I can't remember ever not liking cars. But there were two in particular which I credit with cementing my interest into a lifelong obsession. It was back in the early 1960s and I would have been about 5 years old at the time, which meant that both of these cars would have been close to brand-new.
These days it's impossible to relate just how much they stood out amongst a sea of chumpy local machinery. And, as it happened, they were British!
So on my 2 mile trudge to school every morning along this narrow, winding stretch of road called The Boulevard, I'd regularly see a stunning bright red Jaguar E-Type 3.8 soft-top, the early model with engine purring and chrome wires 'a glinting. Honestly, it looked like something that had landed in from outer space. The kind driver even recognised my interest and waved to me a few times, maybe he recognised a bit of his childhood self in me? It was usually driven in enthusiastic manner, especially in the wet with a few oversteer slides on show if I was lucky!
The other car was parked near my school every day, and at lunchtime I'd walk over to the carpark where it sat, just to hover near it and drool at it and admire its smooth lines. It was an immaculate AC Acecca, a superb little coupe in the deepest silvery pewter paintwork. I spent many hours in that carpark, studying how it looked, comparing it against the normal cars, peering inside & out at its exotic shape and composition. And this evolved into a nascent appreciation of vehicle design.
From those beginnings my fate was well and truly sealed and, as they say, the rest is history. :amuse:
Now 20 years on I take my daughters to school in one, and they go Oh Yes 
