Hmmm...well I grew up playing with match box cars and buying all the model cars the came on their little orange plastic stands...I believe they were called Hot Wheels. I remember sitting passenger seat while my mom was driving and pretending that I was racing through traffic ahead of her. She told me it was distracting because I was jerking my invisible stearing wheel around as I made my invisible car cut through traffic. (lol) Needless to say, Ive had a fascination with cars since I was young. At 15 is when I actually started reading about cars and asking my friends (who worked on their cars) questions about different things.
**off topic** BUT- I remember learning all about audio upgrades because my friends' truck was sponsored by Alpine and he had gotten this amazing alarm that no one could break into. (basically what the top of the line Viper is NOW) He went to University Mall and it turned out that the pager on his key chain for the alarm didnt work while he was in the mall. So, when he came back to his truck it was stripped. Pretty shitty! That was about 7 years ago and that guy had shit done to his car that people are just now getting on theirs. Damn memories...that was back in the day.