John Tyler Wilson
August 10, 2011
My name is John Tyler Wilson and I’m 14 years old, from Livingston, La., I am the official Youth Reporter for Hagerty’s Operation Ignite!, which is a program built to connect kids with cars.
The Youth Reporter Contest may be what I won, but a job to share the hobby with you is what I received. My assignment is to attend car shows and report on the events and my sightings. For my first event, my parents and I jumped on a plane from Louisiana to Plymouth, Mich., for the Concours d’Elegance of America at St. John’s.
Event day started at four o’clock in the morning to join the rest of the awesome Hagerty team at Concours of America to experience my first hours of Dawn Patrol. We stood at the entrance of the Concours’ show field to welcome the show cars onto the field as they rolled in and serve the classic car owners coffee and donuts—certainly adequate motivation to wake up at 4 a.m.!
The cars were some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen— including a very rare 1938 Mercedes-Benz 540K Autobahn Kurrier, which was built to suit the Autobahn roadways in Germany!
I also had the opportunity to interview many classic car owners, which included Ken Lingenfelter of Lingenfelter Performance Engineering. I also met Barry Wolk, who is a collector of cars named “Continental,” such as his 1933 Continental Flyer, and is a really cool guy! I also had the opportunity to meet Wayne Carini (host of TV show “Chasing Classic Cars”) who gave me some tips on how to interview and what to ask when inquiring about a car’s specifications. If there’s one thing I noticed about Wayne, it was his amazing car knowledge. If I pointed to any car, he was able to tell me anything and everything about it including the era it was built, its design, and much more. I want the same fluency in car language as Wayne has, so when I go to car shows with a friend and we approach the finest looking car he’s ever seen, I can explain the details and history.
Attending this car show and meeting so many interesting people has helped me realize that I want to continue to be involved with and learn about cars. Many years down the road, I don’t want to look back and say, “I miss that automotive thing I did back then.”
There are several more events to come and I will be sharing my experiences with you. I hope you will jump on board and take a ride with me as I share the classic car hobby with you!
Until next time, this is Hagerty’s Operation Ignite! Youth Reporter, John Tyler Wilson, signing off.