Hard to know where to start 'cause the topic is 1st cars & muscle cars. I will start off by saying that no one in my family liked or understood cars, at least in the sense that I did. My dad 'liked' cars, but in the way of just looking at cars and washing them and driving them. He had several sports cars growing up. It is a shame his mother drove an idea into dad that basically told him he was too good to do manual labor or get dirt under his nails. Dad liked to drive M-Benzs and Cadillacs.
Now, dad did subscribe to Hemming's M.N. and that is where I got an interest in cars, I was about 14. I decided then that I wanted a Ford Model A coupe, 1930 to be specific. I had maybe 1 or 2 hundred dollars and I found a few in the $600-$900 range. Dad refused to help in any way to facilitate the purchase. I finally found an old car, just not a Model A. It was a 46 DeSoto coupe for $25. The car was in a barn and the mice had ravaged the interior and the engine was stuck. Dad did pay the tow bill to get it home. Dad figured this was just a phase and I would get discouraged and give up this silly idea of working on cars. I got advice from the local garage to fill the cylinders with trans fluid and 2 cycle oil 50/50. I would get off the school bus everyday, throw down my books, and run over to the car jumping up on it's broad fenders where I had a rope that I would put on the fan blade and pull with all I had in hopes that the engine would free up. I can't remember how long this ritual went on, but one day as I tried, to my amazement, the engine turned over and, with the help of a neighbor, I got it running! This catapulted my passion and interest and desire to learn all I could about cars.
Now, driving age, my dad supplied a car he felt was safe, translated slow like in M-B Diesel slow. While it was good to have 'wheels' as a teen, I started to notice cars that other guys had at my school. Some were loud and jacked up with shiny wheels. I said to myself, I must get a car like that. I did not care, at that time if the car was fast, I just wanted a 'cool' looking car. I persuaded dad into letting my brother have the M-B and get me a different car. Dad's insurance man's son had a 69 Cutlass...6 cylinder. I worked at a tire store and all my jobs were at gas stations or anywhere that I could learn the mechanics of a car. The Cutlass, I jacked it up via Hi-Jackers, painted the rear end yellow, put wide tires and rims on the rear and, lastly, cut off the brand new exhaust and put on a Cherry Bomb which really sounds sick on a straight 6. I trashed the Super Turbine 300 with neutral dumps attempting to lay rubber (dad did not know this). Lastly, some guys at our local gas station, who took me under their wing, told me that a 66 GTO that gad been T-boned hard was towed in. They said the GTO drivetrain would bolt right into the Olds. I start to prepare pulling an engine by sizing up the old barn's timbers and climbing up to that beam with dad's log chain. When dad found out my plans he sold the car.
Summer came and I was now 17. I worked two jobs that summer. I don't know what caught my eye, the Cragars or the muscular look, but I had to have car that I saw down the street at another gas station. $600 later and I was driving my 1st V8 car, a 67 SS Chevelle 396. I loved that car more than any person at the time. I 'cut my teeth' on this car doing engine mods. First headers, then an intake and carb and finally a cam. Not a big deal today, but back then it might as well have been brain surgery I was performing 'cause I had never been into an engine and I was scared that it would not go back together right...but it did and, again, pushed me on to learn and do more. My folks had other plans as they disapproved of my car. They sent me off to Military school. Upon Graduation I went right back to my cars now buying 2 69 Camaros. Here is THE Chevelle.
If you look close, in the back ground is the Robin Egg blue Cutlass.