April 16: "The Car Room" by Barry

So you are thinking, I know this blogger loves cars and I know he has a few years under his belt, so what has he been spending his spare time doing over the past years (and years)? Surely he can't be spending all his time with the CMC (Car Modeling Cat)?

Well this story begins on a dark and stormy night, back in the dark ages of 1960, when little Barry, in trying to emulate his big brother, started to build his first model cars. So the answer to the question above is........

Works in progress

 ......I have continued to build these little cars for the past 53 years. And to answer that other question, I absolutely do have a life and a few other interests (my wife, baking, golf, fitness, reading non-fiction, friends). But back to my models. What better way to have any car you can dream of, but couldn't possibly afford in real life. That was the reason I started to build and have since then amassed a reasonable collection......

The early years

My wife has been very supportive and in our home, she has made sure that I have a couple of car rooms for me and my cars (my man cave?) and has even made suggestions as to their displays. Thank you, BC.

My collection covers a variety of interests, for example.......

The Dale Earnhardt section

The police cars

NASCAR

Cars are cars, so I also have a large number of smaller metal cars from Dinky, Corgi, Hot Wheels, Brooklin and others, that I didn't have to build........

These are just cars that I liked the look of. In another room, I have a fairly good selection of the larger 1/18th diecasts (and about 40 in my office). What is all this worth? Who knows, but if I had saved all the money that I've spent on these little autos, can you imagine what I'd have to spend on one large car? Actually, I bought an old collector car a few years back, but that's another story.

These little guys are fun to build and work as a sort of "mental mouthwash"  -  you know, clears the mind while one wrestles a tiny piece of plastic into place. The neat part is that I can drop by my car room for a few minutes or an hour  -  it's always there waiting for me. And if I don't want to work on anything, I can just look or read........

......from my collection of car books covering everything from the classics, to customs, to funeral cars, to police cars, to NASCAR, to drag racing  -  need I go on?

So drop by any time you are in the 'hood and I'll give you a personal tour. You might even see something that brings back a memory or two for you.

Until next time.......