[Bill Pritchard]

Apparently I was into cars at a very early age, as my parents said by the time I was 4 or 5, I could correctly name the make - and sometimes model - of many cars going down the road. Started building plastic model cars early on, and by the time I was 11 or 12, I would always accompany my mom when she went grocery shopping.....because the store she always went to was next door to the local Chevy dealer, Ed Fanning Chevy in Aurora IL. She would grocery shop and I would car shop. In 1964, when I was 13, a good friend and co-worker of my dad's bought a new 64 Malibu SS, red with white bucket seat interior, 220HP 283 and a 4 speed. I thought it was gorgeous and that cemented my love for white interiors. My dad borrowed it a couple times and took me for a ride and showed me how he could 'speed shift' it and burn rubber in 2nd gear. I thought I died and went to heaven. In the summer of 1970, a few weeks after I had bought my first car, a new Hugger Orange 1970 Nova, my parents and my 2 brothers went on vacation. When they got back, the Nova's OEM single exhaust had been replaced by a Midas dual system with glasspacks, and the OEM Rally wheels were gone, replaced by a set of Keystone mags similar to Torq-Thrusts. My dad was not too happy. Unfortunately he only lived a few more months after that, so parental disapproval was a non-issue.