I’ve always been a car girl. At age 7, I was the first to yell “Burn some rubber!” out the window at stoplights and began begging my father for a ’69 Camaro — with flames.

To remind him, I used my acrylic set to paint hundreds of my little brothers’ Hot Wheels black, with red and yellow crab-claw flames licking out the sides of the wheel wells.

Dad, however, was not moved. Sure, he loved cars — more than me — but he was not going to get suckered into picking me up on the side of the road every three months when the brakes, transmission, radiator, carburetor, or whatever else gave out.

When I turned 16 he supplemented my few hundred dollars of savings and helped me buy a nice, used Nissan Altima. Ick.

Well, the first thing I saved up for in my commissions piggy bank was a “real” car — with a capital “C.” Sure, I still desperately wanted the Camaro, but as a young, single, rational Realtor, I thought better of putting 79-year-old Walter and his legally blind wife Adele in the backseat of a ZL-1 427 without seatbelts.