Petrolhead Life
“I’m not really interested in cars” is a phrase that to a Petrolhead is an alien as “I like EVs” and whenever I hear the former statement, I always wonder what do you do with your time?
As a lifelong petrolhead my interest in all things cars is far more than just a hobby. It’s a way of life.
I write about cars, film reviews for YouTube, talk about cars with my friends, most of which are car people, I spend evenings on Autotrader looking at prices, and run a classic car club arranging classic car meets. Also I’m happy to wash my classic, not use it for a week and wash it again whilst my daily used car barely gets wet unless it happens to be raining.
I’m a product of my environment; my dad was a great teacher opting to drive the unusual where possible against the normal that everyone else drove.
A Citroen man most of his life, my childhood was spent riding in his cars, a pair of DS’ including an immaculate range-topping 7000-mile DS23 Pallas at a time when the DS was considered an old cheap car.
As a child I loved that car and it took us to school every day and to a camping trip in France where the locals cheered as we disembarked the ferry in Cherbourg.
He moved the DS on reluctantly and it remains a traumatic memory seeing another group of people driving off in our beloved family car.
Dad being Dad, came home in his next car a dark blue Lancia Gamma Coupe which was a similar age and colour to the DS but a totally different animal. Road holding and acceleration were as different from the big DS as you could get, and the Lancia remained a family favourite long after it was moved on in the 1980s when the company car became a thing. And what a comedown that was!
My Dad joined a company that gave employees a car. The downside was the £5,000 maximum spend, the fact it had to be brand-new, and it had to be a Ford. Thankfully he managed to avoid the base-model Sierra which was about as appealing as a dose of herpes especially to a trio of sons used to the aforementioned rides. Instead, Dad took delivery of A44 VMH, a black Ford Capri 1.6 LS and that was the family transport for two years.
My grandfather known as Gramps, was one of those people in the first paragraph of this piece, totally uninterested in what he drove, however his choices of transport would beg to differ. He had four Citroen DS’ including a pair of brand-new ones followed by the ultimate Citroen, a brand-new Citroen SM in 1972. The SM, which remained my Dad’s dream car throughout his life, was like a space ship by comparison to most other things on the road at the time, made way in 1975 for a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III once owned by the crooner Englebert Humperdinck and, by the time we were slumming it in the Capri, Gramps was driving a 1977 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow II in a fetching shade of ivory and known as the ‘Yellow Rolls-Royce’.
Thankfully the Ford Capri era was soon over, and Dad went onto a brace of BMWs, an E30 320i, an E34 M5, a pair of E32 730s, the latter being a V8 and fully loaded, changing to an R33 Skyline (which was a monster!) and a Maserati Quattroporte V8 EVO along with his 1997 purchase of his own Citroen SM, the car that remained his pride and joy for the rest of his life and now lovingly cared for by his three sons in his memory. We also still have the Maser.
Having had such a thorough education on the important things in life from the greatest teacher it is little wonder that his three sons, me included are lifelong petrolheads. All three of us drive classic cars, one has a Citroen DS marking the seventh in the family, my older brother has a Pontiac Trans Am and a Citroen SM, plus the three of us share Dad’s SM and I have my beloved Rolls-Royce, inspired by Gramps.
My spring and summers are spent at weekend car shows, mid-week evening drive-outs and cleaning my cars in between. My autumn and winters are spent reminiscing about the great season we’d just enjoyed, planning the car club Christmas dinner, tinkering with the cars ready for the following year and planning events.
My wife allows me this hobby, commenting once that the first time she met my family we spent most of the time talking about which cars Dad should buy next, and she had no idea that twenty-five years later we have the same conversation whenever we get together.
So, thank you Dad for the education, thank you fellow Petrolheads for attending the shows and keeping our interesting and classic vehicles on the road to break up the mundane rubbish that most people drive.
Whatever cars you reminisce about or aspire to purchase, I hope you as a Petrolhead have had as much fun as I have. Fight the fight against legislation and EVs and feel sorry for those who would willingly purchase an EV.
My name is Max and I’m a car-acholic, Petrolhead and proud of it. I sincerely hope never to be anything else.