I've tried to avoid responding to this post because it hit's a little too close to home for me, but It's been on my mind all day so I figure I'll just reply in kind.
Had a similar experience, what got me into vehicles and wrenching on cars was my pops getting me to help out with restoration projects from a young age, in hindsight he was far more trusting of me than I would be with a kid of a similar age, I don't have access to them now since they're all the way back in my home country but somewhere I still have polaroids of me around 11 years old, doing welding work on a Mk1 ford capri, and another, roughly the same year, covered in oil working on an engine.
My 12th birthday present was a rusty old TR6 that I worked on for years, finished it a few months before I passed my test (though I had learned how to drive stick by 13 from my pops), he was always there to help and explain the process to fix various things, how to use different tools properly, that sort of thing, and I've carried that knowledge with me ever since.
In the early 2000's when I was still in my late teens, we decided we would restore two cars and do a road trip across europe together in them, we ended up buying a '71 mk1 ford escort (his), and a rustbox Lamborghini Espada, we were making great progress on them both and were looking to have them both fully restored by late 2005, unfortunately in feb of 2004 he was taken ill with a collapsed lung which eventually turned out to be a result of asbestosis from expose to asbestos fibres dumped in a field where he used to play when he was young, after a series of tests he was found to have the early stages of mesothelioma and given an estimate of 8 months, he managed to hold out until july 2015, twice as long as he had been estimated, but the last 2 months were utterly hell.
When he finally passed though, It didn't really hit me that hard, mainly because we had known about it, and in the first 6 or so months he was able to carry on with life as if he were fine, so a lot of things got ticked off the bucket list and I was greatful for having that opportunity, I can't imagine how much harder it is not to have that forewarning and just lose a parent out of the blue.
What *really* hurt though was that a few months after he passed, we had taken a short family holiday on what would have been his birthday, just to spend time as family and remember the good times, but while we were away doing that, thieves broke in to our garage and stole both vehicles, most of the tools, bikes, my old Honda Genesis, basically anything they could grab, so we returned home to find the garage empty, and deep wheel tracks where they had brought in a trailer and taken one car, then come back again a few additional times to take everything else.
At the time my parents house was off on it's own somewhat in the countryside, so despite the police being called neither car was ever found, nor any of the other stuff that was stolen.
I hope some day i'll be able to find a similar spec mk1 escort in a similar state so I can restore it to how my pops was doing his, If i manage that, it'll be a for-life car for sure.
Sorry to drag the thread down with sad stuff like this, just couldn't shake the need to get it out of my system.
