Man, what an awesome thread! I got into cars as a kid; always loved looking at them, drawing them, and building models. I got my first chance to help out an old gearhead neighbor of mine when I was about 10 years old. He just got a '58 Vette as a roller (no motor, trans, or interior) and needed help getting it off the trailer. So, he saw me riding my Mongoose down the street and asked if I could help him steer it into the garage while he pushed it. From that moment, I was hooked. I spent the next 5 years helping him get tools and watching him work on all of his cars - he had the '58, a custom '63 Vette, a '55 Nomad, and his daily driver was a '72 Chevelle 'vert. He moved when I was 15, otherwise I probably would have been wrenching on my own stuff sooner; I was 24 when I got my old '85 SS as a "fun car" and learned by working on that. My parents always thought I was crazy, but they supported me by letting me work on the car in the garage and not giving me a ton of crap about spending $$. In retrospect, I shouldn't have spent that much $$, but it did keep me outta trouble.
