I was eight years old the first time my family and my uncle’s family piled into my uncle’s 1957 Chevy Bel Air and participated in Hot August Nights. For a couple of days that summer we were surrounded by the sights and sounds of a bygone era. The smell of exhaust gases from rumbling V8s and burning rubber still take me back to this time of my life. The sounds of the 50s and 60s still signal the closing days of summer.

It wasn’t too much later my dad bought a 1958 Chevy Apache pickup with a Firebird 400 engine. It was in pieces. I still remember the gleaming chrome grill that hung on the wall of the storage unit. It never made it on the road. My dad ended up giving the truck to the high school shop class. It sat in the shop yard for years before disappearing just before I entered high school. After the 58 was gone, my dad bought a 1957 Chevy pickup. This one ran. For several years our family spent countless summer weekends going to car shows all over Northern Nevada. Of course we were there every year for Hot August Nights. I could often be found running around with a camera snapping pictures of the beautiful paint jobs and highly detailed engines. When the cab of the 57 became too tight for two adults and two growing children, that too went down the road and my dad picked up a 1963 Chevy Impala. He is the third owner of this car and it had less than 60,000 original miles on it when he bought it. He still owns this car and has added another 57 pickup to his fleet.

To this day we have been to every Hot August Nights celebration and I continue to attend car shows with my dad every summer.

All of this time spent around hot rods during my pre-teen and teen years set a fire in my heart for these old cars. All of them. It didn’t matter if it was a hopped up, blown Camaro or a stock 1929 Ford. I loved them all. Of course I had a few favorites and they tended to be more along the lines of the late 60s muscle cars.

I knew some day I would have a classic vehicle and I would make it my own.