Beginning from a very early age, I have exhibited a profound obsession with cars. At the age of 3 or 4 I came to notice a gorgeous blue Jaguar XKE that was usually parked in front of one of the houses as Mom drove us kids in and out of our neighborhood for various little errands. Every time I saw it I would scream, "OOooooooo.... JAGUAR!" until everyone was sick of it. I'm told there was a sense of relief among others in the family when that car finally disappeared from our neighborhood.
From a very early age, I rolled around under the family vehicles with my Dad, handing him tools and peppering him with questions. 5 years later, motorcycles were a big part of the tinkering. He was always a tinkerer, you see.... he had built and flown a biplane while he was in high school... built it in his Dad's garage. He was also a hot rodder/prankster in his day, pulling stunts like putting big V8's in model T's, running one bank of cylinders through a couple of big, quiet mufflers and run the other bank through the original T exhaust so the thing would still sound like a model T, and go looking for races. :) He also used to race Indian sidehacks with his buddies on LaHonda back in the 40's when it was a gravel road. So I guess you could say it runs in the blood. :)
Of course I was VERY interested in all kinds of cars, especially fast, powerful ones. My dad had a Honda S800 for a while that he had done some performance mods to:
That car was a screamer. LaHonda and Page Mill roads were made for such a car. He also had a 1936 Ford Pickup that he had put a brand new 289 Mustang engine, Ford 9-inch rear end, Huge Merc brakes, "Cherry Bomb" glasspacks, etc on back in 1965 as a complete restoration project. I am digging for photos.... sorry, they are pre-electronic age. :) It looked mild mannered, but there were a few times that either my Mom or Dad blew the doors off of some kid's Mustang or Camaro with this thing.... And of course I was interested in all things internal combustion.
We read CarToon magazines, HotRod, Dirt Bike, and of course Mad Magazine. Of course we had lots of classic books & novels that we read at very early ages, but we always looked forward to blowing our allowance on the above magazines. My Mom worked at DMV for a while, couldn't deal with the idiots, and worked doing DMV paperwork for a local Datsun(remember them?) dealer for some time. I remember on several occasions being there with her while she went in for a couple of hours on some Saturdays to work... and I was never bored, because I had lots of time to ogle the Z-cars in the showroom. I guess my previous lust after the vaguely similar XKE & S800 added to the attraction I felt for this car. Of course, I also lusted after Panteras and Countaches, but I felt that such a car was far, far out of my reach.
Also, I learned a bit about the Nissan Skylines from perhaps the finest driving simulator in it's time, Gran Turismo(Finest for the home, anyway). Here is an example of this fine car:
You can read about this car at skylinegtr.com or Google.
A few weeks back, Gregg Scott, who did most of the key work on my Z, showed me a project down at his restoration shop, "Scott Performance" in Santa Clara. I christened it the "SkyLady"... a Fairlady Z with a 300+HP 2.6l DOHC Twin Turbo monster. :)
I have long enjoyed driving cars that for much of my life were out of reach via this game and especially Gran Turismo 3. I am a sometimes contributor to the GT community online via www.granturismobynumbers.com where I hail to the name "DeadAgain". I logged on to a gaming message board in the dim past to ask for help because I was Dead... Again.... that's what I used for my login and it stuck. I use it everywhere online for game-related stuff. Now, I get to drive a car that I have always wanted, but appears in NONE of the Gran Turismo games....
Of course I knew about the Porsche 911, I knew that it was a rocket but tricky.... I knew a bit about Porsche racing history and some of the early cars... but these were also far out of my price range as well. After I saw the 928 and heard one pass by me at WOT, I became very interested in them, and found out about the basic specs, construction details, drivetrain layout, suspension, etc. Finally one day I saw one at rest... It was parked, with the windows down, the smell of leather pungent in the air.... and I suddenly realized that THIS was a car to lust for.... but I was 14, had about $200 in the bank made less than $50/mo on my paper route, and had to more or less file it away. After all these years I still notice these cars more than any of the "nice to have" cars that I tend to notice. But there you have it, a brief synopsis of the various stages of car lust leading up to the infatuation I've had with the Porsche 928 since 1978. :)