Hello! My name is Zaman. This site is dedicated primarily to my love of American Muscle, yes I am a car guy and an immigrant and nothing is more satisfying than looking at awesome American craftsmanship as the automobile started to take shape here in the U.S.
Let me tell you my Amazing Road to America!
January 1974, we just landed in Dulles International Airport. The place is new, cold and everything from the plane down to silverware are all new to me and the family. I am only five years old, accompanied by my six year brother, older sister, my younger two month old sister, mom and dad. None of us knew a word of English, with the exception of my dad, who knew “excuse me”, “water” and “thank you.”
We get on this monstrous machine after departing the plane, which I now know to be a people mover. From there I stare in wonder at the cars, the buildings, people with red hair, African-Americans, everything is so orderly and neat. We soon arrive to our new home for the next several months, a run-down hotel in Washington D.C.
At the hotel, I get to taste new items, such as orange juice. The floor is so soft because of the carpeting, we never saw carpet before. My brother and I rolled all around the hotel room on the carpet. The family didn’t have any money and people, already in the U.S., were helping us adjust to our new surroundings. First was to get an electric cooker into the hotel so my mom could make some meals that resembled something like what we ate back home. We used the window ledge to put our milk and butter so they would not spoil, since it was winter.
From day one, I have always been one to create a situation, which causes trouble. At the age of four I thought I could walk on water and ran into a pond and quickly sank. Luckily, my dad was close by and rescued me. At three, I decided that killing a caterpillar laced with hundreds of needles would be the most efficient way to get rid of the pest. Of course I spent hours on my mom’s lap after that getting each little needle plucked off, one at a time!
That type of trouble making followed me all the way to America. In the hotel, one of my favorite things to do was push myself around the floor, while lying on my back. I had no idea what an electric socket was for, heck I never saw an electric device before coming to America. Of course, I took a bobby-pin from my mom and pushed myself around on the carpet and stuck the pin into the socket and burned my skin off on both hands. It took a month before I could use my hands again.
Within two months we moved to an apartment in Alexandria, Virginia. As we are moving in, my brother and I are standing and looking out the window watching people coming in and out of the apartment complex. A person from the apartment company helping us get situated was looking at what we were doing. They decided to have some fun. There were two males walking towards the apartments, both with large afros. The person leaned over and gestured for us to wave our hands at them and say “Hey n….” Both just stared at us and shook their heads and move on. My brother and I thought they were very rude for not returning the compliments back to us or at least waving back.
Those first few months were remarkable, amazing, confusing and so memorable. For one to understand, why this was so amazing to me, you have to understand where I came from. My family is from Bangladesh. The war between West Pakistan and East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, had just ended a few years ago. Countless people in Bangladesh lost their lives through genocide. The birth of Bangladesh meant creating diplomatic ties with the outside world. My dad ended up being selected to come to America to be an administrative staff at the newly established Bangladesh Embassy in Washington.
Now, I know you may be thinking how all this little modern marvels could possibly be enough to put the awe and amazement into the face of an immigrant kid like me. Yet, it was. The reason is because my family comes from a very remote village in Bangladesh. When I left, there were no paved roads into or out of the village. A small canoe was really the only way to get to a station located on the river so one had to take a two-hour ride on the canoe just to get on the river boat to Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.
When my brother and I learned that we would be traveling far, far away, we talked about it with the grownups in the village. The one thing that was just unfathomable to me was the fact that when it is night time in Bangladesh, it would be daytime where I am going to. I just didn’t know how to accept that.
So, here is a child and his siblings that have never seen running water, electricity, paved roads, carpeting, eating utensils, motorized transportation and many other things that are taken for granted, coming to a world that is completely different. Hindsight, it is very much like jumping into a time machine and traveling 100-years in the future.
I still have chills looking back at where I came from, where I am and what could have been.
I was introduced to cars at a very early stage along with my brother. We were dirt poor as a family and when my father saved up enough money to purchase an old beat up Datsun B210, it would break all the time. He was holding down three jobs and by the time he came home, he was too tired to really do anything. One day the alternator stopped working. He gave a refurbished one to us and told us to replace it. We had no idea what we were doing, but eventually got it replaced. That was the start of my love of cars.
My first car was this very same 1968 Oldsmobile 4-4-2 Convertible, after I had to sell it, I purchased a 1985 1/2 Ford Escort, then it was a 1987 Mustang GT 5.0, later a 1989 Ford Thunderbird SC, soon a GEO Prizm, Mazda 3, Ford Explorer LTD (1995, 1997, and 1998), 2001 Acura MDX, 2003 Toyota Corolla (still have it), 2004 BMW 745i, 2007 BMW 650i, 2009 BMW 750i, 2013 Audi S8, 2016 Audi S8 Plus, and a 2015 Lexus RX350.
I was able to repurchase the 1968 Oldsmobile 4-4-2 Convertible in 1998 form a gentleman near Boston. That started my dreams, which lead to my journey.
I also want to thank my wife, Luna for allowing me to keep my passion alive and to my family, what a journey it’s been!
