Childhood Influences

Blog   |   Autobiography   |   Published at Driven to Write

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Car stories from the 1980s

Mama. Papa. Auto. The first three words I spoke have been the most important ones and everybody knows that vehicles of all kinds fascinated me from day one.

Being born in 1978, cars from the 1970s and 1980s influenced me during my childhood. Playing endless rounds of SuperTrumpf and TopAss Autoquartett card games with my friends meant we knew the most important technical specifications by heart. In Kindergarten and later in school, parents’ cars earned a winner or loser image depending on how they performed in the game and whether or not we liked the styling.

So far, so normal. Every reader of a certain age will surely have similar relatable memories. Sigmund Freud had a point when he said that key experiences at an early age shape the foundations of our lives. In this article, I take a look at how context, spelling and numbers influenced my view on certain motor vehicles.

Context matters | Citroën GS

A boy who wasn’t in our group of friends in Kindergarten was dropped off and picked up every day by his parents in a light blue Citroën GS or GSA (memory is a bit hazy here). Nobody really liked him and he was generally perceived to be something of an oddball.

This influenced my opinion about the small hydro-pneumatic Citroën and because the car always had that negative connotation, I was never really interested in learning about its virtues until reading S.V. Robinsons’ piece about it for DTWs tenth anniversary. It is however a fascinating car that always stood in the shadow of BX and CX.

Spelling matters | Nissan Cherry N12

Another boy from Kindergarten was proudly sitting in the back seat of his parents new brown-metallic Nissan Cherry N12 with an orange accent stripe. My friends and I thought it was hilariously funny that the car was named after an ill-smelling beverage from the forbidden and locked drinks cabinet in our parents’ living rooms. We laughed a lot and called it the Schnapsauto for many years.

Eventually we learned that the two words are spelled differently and that the car is in fact named after a delicious red fruit. The N12 is an elusive beast now and the very few times I have seen one since, I always smile at the foolish childhood memory.

Numbers matter | Ferrari 250 GTO

My parents went on a trip to Italy in the mid-1980s while my sister and I stayed with our beloved auntie. Asked which Bburago die-cast model I wanted as a souvenir, I excitedly said that a red Ferrari GTO would indeed be lovely as a souvenir.

A week later my parents returned with a big smile and handed me a white plastic bag. Grinning from ear to ear I took the black cardboard box with the golden stripes out of the bag, looked at it… and started to cry instantly because I was so utterly disappointed. Shocked by the tears of horror, they wanted to know what was wrong with the model. It was a red Bburago Ferrari GTO, wasn’t it?

As neither my parents nor my aunt are interested in cars whatsoever, they couldn’t understand my grief. Instead of the card game winning and drop-dead gorgeous brand new Ferrari 288 GTO with the characteristic quad rectangular headlights under the front bumper I had hoped for and told my friends about, they unwittingly had bought an old shitbox that looked like a squashed beetle. I especially hated the three semi-circular air intakes between the headlights and the rather crude old-school wire wheels.

Four decades later I appreciate the 250 GTO for the historically significant car it is and even like the side profile and the rear end – but I will forever despise that front end.

Do you have similar early childhood memories that influenced how much you like or dislike a vehicle? Those sentiments are imprinted in our heads and will seem totally random to other people.

I’m keen to read your stories in the comments.

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Sebastian Motsch   |   instagram @drivebysnapshots