When I was very young, my first memories of cars were with my dad and his old Mercury merauder, not a hot rod, but he would run that thing as fast as it would go, he always had several cars around, horse trading, he ran a body shop and dealt with all of the used car lots so he had inside deals...Back then, there were a lot of mustangs. Camaros, mopars, etc. my favorite uncle had a 65, I think, sport fury with a 426 hemi and used to let me sit on his lap and " drive" til he went to nam. We lived on Main Street in Kirkersville, the closest town to national trails raceway. Every Sunday there were seemingly hundreds of cool cars. Between that and the little ice cream store that sold hot rod mags, I was hooked from inception. It seemed that everyone had a hot rod, or at least a muscle car. My first hot rod was a Schwinn five speed bike with 21" cheeter slick, 12" front wheel with springer forks, a bar mounted "floor shifter", " my beans still hurt" banana seat, tall sissy bar, ape hanger bars, chrome fenders, and nothing would do until my dad finally painted the frame metal flake blue. Those were the days! My cousin finished ruining me when he picked me up from school, sick, in his 68 goat with a 4 speed. Man that thing would put you back in the seat. I always loved the 66' musang fastback. My dad had numerous stangs, my fav was a black 66 fastback with a 289 hi po 4 speed. That was in elementary school, once I got to middle and high school, there was no turning back. I was always building models and doing custom paint jobs with my dads body shop spray cans, lol. I actually won awards for a couple....I want to go back!
