How It Began For Wayne Carini In “Steering Through Life”

PORTLAND, CT – He’s spent his life pursuing, restoring, selling, collecting and just admiring classic cars. Now Wayne Carini is out with a book about his experiences that contains the backstory. Published in late October, the succinctly titled “Steering Through Life” mixes photos with storytelling and is the prelude to a series of books.

“‘Steering Through Life’ is about my life. That’s basically it,” he said last month. It was a short response to a question and one that provided an on ramp to a longer recollection of how he became famous as host of the long-running TV show “Chasing Classic Cars.”

Seated behind the desk in his office at F40 Motorsports, his car business in Portland, Carini recalled that his father restored cars and introduced him to the process while he was in high school.

“He made me work but it wasn’t like I was toiling over it. I already enjoyed it. I didn’t get to do some of the things my friends did like play baseball or basketball or do anything like that because my father made me work every day,” he said.

“It paid off in the long run because I have that work ethic. But I took on restoring cars and I bought the business from him.”

It wasn’t until 2006 that Donald Osborne wrote a story for the “The New York Times” titled “Your First Love, and Your Last Love” that launched his fame. It recounted how, when he was 16, Carini spotted a rare Hudson Italia model that had been brought into his father’s shop. He was smitten but wasn’t offered the opportunity to buy it until he was 52. 

The newspaper story provided the details. The day after its publication, Carini received a call from a production company that resulted in “Chasing Classic Cars.” The show had a lasting impact on Carini and on TV viewers. Carini provided the show’s specs – 18 seasons,  218 episodes, shown in more than 100 countries with his voice dubbed into 38 languages.

“It took off. It became this huge thing. I became the most famous car guy in the world because of television, and I knew a little bit about cars. And what I didn’t, I know who to call. That’s the best way of doing things,” he said.

“It’s been a great ride and I want to sort of tell everybody about my life before that happened and the book sort of finishes as we started the show ‘Chasing Classic Cars.’”

Like with most folks, life has presented Carini with unexpected twists and challenges. 

“I want people to know where I came from and what I’ve gone through (in) life. I think they can learn from it. We have an autistic daughter and that became a blessing in disguise. At first it wasn’t such a blessing but it’s been a fantastic journey…,” he said.

And the journey isn’t over. 

With “Steering Through Life” now on sale, Carini is now looking ahead to five or six additional books devoted to “Chasing Classic Cars” subjects; “taking you behind the scenes of ‘Chasing Classic Cars’ instead of what you saw on television. It’s going to be behind the curtain of what happened.”

“Steering Through Life” is available on Amazon for $59.