REEL LIFE / FILM & VIDEO FILE : 1st-Grader’s Antics Launched Lifelong Love of Cars : The last 30 of Jim Brucker’s vintage movie star vehicles include the 1930 Lincoln sedan whose ‘oooogga’ horn first caught his attention.

It was a middle finger that pointed Jim Brucker toward his lifelong obsession with cars.

Brucker collects vintage sedans, old race cars and cars such as the “Topper” coupe that Cary Grant piloted in the 1937 movie of the same name. For a time he even owned the Bonnie and Clyde death car--the real one, he said.

At one point, the 52-year-old Santa Paula native, whose family has extensive land holdings in Ventura County, estimates that he and his late father owned as many as 1,000 cars, all of them part of a company that leased special autos to Hollywood studios.

When Brucker and his dad bought the company in 1959, it was not to be in the leasing business but to own the cars.

“Then we decided we might as well stay in the business because we got lots of leads on other (collectible) cars,” he said.

That collection eventually became a museum named Movieworld, Cars of the Stars. It operated in Buena Park until 1979, when the museum was closed and the contents moved to Santa Paula. Most were eventually auctioned off during a two-day sale in 1993.

Brucker is down to about 30 cars now, yet with all his buying and selling, he still has the first car he ever owned as well as the car that jump-started his passion, a 1930 Lincoln sedan.

“I was in the first grade at Somis Elementary School,” Brucker said. This guy “had a 1930 Lincoln sedan with an ‘oooogga’ horn. He’d drive by, honk the horn and flip us the bird. It got to be a tradition. About lunch time we’d all be waiting for him, he’d honk and flip us the bird. That’s when I got hooked on cars.”

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Scott Aichner, Ventura’s contribution to the surf film industry, has just come out with a body-boarding video.

“Bent” marks the first time Aichner, 24, had a sponsor for one of his projects. Toobs, a leading manufacturer of body boards, gave Aichner $12,000 to shoot and edit the picture. “Bent” differs from his first two videos, “Ventura the Surf Movie” and “V2 and Beyond,” in that the settings are international. His first two films were shot largely in Ventura.

“It was a little nerve-racking,” he said of making a picture for someone else. “These are investors who expect a profit.”

Working for someone else also required some flexibility. When Aichner captured a body boarder, who is not sponsored by Toobs, sharing a wave with a boarder who is sponsored, executives decided to rub out the interloper. Aichner said computer gurus used a high-end Macintosh to replace him with a patch of water.

The 30-minute video has lots of angry water curling overhead and a lots of thrash music underneath. But even if you’re not an aficionado of such videos, “Bent” does have one characteristic that is immediately distinguishable. The tape case is green. Aichner explained the reason.

“Surfers usually don’t shelve their videos,” he said. “So it’s like: ‘Dude, let’s watch a video tonight.’

“ ‘Yeah! Which one?’ ”

“ ‘Uhh, the green one.’ ”

All three of Aichner’s tapes are available at local surf shops. Prices range from $15 to $20.

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If you’ve always had a burning desire to learn more about how movies and television shows are cast, Learning Tree University is offering a class May 20 with the casting director of “Picket Fences.”

Richard Pagano will explain what casting directors look for in actors. The class, which lasts from 1 to 4 p.m., will be held at Learning Tree’s Chatsworth campus.