When you are a 10-year-old "automaniac", model cars are about as close as most kids get to making decisions on what cars they would like to own. Trips to the newsstand and bookstores help, but everything costs money.

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The post-World War II period created a lot of youthful auto enthusiasts. During the war everyone wore their cars out and those late 1930s and early 1940s models had to be replaced. In 1946 everyone wanted a new car and military veterans were first in line.

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Meanwhile, gathering up brochures and spreading them out over the dining room table, parents discussed the virtues of Packard, Hudson, Nash, Pontiac, and the dozens of makes and models to choose from.

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Wide-eyed children peered at these brochures with excitement as their parents made decisions… usually the wrong ones! Why would their parents argue whether the sedan should be blue or gray when the obvious choice was the red convertible?

Once the car was ordered the brochures became the property of the kids. The buying experience would be repeated every few years and the period in between produced flyers, postcards and brochures sent by auto dealers in hopes of drawing the customers back into the showrooms. As teenagers grow up, the pile in the closet grows and a collector has been established all in preparation for the first car of their own.

THE YEARS PAST
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1955 Ford Thunderbird	1957 Packard	1959 Chrysler	1963 Pontiac
1965 Ford Mustang	1970 Pantera by DeTomaso	1972 Dodge	1978 Chrysler LeBaron
1982 Chevrolet Camaro	1987 Cadillac Allante	1992 Vector	1998 Ferrari

The odds are that you now own one or more collector cars and you have an interesting collection of literature. Congratulations. You now have a degree in "Automotology" the study of automobiles in which you learn to turn dreams into reality.