Age 12?

I'm younger but always loved 1950's cars.   I've had "cars on the brain"  since birth - apparently.   According to my mother, the first picture I ever drew was of a car.   By the time I was 12, I had fallen in love with many cars - especially 1959 Cadillacs (love those fins! )

My mother says that any Christmas or birthday present I received that didn’t have wheels on it got tossed aside.

Chet, I graduated in '80, my main focus in cars for the most part is late 40's to early 70's barring a few exceptions.  Like hot rods and some newer muscle. Dad general liked the big Pontiacs, my Uncle Ron liked the Grand Prixs and GTO's, I had a couple of cousins with Firebirds as well, thus my huge interest in Pontiacs.😊

Earlier for me. I fell in love with cars at 6 when I saw the first Corvette. Loved them ever since.

Me, at 7 in 1954 holding the Corvette model Dad got me of the first, 53 Vette.

For me I would probably say about 7 or 8 with Matchbox cars and trucks, then starting to build models.  Since my Dad was a Mechanic, I have been around cars all my life.

I developed an interest in cars when I was about 7 or 8 years old. I enjoyed playing with toy cars and trucks as far as I can recall.

I’ve seen pics of when I was 3-4 and surrounded by Hubley & Tootsie toy model csrs and the interest never lapsed. As I got older (8-14) my love for model cars expanded. Promos were awesome but they didn’t look just right to me with the window trim in body color. That was my intro to silver paint and detailing which I still do today. Thank-you God for helping me to maintain my physical dexterity.

My first word was car and I knew every car on the road with the introduction of the 1959 models. So almost 4 since I was born in January of 1955.

Oh, much earlier than 12. I was weaned on a diet of Dinky Toys.

Unfortunately most of them were either wrecked or given away by the time I left primary school, and when the nostalgia bug hit me much later (around the age of 30) I had to acquire them all over again, alongside the contemporary models I was busy collecting at the same time.

Relatives who emigrated from Scotland to the States when I was 9 or 10 years old started sending us the Saturday Evening Post and Readers Digest, and the car ads in those publications created a lifelong fascination with "Yank Tanks" of the 1950s to 1970s, models of which now form a large part of my collection.

I was born in 1951, at age four had my first automotive experience.  I was standing up in the backseat of Mom's Chrysler product something, with a mouse gray interior.  We were at a stoplight, someone ran the light and a motorcycle landed on the hood, breaking the windshield.  Mom said sit down and close my eyes (end of memory).  Still 1955, Dad, Mom, my older brother & self were car shopping at an Oldsmobile dealership.  No idea what kind of car we were driving (Dad's?) but suggest Mom's car was finished.  New car inventory was in the dealership multi-floor parking garage.  We got off an elevator and I spied a turquoise & white 1955 Olds '98' Holiday two-door.  I rushed to that car.  We walked down a row of Oldsmobile's and at the end of a row was a turquoise & white '98' Starfire convertible.  Next memory myself and brother were jumping around the backseat yelling "we want the turquoise & white!"  Dad must have turned around and bought that turquoise and white '98' Holiday.  Mom also needed a new car and just a few days later they also bought that turquoise and white Starfire convertible.

At age four, in 1955, I became hooked on cars.  My Dad was Air Force, we traveled extensively and both brother and self started drawing cars.  My drawings were influenced when I first saw a 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser, loved that roof.  My Mom loved her mid-century modern so I started drawing houses, with floor plans before the age of ten, brother kept drawing cars...went to Art Center in LA and became an auto designer.  Me, I later went to architectural school & later became an interior designer.  It all started with the 1955 Oldsmobile's.

My life passion for T-Birds started in 1957, age six.  A beautiful lady named Penny lived a few houses down the street.  Beautiful red hair (myself strawberry blond) and she drove a 1957 pink T-Bird.  Occasionally she drove me to school and I felt so special.  My Dad thought Penny was special, they had an affair, parents divorced and Mom took us kids to San Francisco.  It was now sometime in 1959-60, Mom bought a new 1960 T-Bird convertible, without my input, with divorce money.  Mom loved her convertibles, but the 1960 Bird purchase was more about how much she hated Penney and sticking it to my Dad.

Time went on, my parents remarried each other.  I was age twelve, went car shopping with Dad.  He thought he was looking at a new 1963 Ford Galaxy XL.  On the showroom floor was a 1963 T-Bird.  Even at age twelve I could be determined and he bought the Bird.  Early 1967, I turned 16, and that Bird was my first car.  Late 1965, Dad again took me car shopping with him, he thought he wanted a 1966 Mustang.  Again, I was persistent, he bought a 1966 T-Bird Town Landau  Not exactly the Mustang he thought he wanted.  A few years later the 1966 T-Bird later became my second teenage car.

My childhood car memories have influenced me into my elder years.  My fun car is now a 1966 T-Bird convertible.  I grew up in the backseat of convertibles, & T-Birds, so no surprise.

My started very much earlier than 12. At age five, I was spending most Sunday afternoons travelling in a Morgan three wheeler. I had Dinky Toys just like Graeme. As matter of fact, I had every one of the pictured Dinkys in his post. All that said, my favourite cars are all from the early 1950s… Jaguar, Daimler, Rover, Allard, Austin Healey, MG… yes, British stuff and I was around 12 years old.

I'm around the 7 or 8 year mark too. Mesmerised initially by the beauty of the Ford Customline 

And the MGA

then in the 60s the Volvo 1800

thats enough, I'll fill up the server if I keep going!