I still have it. Next year will by 40 years with that car.
I've had about 5 other 914's.

Yea I suppose I've been a car guy from the beginning. ;)

I went to the one full service gas station in town and the young kid pumping gas was really digging my daily driver. “This car is really cool! I love this car” followed by “what is it?” I was floored. They probably made a million E39 5 series BMWs, but I guess they’re getting long in the tooth. The last was made in 2003, or 15 years ago. But here’s a kid who works at a gas station, with an eye for cars to some degree, and he didn’t know what a 5-series was.
https://s13252.pcdn.co/wp-content/up...39-940x636.jpg

I think that's a Lambo, dude!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NJmB1F2mdE

LOL. It was awkward, with my wife there!

It's funny, my wife will tell people I am a car guy and I always feels obligated to say no, I just like cars. I almost could care less about what makes them go, I just love what they look like and that they can go vvroom.

I guess by some's definition, I'm a "non car guy who just happens to likes cars". Not a bad title, just a bit long.SmileWavy