Here's my story, as bad as it seems I was hooked ever since I saw Fast and the Furious in theaters back in the day. I thought those black civics in the opening scene were the coolest thing ever. I know I know....ricer right?
Take it easy on me, I was only like 12 or 13 at the time. Two weeks later I was at a bookstore with my mom when I saw some car magazines called Sport Compact Car and Super Street. I BEGGED my mom to pick me up one of each. I finally convinced her to get me the magazines and I swear I didn't put those things down for a good year! I took them to school, read them over and over again, checked out all the websites the ads had. It was crazy! I remember planning out my first car and drawing it with different body kits, rims, and interiors. I also made parts lists for all the things I wanted. I guess I didnt really understand the value of a dollar back then because I think my first car I "designed" had a 10 grand stereo system in it 
Surprisingly I never liked altezzas tail lights to much. But being that young I really liked underglow. But I like to think that everyone had a "ricer" stage at some point and time. Well sure enough I turned 15.5 years old and was able to get my permit. My father said I should start looking for a first car. I was working as a busboy at some restaurant making a whole $95 a week! One of the servers had a 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee limited edition that had a blown engine he wanted off his hands. I talked to him about it and he settled for $400. Another $400 for a junkyard engine and I did all the work myself and had a nice looking rig complete with the "pimp daddy gold package"
I think having that Jeep diverted me away from the ricer thing. God only knows if I had a civic or something it would've been glowing shit show. and just for the record I still have those 2 magazines and while they have no covers and pages have fallen out I don't think I could ever get rid of them.
After I "matured" a little bit after having the Jeep I bought my PR4 Red 1st gen 2 door for myself as a graduation present and after my timing belt snapped 4 days after owning it I joined some Neon forums and never left.
With the neon I was introduced to auto-x and I think I will always have a neon in my "dream" garage...along with another Jeep Grand Cherokee 
I later moved and all my friends had better cars then me. I got my first ticket street racing my friend in her beat up old ford POS (forget what it was) Anyway I lost. So I traded the Accord for a 96 Civic hatch. Bright red. I loved that car. It was light it was a stick and it was cheap. A bunch of stereo mods a lot of red paint and some mesh I had a cool looking car. (if you like rice) I was a street racing dumb ass. Used to race my buddy in his Nissan sentra constantly. He always lost. So I drove that thing into the ground. Cracked the stock exhaust manifold during a raining Auto-X event. The trans was toasted the clutch was gone the exhaust manifold was cracked the interior was a mess. So I started looking on-line for a another car. I wanted something I could mod and would be good on an Auto-X event. I found the Howell-Automotive store and Neons.org and I new my next car would be a neon. I was going to get a used 1ST Gen but my brother talked me into getting a new one with a warranty. So I purchased my first 2002 SXT. And it just went down hill from there. a dozen or so different cars later and a whole lot of money, blood, sweat, tears and a lot of speeding tickets here I am.
