Car guy? Really?

[A930Rocket]

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.

[RANDY P]

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

[manbridge 74]

[QUOTE=yellowperil;10084553]

Originally Posted by manbridge 74

I go Scottsdale for Barrett every other year. The guys I go with have know idea what they are looking at, just what looks good to them by appearance.[/QUOTE

"know idea"? Really?

You got me. You win da inter webs today...

[pwd72s]

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?

[DanielDudley]

Originally Posted by Tervuren

Reading this makes me happy.

I somewhat lament when I see an older gentlemen give up a car because they are too old to keep working on it, surely isn't there some younger person they know that they could work with? I would have loved as a teenager or early twenties to get to work on a car with direction from someone that worked on their own car for decades and knows everything about it.

So thanks for giving him he opportunity to work with you!

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.

[Tervuren]

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.

[rfuerst911sc]

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 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 .

[David]

Originally Posted by Don Ro

Different world today. Is Shop still offered in public schools?
~~~~~~

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

[onewhippedpuppy]

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

[ckelly78z]

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.

[unclebilly]

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...

[ted]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

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?

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.

[Joe Bob]

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.

[jamesnmlaw]

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

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Noah930

I'm not a great wrench. But IMO a self-proclaimed car guy should at least know how car stuff works, even if they don't know how to fix it physically when it doesn't.

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

What’s a carburetor?

[vash]

“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.

[wayner]

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)

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by unclebilly

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...

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

[RedBaron]

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.

Originally Posted by unclebilly

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...

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

[john70t]

Originally Posted by jamesnmlaw

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

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.