I've been fixing things my whole life.
When I was 7 or 8 years old, it was battery powered clocks and toys.
When I was 11 or 12, it was an old 2-stroke minibike.
When I was 15, I bought my first car, a 1977 Pontiac Trans Am. It needed work, but I had been reading lots of books in the library on how to fix cars. I practiced my first automotive mechanical, body, and interior work on it.
Before I finished high school, I had owned close to ten cars. With each different repair, I learned something new and acquired more tools.
I paid for a big chunk of my college tuition by buying cars, fixing them, and selling them. Before I finished college, the number of cars I had owned was in the high teens. They had all been American cars -- mostly old Mopar muscle cars, Trans Ams and Camaros, and a string of 1980s Pontiac Fieros.
I had always dreamed of owning a Lotus Esprit. That was my dream car like a Ferrari is or was to many people who frequent this or other forums. By the mid- to late-1990s, when exotic and sports cars were hugely unpopular, they had come down in price. This was when I first heard someone say, "You can afford to
buy them, but you can't afford to
maintain them."
. . . "Why not?" I said to myself. If I do all of the labor, that just leaves the parts. It might still be more, but I knew the labor was the lion's share. I continued to do my homework, i.e. learning about the cars, parts prices, etc.
When I finished college, I bought a Porsche 944. It was my "bridge" between simple, low-parts-cost American cars and sophisticated European sports cars with expensive parts. The 944 had an overhead cam with timing belt, interference design, everything was made out of aluminum, had Bosch fuel injection, and everything was of a higher level of precision . . . and price. It was a good way of easing into "expensive" (to fix) cars.
Comfortable with that, I bought my first Lotus Esprit, an S1. I could have afforded a Turbo, but I didn't want to get in over my head mechanically. It was a dream come true, and every car since then has just been a play thing.
I continued with Porsches (mostly 944s and 928s), Lancias and Fiats, Jaguars, and more Lotus cars. I became known around the office as the guy who fixes cars, and soon people were coming to me with theirs.
I went to grad school in Miami, Florida. I started fixing other people's older European and exotic cars down there. After Sept. 11, I was unemployed for a while, and fixing sports and exotic cars helped me to try to make ends meet.
Since moving back to Ohio in 2002, I've been able to do pretty much anything I want, including serious restoration work and engine rebuilds.
Since 2003 or so, I've been helping out a friend who owns a small shop that repairs and restores classic European and exotic sports cars. I go down there on some weekends, mostly in the summer and fall. I've also, over the years, serviced around a dozen Lotus Esprits other than my own. I've had a few people bring their Esprits to my garage, and a few people fly me to them to work on their cars.
I bought my 308 almost a year ago, after spending a couple of years familiarizing myself with them via a couple of friends', whose 308s have included a couple of GT4s and a few GTSis.
So that's roughly how I evolved into someone who works on his own Ferrari.
