donau

I would be curious to know what factors have influenced the members of this forum to become fans of one or more german car brands.

I guess my own story would be a combination of upbringing and the discovery later in life that the german car brands for the most part are premium car brands.
For the first 6 years of my life I was driven in my grandfathers 1952 MB Va170 with suicide doors and all. This is because at the time my father did not yet own a car of his own. All the while I was also told that MBs are the best cars in the world. Then came my fathers first car, the "Donau" or Auto Union 1000S of which I was really proud. Then came DKW F102 of which I wasn't all that proud but nevertheless, the identification of which cars belonged to my blood had been accomplished.

Anyone else care to share a short story?

Star&Car

I can't recall how i bacame a german car fan,but i guess it 's as long as my history of being an autofan.
Anyway i think my own story would back to my childhood..When i was a little kid,my father bought me a huge plastic yellow electronic model truck as a birthday gift(now i'm aware of it was a Catterpillar-like tipper truck )..It was a love at first sight,since then,I incurably became an auto lover,however,i think i'm a born auto fanatic..

shonguiz

My Dad bought many BMWs.

MikeJ

My first word was "auto".

Apparently I was able to tell the difference between marques before reaching the age of four, but I have to admit it took me a much longer time to learn to tell the difference between good cars and bad ones. I suppose it was when I started reading car magazines regularly at about twelve years of age or so that I began to appreciate the elegant styling and advanced engineering of German cars. However, I'm not as dedicated to German cars as many others on this forum; I appreciate the better efforts of other car-building nations as well.

donau

I can appreciate that. Since there are a lot of people who would stick with a particular brand thru thick and thin I was just curious to find out what type of factors went into this. I would think there are other kinds of factors as well, other than performance numbers.

Yaz

I’ve always loved MB’s since I was a little kid.
I loved seeing all those W126 and W140 S-Class in a presidential motorcade back home in the Middle East. So when I went to visit my family a couple years ago, I got myself a W140 S600. That’s when I really started loving MB’s more and more. I also love BMW’s. My cousin has owned many BMW’s and I loved them all.

siko

When I was a kid in Poland, I had a blue MatchBox VW Buggie. It was the toy I took with me everywhere, the toy I had to have when going to bed... not some blankie, not some teddy bear, but a VW Beettle.

We moved to Germany when I was about four. By the time we left to Canada (when I was six), I was obsessed with cars to the point it drove my mother insane (when driving, I used to name all the cars on street).

Even though these I was probably too young to embedded a GC identity during my brief stay in Germany, I know GCs marked my father.

So I guess my true influence is a bit of a childhood obsession with cars, and a GC fanatic dad!