How I Got Into Cars

(or: My Automotive Journey from Hong Kong to Canada or: Why I am Writing About Cars Now)

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to write about cars.

I didn't come from an automotive family. None of my family members liked cars all that much. My dad, when I was a kid, once told me that the lump in the middle of the rear seat passenger footwell was the driveshaft -- he drove a 1990 Nissan Sunny. He later replaced that ball of sheer driving pleasure with a 1997 Toyota Regius -- a passenger van that was converted from the HiAce, which is Toyota's version of a giant box on wheels. He still drives that today.

It's not like I was born into an automotive hotbed like Detroit or Stuttgart either. Instead, I was born and raised in Hong Kong, a city built on one of the most sophisticated public transport systems in the world.

And yet, I have always appreciated cars -- or should I say, motoring -- for as long as I remember.

Hong Kong, if you didn't know, was a British colony for over 150 years. It is also in the middle of Asia. What this means in motoring terms is that you'd see a fascinating mixture of European and Japanese Domestic Market cars running around on the roads, which means for every Galant, Bluebird, or a Starlet, you'd see a Rover 416 or a Clio - not something you'd normally see anywhere else in the world.

Even our public transport, We had British-made double-decker buses running alongside JDM Toyota Coaster minibuses and Crown / Cedric diesel taxis. For some reason, many of those happen to be equipped with a manual gearbox, including the school bus that I used to ride daily to my elementary school. In many ways, that was my first lesson in learning about gearing.

I think the first time I started putting my eggs in the automotive basket was when I was old enough to start riding around in a bus. Back in the early 90s, the dominant buses in Hong Kong were the likes of the Leyland Victory Mk II and the MCW Metrobus. They were massive, loud, uncomfortable, and almost industrial in their rawness -- I particularly enjoyed the sound of the Gardner engines, often so loud that the entire bus would shake at idle. To a... slightly weird 6-year-old kid, that was just the coolest thing. At that point, I have yet to experience a better driving thrill than sitting front row on the second floor of these buses while it's being piloted by a driver you don't even see. I could almost pretend that I was the one driving the bus.

"At that point, I have yet to experience a better driving thrill than sitting front row on the second floor of these buses while it's being piloted by a driver you don't even see." 

In fact, when I was going through one of those "what I want to be when I grow up" exercises that kids used to do, I told my teachers that I wanted to grow up and drive a bus. Alas, they misheard me and thought that I wanted to drive a Benz. I wasn't happy about that.

Didn't matter anyway, as I soon developed a taste for everything else on wheels, through the acquisition of toy cars and video games. Those games was my first exposure to cars like the Lamborghini Diablo, Dodge Viper, and the McLaren F1 (or, as I liked to think, the car that beats every other car).

Our apartment was also within walking distance to a Mercedes Benz dealership, which naturally meant that, in my mind, it was the only manufacturer that made good cars. Imagine the day when my dad brought home his pride and joy - the aforementioned used 1990 Nissan Sunny, only to be met by my tepid approval, on the sole virtue that it didn't carry a three-pointed star on the hood. I wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the drawer.

From there my interest grew until one day in 1997, when my mom bought me a car magazine. It was a now-defunct Hong Kong version of Car and Driver.

September 1997 issue of Car and Driver.

The cover featured a brand-new Porsche 996 Carrera (designed by, somewhat appropriately, a Hong Kong-born designer, Pinky Lai). The magazine wasn't just about the launch of the 996 though. In the same magazine was a review of the Mitsubishi Pajero, a Nissan R33 GT-R, a feature of the Ferrari 355, an update on the German Grand Prix and even - of all things - a quick review of Radiohead's OK Computer in the music section.

Not many things has changed my life trajectory more than this magazine has managed.

I never really grew up with Disney cartoons, Nickelodeon, or Pokemon. What I did have, at the age of 8, was a regular update on the entire automotive industry, in the form of a monthly subscription. To my parents who never had high hopes for me to begin with, thought that it was a good thing I was reading anything at all.

So instead of worshiping A-list movie and TV stars like many of my friends did, I spent time following local journalists like Edmond Lau, Kevin Wong, Donny Ng, Au Yeung Kwok On, and the likes. I wouldn't blame you if you've never heard of any of them.

