‘Three weeks later was the Indy 500, one of the biggest races in the world. My parents decided that as a family vacation for my ninth birthday, we’d do a road trip from Delaware to Indianapolis to see the race. For me, as a little kid, riding in the back of my parents’ first new Porsche, going to this race, parking in this sea of cars, was pretty special.
Readers of a jealous disposition should look away now… Zwart had his first ‘proper’ driving lesson in a Porsche. And not just any old Porsche. ‘In the United States the deal was that at 15 and half you could get your learner’s permit and at 16 you could get your driver’s licence. One Sunday when I was 15 my dad said, “Today, we’re going to teach you how to drive.” We had two cars in our family at that stage, a Volkswagen Beetle and a.
Could any father have done more? Apparently so. At least in Zwart’s case. ‘From aged about 12, I had a paper route,’ he says. ‘My dad said OK, you can spend half your money, but the other half has to go into investments in the stock market. I could choose what stocks to buy and when I graduated from high school I could take the money out and spend it how I wished.‘At the end of all that, the stocks I’d chosen had done really, really well and I had enough money to buy my first car.