We were standing in his driveway and I was drooling all over his Fiat Spider. Oh how jealous I was as I had wanted a Spider for many a moon. It just wasn't in the cards though, until many years later.
In a lot of ways I credit Jeff for my interest in Italian cars. Sure, as a youngster I leafed through countless car magazines and dreamed of Fiat Spiders, Fiat X 1/9's, Maserati Biturbos, Alfa Romeo GTV's etc. But it wasn't until that concrete moment in time when I saw Jeff's Spider that I knew someday I would have one.
Well it turns out mine was not a Fiat Spider but an Alfa Romeo Spider, but hey, close enough! :=)
So Jeff emailed me today as he reads this blog and he told me of the affinity he and his sons have for VW's. His son Tyler has a wicked 1995 GTi VR6 and his son Cameron drives a beautiful 2001 VW Jetta VR6. Jeff encourages his sons to work on their cars and they have done all sorts of maintenance and performance work on the cars. If you look closely at the pics of Tyler's GTi you can see the Best of Class trophy he won at the 2006 MoKan (Missouri/Kansas) VW show in Lawrence, KS. Awesome!
When I was a boy growing up I loved working with my dad in the driveway on the cars. There's not much more satisfying than making something mechanical work properly. Thanks to my dad for letting me spend time under the hood or crawling around on pavement working on oil changes and exhausts and....
Like Jeff and his sons I have had an affinity for VW's as well over the years. My first car that I actually bought (well, my dad helped by co-signing the loan) was a 1971 VW Type III Fastback. Oh how I LOVED that car. So frigging cool! I also owned a 1974 VW Super Beetle that I bought for a thrifty price from my older brother Matt. There's nothing liked an old air-cooled Beetle....some would say thank God for that but I loved mine. My pal and then next door neighbor Mike "Stal" Caniglia had a Beetle as well. We had some fun trips in that old Bug! Later in life I graduated to a VW Golf. German cars are just a lot of fun to drive. They handle really well and are generally solidly built.
Anyway, enough of my jabbering, here are some pics of the VW's I owned (the Fastback and Beetle pics are not of mine but mine were similar) and the beautiful whips that Jeff's sons own. Thanks for spurring the trip down memory lane Jeff. Through the ups and the downs, it's been a fun ride so far. :=)
CLICK PICS TO ENLARGE
No comments:
Post a Comment