During my most formative years, they have given me a monthly lesson on automotive history, design, engineering, driving technique, culture, and all the fantastically nerdy things that you could ever know. There was no prejudice against any manufacturers, because with a motoring culture as diverse as Hong Kong, everyone got equal coverage -- from JDM minivans to European superminis. This also predate the boom of automotive TV shows, as Best Motoring was entirely in Japanese, and this pokey motoring show called Top Gear was not yet a worldwide phenomenon as it later became.

Thanks to the work of these automotive journalists, who spent their life writing and educating me about cars, my answer had switched from wanting to be a bus driver to wanting to become an automotive journalist.

From there, I started going raiding car dealerships, hoarding catalogs, and even joined an internet car forum. On days when I had some extra money saved up, I even went to a local bookstore and splurged on the British magazines like Top Gear and EVO. They are the big leagues.

This being the early 2000s, the best thing about the internet was, of course, meeting complete strangers. With internet car forums came cars-and-coffee events. Imagine going to a cars and coffee and there was an unsupervised 14-year-old brat running around. I was that kid. My family never bothered to join me in these excursions, of course.

One of my first ever cars and coffee session, 2004.

All of that went away for a while when I, like all Asian kids out there, had to focus in school. By the time I moved to Canada in 2006, I officially stopped being a car person for a good couple years. University and depression would do that to you.

It wasn't until I bought my first manual transmission car -- a B5.5 Passat wagon -- in 2012 when I rediscovered why I liked cars. The sheer satisfaction I had learning how to drive a manual -- using my combined experience of observing my school bus driver as a kid, reading about it in car magazines, plus my virtual driving hours on Need for Speed and Gran Turismo 2 -- dropped me back into this world. It is refreshing to be involved in some proper driving experience again.

Now I daily drive a two-door manual coupe and a BMW 635CSi coupe made in the 1980s, which ironically, reminds me a bit of riding in one of those loud old British Leyland buses, providing a similar level of crassness and personality. Thanks to my commitment to these "passion", I am also pretty damn broke.

Which brings me to why I am starting this blog, which is probably my 5th or 6th attempt at going back to writing since I graduated from University.

In the age of easy-to-digest video reviews and Instagram influencers, the amount of people who write about cars is dwindling. It's also not that simple, of course, as the market's passion for cars erodes day by day as automakers focus more on convenience, cheap thrills, and the ideology that drivers should be insulated from their cars. Old-fashioned car enthusiasts like me are going the way of the Dodo.

I think that's sad, because I think young auto enthusiasts like me 20 years ago could do with a little bit more nerd-like materials like the inner workings of a Rotary engine (a subject I plan on covering in the future), and a little less "hey check out this cool 20-inch screen I stapled to the dashboard of my Tesla!" When I say young auto enthusiasts, I am referring to 6-year-old nephew, and (hopefully?) my 2-year-old niece.

With COVID-19 still wrecking havoc across the globe and me locked into my place alone for over a month, I am officially running out of things to do. One night, I suddenly remembered a conversation I had with my friends a couple months back, with them asking me why I never pursued career in automotive writing.

Of course, I gave them plenty of reasons why it's not such a good idea anymore -- how there just isn't money in it, how PR teams for automakers are bullying many of those journalists into giving them a puff piece -- but deep down, my 14-year-old self was mocking me senseless for coming up with excuses not to do it.

"Thanks to the work of these automotive journalists, who spent their life writing and educating me about cars, my answer had switched from wanting to be a bus driver to wanting to become an automotive journalist."

Richard Hammond was a radio DJ before hopping onto Top Gear. Doug DeMuro worked a corporate career at Porsche before he jumped to Jalopnik. Chris Harris was probably a mere mortal at some point before he became the automotive God that he is now. Same thing with Jason Cammisa, Kristen Lee, Alanis King Jones, Rory Reid, Patrick George, and so many great journalists out there doing the things they love.

Will I ever be as good as those people? Hell no. But then I am not trying to be. I just want to stop being so bloody jealous of them. They seem to be having so much fun.

There was a time when I absolutely enjoyed talking about cars. I would just like to do that again. All the better, of course, if someone - anyone - out there would enjoy reading my stuff, but honestly, that's optional. I just want to have some fun.

If just my nephew (and my niece of course) finds enjoyment in reading any of my random automotive ramblings during their formative years -- like I did when I was a kid -- then I'd be ecstatic.

Watch this space.