My tale about why I like cars, starts, as it does with every car nut my age, in my youth in the 1960s. My earliest toy memories were centered on Matchbox cars, then Mattel's Hot Wheels, followed by Monogram's 1/24 scale plastic model kits, and Odd Rods stickers. In addition, my brother Mark and I would walk all over our hometown of West Allis, Wisconsin, begging for automotive stickers from local service stations. I picked up magazines like Hot Rod Pictorial at Garman's Hobby Shop (now long gone,) and I have vivid grade school memories of drawing funny cars, dragsters, and fantasy show rods in my notebooks with my late pal Tony. I always drew my cars with "kidney-bean" slotted mags.
In my youth, magazines huckstered the advances in drag racing with headlines like "6-Second, 200MPH Funny Cars!" Powerful muscle cars were roaming the streets at night and it seemed every 3rd commercial on WOKY AM radio screamed: "SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!"--in our zone of the world, it was Broadway Bob's Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wisconsin. All over the country, fairgrounds with cavernous buildings hosted car shows with hundreds of crazy cars on display, many of which were merely fantasy props that were not even operable. Mark and I went to those too, when they were held at State Fair Park in West Allis.
Even though I wasn't even close to having a driver's license, it was all very exciting for a pre-teen boy. And then, without warning, it all came to a screeching halt for me.
I turned 13. I started playing organized football and basketball. It was 1972. And my interest in cars, show rods, outrageous monster-themed, high-horsepower beasts, those model showrods, and those colorful spectra-flamed Hot Wheels suddenly vanished, replaced by the adrenaline rush of athletic competition.
Turns out I was not alone. Starting with the British Invasion in 1964, boys and young men started moving away from model-building and into music and other interests. The Federal government and the auto insurance companies, alarmed by upwards of 50,000 highway deaths a year, forced the "detuning" and high insurance premiums that emasculated the horsepower race between GM, Ford, and Chrysler. And if that wasn’t enough, the Arab oil embargo in late 1973 put the final nail in the coffin of the original muscle-car era.
Even when I started driving my own car in 1974 as a sophomore in high school, I was mostly content with my grandfather's 1967 4-door Chevy Bel Air. And by then, sports was competing in my brain for a newfound attraction to the opposite sex. My cool-cars passion lay dormant for the next 25 years as I pursued competitive athletics, interest in women, two college degrees, and a rewarding career in three manufacturing companies, plus starting a family.
Then in 1998, while sitting in my cubicle at International Paper in Memphis, TN, my good friend Scotty Doyle, an award-winning model builder, cool-car guy, and amateur historian handed me a reissue of the Monogram model kit, The Li'l Coffin, and said, "Here, this may get you back into model-building".
I built the model that weekend (badly) and my brain exploded and released all those dormant memories. Within the next five years, I:
- Spent over $10,000 collecting every model show rod ever created.
- Built my first website, Dave's Show Rod Rally, which has become the de facto center of the Show Rod universe.
- Bought my first classic car, a 1973 Pontiac GTO, and drove it back from California back to Memphis.
- Bought my 2nd classic car, a 1972 SS Chevelle (clone), and drove it back from Los Angeles on Route 66.
- Got a Route 66 tattoo on my right shoulder.
- Spent many more thousands of dollars enhancing both muscle cars.
- Became a regular at dozens of car shows.
Only then did I realize humorist Dave Barry's quip, "There's a very fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'." was actually a medical diagnosis. But by then, it was too late.
I did not limit my rekindled car passions to model cars and Hot Wheels this time. As of this writing (2024), I have owned 4 classic cars as an adult. (Spoiler alert: I'm down to zero classic cars, but have a 2024 Corvette Stingray convertible and a 2023 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack Widebody Special Edition Swinger.)
Along the way, I developed a passion, not just for cars of all sizes and scales, but for driving them long distances. With all four of my classics, I bought them far away from where I lived and drove them back home--and yes, always with incidents. These adventures steered me to researching Route 66 and spending significant time on The Mother Road, with much more exploration to come.
Retirement in 2022 brought more time for enjoying my car passions, along with volunteering, grandkids, reading, and more. If you came here from Dave's Show Rod Rally, you know the niche part of the automotive world I enjoy the most. The trick now is to use the time I have left, dividing automotive passion time between classic car shows, building car models in my basement, visiting car museums, and taking trips in my Stingray and my Challenger.
But it all started with my dad's 1958 Chevy. That story, with others about my classic cars and road trips is linked on the You've Got Mail home page. So jump in the back for an interesting ride in my 1958 Impala, but watch out for that hole in the floorboard.
1/64 diecasts of three of the classic cars I have owned since 2001.
We collected automotive stickers in the late 60s and early 70s. I acquired four of my all-time favorites to inspire me at my modeling station in the basement.
Iconic Odd Rods wrapper reproduced in metal poster, also at my modeling station for inspiration and great memories.