How right you are, my fellow Americanophiles. But, admit it, now you're hooked, you just can't turn the page, can you? Let's face it, if you're reading a class mag. like this you're already hooked on rock 'n roll, classic Yanks and everything that goes with it. By the time you realise this is another one of those 'how I got my dream American car what I always wanted' sort of stories, it's just toooo late... But, think it over, maybe you've been at it for years and just maybe you need a reminder to stop and smell the vinyl.

So where do we start? How do any of us tune into our particular car? Maybe you're an Elvis fan so a pink Caddy is an easy shot. Or you've watched Christine a few dozen times so a '58 Plymouth Fury is a must. Or maybe you're a novice, and if you are then it just has to be a Chevy... Chevy, the very name just sounds right, sounds cool, pulls up images of blue jeans with big turn-ups, white tee-shirts, greasy hair and a cigarette butt behind the ear (who said 'and that's just the women'?). I found out recently there really was a Monsieur Chevrolet who ran the GM Division. Thank God it wasn't a Monsieur de Gaulle, drove ma Gooly to the levee just doesn't have the same ring somehow. And me? Strictly novice class, new kid on the block (small block, 283 cu in) but I'm learning. I'm a fifty-something scientist (not quite a '58 yet, Pete!), living and working in Cambridgeshire with wife, dog and two point nought children, mostly away at College (just the kids, not the dog). Like the rest of you, I've always been hooked on those big, shiny beasts with wall-to-wall chrome, a V8 burbling along on whitewall tyres, and all the glitz that goes with them. For me, it's always been the 50's cars - pure fantasy stuff, James Dean, Roy Orbison, the Everlys, Jerry Lee, Gene Vincent and, most of all, Buddy Holly. OK, so I've got the complete Buddy Holly collection and I've seen Buddy the musical a few hundred times. So what? That doesn't make me a fanatic, does it? Again, maybe (baby), like most of you, whenever the thought crossed my mind of actually owning a classic American car, it was a case of 'Huh, that'll be the day, you've got more chance of being run over by one than owning one'.

I guess my appetite was really whetted, watching Gary Olsen driving a 50's American car in the TV series 'Two point Four Children' around 1995 - you remember it? I didn't know it was a fifties Chevy Bel Air. I didn't know anything much about American cars, but I sure as Hell knew what I liked! As Jeremy Clarkson says 'If this don't get your stuff going, your stuff ain't working!' I used to video the programme, just to freeze frame and drool (and try to read the name of the car). But I guessed, wrongly, that machines like these were only for the filthy rich...and filthy famous. Not long after, early 1996, I was browsing through a Sunday paper supplement and stumbled across an advert for a die-cast model. It practically leapt out of the page at me! A lip-smackin' photo of a great, green thang with wrap-around chrome, twin headlights, a fabulous front bumper (sorry, fender) and grille, whitewall tyres and...and...The advert simply said 'The 1958 Chevrolet Impala'... but I guess it didn't matter any more, this was it, love at first sight. I had found my personal dream car. Except I wasn't rich and famous, so dream on. The combination of the style (and what style!), the legendary name...Chevy...and the year, 1958, the last year of Buddy Holly's short career before the music died in Feb 1959, was irresistible. Anyhow, I decided I'd at least try and see one in the flesh. Somewhere I had heard there was an American car show at Billing in mid June '96. So what the Hell, I took the trip with elder daughter, Emma. We turned up on a sunny weekend. Would they let us in? After all we were rank amateurs, not members, and driving a Honda Prelude (nice car but wrong country, and definitely wrong era). No problem, we were welcome. The people were great and very friendly, something I've found ever since. And the cars were a feast for the eyes (remember your first meeting?). Mind boggling legendary names - Caddys, Chevys, Plymouths, Buicks, Fords (Fords??). We scoured the place and, at last, I found my first Impala. But it was an early '60's job, great car but quite different to the '58. We found several '59 and early 60's Impalas...but not a '58 in sight! But the really good news was most of these cars were actually affordable on a good day, not the tens of thousands I imagined. Feeling this was a great day out, but disappointed, I picked up some magazines at a stand. Back home, I was browsing through a back issue when the headline leapt out at me...Buddy Holly's 1958 Impala Found!! 'Unbelievable' was hardly the word, Fate...Kismet...maybe. Spooky was more like it! The article featured the Peggy Sue (she really is still around!) and described how a Texas DJ, Bill Clements of the famous KDAV radio station, had recently found the car in a scrapyard and was restoring it. So, my fate was sealed, nothing else would do. As Will Smith said in Independence Day when he took off in the alien spacecraft 'I gotta get me one of these!!' Trouble was, it was becoming horribly clear that '58 Impalas were as rare as rocking horse droppings, at least in the UK.