When & How Did You Get Started In All This Vintage Automotive Madness?

   The short answer is, many moons ago. If I had to nail down a year, I'd definitely say it was 1968. I
was going on six years of age when I received my first batch of Hot Wheels toy cars which made their debut that same year. I had collected a few Matchbox cars prior to that, but they didn't roll very well and half the time I had to ask either my dad or grandfather exactly what the model was as most of them were based on foreign vehicles. When I first laid eyes on those cool Hot Wheels with their spectra-flame colors and hot rod attitude, that's all I wanted. I've been collecting them ever since. Of course, the success Mattel experienced from those initial 16 toy cars sparked a revolution and spawned more advertising on Saturday morning cartoons than you could shake a stick at. That led me to purchase more Hot Wheels and the associated track and accessories. By 1971, I had a LOT of Hot Wheels stuff; everything from a lunch box to miles of orange track to the almost 3 foot tall Tune-Up Tower. If anyone in my family asked my mom what I wanted for Christmas, my birthday, for Easter - the answer was Hot Wheels. The above picture is my older sister and I back in 1970. My mom had a cardinal rule of sorts, where I was only allowed to bring down so much Hot Wheels stuff from my room to play with at one time. She knew that everything I owned could take over the entire study / TV room in our house, as evidenced by the fact my bedroom was loaded with it. 

  

As time went on, those Hot Wheels branched out to other things. The only sport I was into was drag racing. I used to fall asleep watching the football or baseball games my dad or grandfather used to watch. Basketball was a little better, but my mom wouldn't let me watch hockey - too violent. I also thought NASCAR racing was kinda cool, but it took too long. A drag race was the only sport where you had one shot to win. No innings, quarters, periods, halves, rounds, sets, frames, or what have you. If you lost the race, you went home. Before we moved from northern New Jersey to live in the middle of nowhere in New Hampshire in 1974, my neighbor, who was an avid drag racer, took me a few times to Englishtown Raceway which was a racing mecca in its day. He was gracious enough to snap some pictures of some of the race cars, and I still have those faded color photos today. That mostly cemented my love for 60's and early 70's muscle cars. By 1972, I started collecting AHRA drag racing trading cars made by the Canadian company Fleer. I still have those today and still collect those as well. 

   Fast forward a few more years when performance took a real hit, but there were still a few diehards in my family who had the same bug I did. My older cousin, who lived near Chicago, owned a 70 Roadrunner with lots of power and attitude. And yeah - lots of cars had that serious rake; totally inspired by drag racing. When I was 16, I purchased my first car, a Mustang, from a neighbor. The vehicle never saw a New England winter as they went to Florida every October. The saving grace was the fact it had a 302 cubic inch engine, even if it was graced by Ford with only a 2-barrel carburetor. My dad was a little miffed that I didn't get something foreign or front wheel drive, but he knew it was still a good car. With the help of a fellow speed freak at a local garage, the engine soon had a performance intake manifold, 4-barrel carb, a set of headers with dual exhaust and a pretty healthy camshaft tackling the valvetrain. I never drove it winter, which still worked out okay, as I had a very good friend who had a 4-wheel drive pickup. The arrangement we had was we would drive my car from the beginning of May until about the first on November, then drive his rig all winter. Having this modified Mustang led me to start collecting Hot Rod, Car Craft, and Popular Hot Rodding magazines from the mid 50's through the early 70's. Each was loaded with performance tech articles regarding my era Mustang, never mind the coolness factor from a by-gone era.

  

I took a hiatus from performance cars when I went off to college. Girls were now a major concern as was my love for music and radio broadcasting, which was my major in college. My dad wouldn't allow me to take the Mustang to college as he felt it would get stolen. He said he would store the car for me like I did for several years. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, his game plan didn't work out. He thought he would have a friend or neighbor store it somewhere for free as he didn't want to pay anything for storage like I had done. So the Mustang sat - outdoors - totally unprotected. One winter while I was away at college was especially cold and brutal. When I came back home in mid-May, the car had taken a real beating. All the tires were flat, I had to replace the battery, along with the distributor cap, rotor, as well as the spark plugs and wires. My gear-head friend from the local garage helped me get it started. It took us over 2 hours to get it running. Needless to say, with my 19-year old attitude, I was pissed. While I drove the car all summer, I just couldn't bring myself to let it sit like that for another winter, despite family promises. I sold the car to my gear-head buddy. 

 

   It wasn't until I was married in the mid-80's, that muscle cars started making a comeback. The restoration parts aftermarket definitely helped that along. At that same time, I had a little bambino on the way, and my mom informed me that she had saved all of my Hot Wheels stuff, my Fleer trading cards, as well as all my magazines. Maybe I could share my passion with our child. To my benefit, my parents owned and ran a large antique shop. My mom saw that all these things I collected were escalating in value, so in her fore-thinking wisdom, (and unbeknownst to my dad), she collected more of these things. My wife was a little surprised with all this "stuff" that had now taken up residence in our study and TV room, just like when I was a kid. 

   I still have most of these things - I made a mistake once and vowed to never do it again. Money was tight during the recession going into the early 90's and I put all my Hot Wheels track and accessories out in a huge box as part of our annual yard sale. A guy and his wife approached me and asked how much I wanted for the entire box. Being a tad hesitant to sell, I shot out, what I thought was a high figure of $250 dollars. He didn't even bat an eyelash and agreed to it. He pulled out his wallet and handed me the money. My wife was stunned at the amount. He asked if I had any Hot Wheels cars for sale and my wife, thinking we could really rake in some cash told him, "Oh yeah, he has tons of them inside! He has all kinds of old drag racing stuff too!!" I told him that the box was all I was selling and that I already had sellers remorse. Yes, I'm still married to that same woman today but she tolerates my hobbies MUCH better... and doesn't offer to sell my stuff for me.

Until next time, remember; don't collect for the value. Value what you collect. 

Peace out.