Growing up in Germany as I did, the 1st cars that I remember seeing were BMW's. Growing up as a American diplomat's kid I was use to seeing the big Cadillacs and Lincolns, but to me at that time they were just work cars. A perk for diplomats was you could have your personal cars shipped to where you were stationed at the embassy. One day I was getting dressed for school when I heard and felt the embassy compound shake with a loud engine noise. I looked out the window and there was a navy blue car I couldn't identify, it wasn't a Cadillac or Lincoln. It had a sinister look about it, it had stacked headlights it's meshed grille came to a point with a emblem I had never seen before. As I left for school I slowly walked past that car, it had three little letters on the right side of the grille, they said GTO. The new guy at the embassy got out of the car and said "How do you like her kid?", I said what kind of car is that, to which he responded "That's a 1967 Pontiac GTO!". It was love at 1st sight for me and that car, I couldn't get enough of that car, I would use any excuse to get close to it. I went to the library to read about it, Pontiac and GM (This is like 1978, I was like 9 years old, no internet in those days). Before long I knew all the makes and models of GM, which made me appreciate the embassy Cadilliac fleet even more knowing they were GM cars too.
The guy that owned the GTO saw how much I loved it and suggested that maybe I should write to GM in Detroit, Michigan. That seemed like a million miles away to me, but write I did. About 3 months (it took about a month for regular mail to go to the USA) went by and a package arrived for me at the embassy. When I looked at the return address I saw one thing and one thing only, stamped on the front was "PONTIAC MOTOR DIVISION". It was a huge box, loaded with the current model of Pontiac car brochures and every old Pontiac brochure that they must have had laying around back to 1965. Not only that, they also sent brochures from other GM divisions too. There was a very nice letter from the current general manager at that time. I still have the box, letter an the brochures locked away in storage.
I wasn't even ten years old yet and I knew I was going to work for GM someday, all because of that 1967 Pontiac GTO.
I have to say it's great having a job you actually love to do, but to do it with a company you love too, it's beyond words.
Enthusiast you say? Not at all!