The Little Boy Who Loves Cars

Recently my brother wrote in his blog about my son who amazed him with his uh, ability to recognize car makes. He actually began to show fondness to vehicles when he was a bit younger, well make that when he was 2 years old! Call me irresponsible but among his first toys were the Shell Ferrari collection! When Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen hit our shores, I bought almost the entire collection of the main characters' toys (it's for me actually) - when bought they stay in their robot modes but nowadays all have been transformed to their vehicle modes. His favorite? Bumblebee (Chevy Camaro), Sideswipe (Chevy Corvette Stingray concept) and Skids (Chevy Beat concept).

One trait he shares with his sister is his love of magazines. Of course he is still unable to read - he's just attracted to the colourful pictures in them, be it pics of Mickey, Spongebob or Upin and Ipin.  But since a couple of months back, I sense that he is more interested in real cars! Previously I mentioned that he is fond of the caharacters in the animated movie Cars, he is now more interested in real cars! He is especially fond of the current model of Mitsubishi Lancer and goes 'Wow!' whenever he sees one ( a neighbour owns one, and without fail he will turn his head towards the neighbour's yard whenever we pass tin front of his house). Furthermore I indulge in his passion of cars by telling and showing him the various marques of cars, from Perodua to Rolls-Royce. So basically he recognises the car makes through their marques. Even so, he still confuses the prancing horse of Ferrari with the lion of Peugeot (which makes him say that Pak Ngah's former car was a Ferrari!) or the Honda marque with Volkswagen's. Or that every Proton is a Persona....

But what I find more amazing (maybe not, but interesting nevertheless) is his ability to recognise shapes. Sure, all 3 year olds do but just how many can recognise the grill pattern of a Merc,or a Rolls? One of his favorite 'reading material' nowadays is a copy of Auto Trader...plenty of car pics. Even though the pics are rather small, he can recognise most of the cars, especially the high-end ones (even though the marques are mostly blurry).I believe that is why he can recognise an Alphard recently even though his view was restricted. I wonder if we have a budding Paul Tan or Jeremy Clarkson here?