Is our hobby, growing or skrinking?

[JunkPile]

Nothing is educational to a "know it all"

[ERIK88]

There's plenty to learn by doing models. We even learn about how to model safely and care for our health.

Caring for our health knowledge can be helpful when doing a home project or you might know proper painting techniques in another area, handling humidity, spray patterns , different paints, sanding techniques, etc

Nothing is educational to a "know it all"

Very true lol

[Harry P.]

Hmmm, questioning whether model building is educational?

From a personal point of view, it's been very educational for me, and I don't mean merely "how to build, and how to build better" either. Model building of all subject areas has opened up a lot of education, not only for this now-white-haired developing geezer, but countless others. When you think about it, many of us have learned not just about cars, but how they were/are designed, much of "the how's and why's different types of cars and trucks developed as they did; even a lot about the history of our country in the 20th Century.

If one, as an automotive model builder does any research at all (online, in print, or even "asking the man who owns one", exposed me to far more than the shapes, colors, engine types. What about the environment in and surrounding the real vehicles of which our model cars and trucks are miniature representations?

I'm rather amazed how, over these past 61 years (and counting still) I've learned FAR MORE about all the things that existed around the cars I build, the companies that built them, the people who sold, serviced and drove them. In short, a lot of history, even sociology (not to mention the science and engineering behind automobiles and their supporting infrastructure (and even the infrastructure out there that automobiles themselves support).

So, educational? You bet!

Art

The vast majority (if not all) of what you learned about cars was done so on your own initiative through your own interest and research, not by building a model kit.

You say that "When you think about it, many of us have learned not just about cars, but how they were/are designed, much of "the how's and why's different types of cars and trucks developed as they did; even a lot about the history of our country in the 20th Century."

But you didn't learn any of that by building models. Building models did not teach you how a car was designed, it did not teach you why cars and trucks were developed as they were, it did not teach you the history of the country in the 20th century. Building a model kit teaches you none of those things. Those things were learned by you via other methods. Based on your age, mostly books until recently, then the internet.

Building a model car may be fun, it may give you pleasure and a sense of satisfaction for a job well done... but it does not teach you the things you listed.

[Harry P.]

It probably helped that my dad was an engineer and could answer most of my questions.

There you go. There's where you learned.

[Harry P.]

It helped me gain knowledge of how each system operates...

Explain to me how building model cars gave you the knowledge to understand how each system operates.

[JunkPile]

Case and point.

[Harry P.]

Most people have only the vaguest notion about how cars work. They'd almost certainly get a much better idea from building a model.

Tell me how building a model car will teach you how a real car works.

If you have no idea how a car works, how will putting together a model car change that?

What you will learn is how to put a plastic kit together. That hardly relates to the function of a 1/1 car.

[rustbucket82]

Case and point.

I see what you did there, and agree 110% Some people just can't let things go and want to cause drama.

[martinfan5]

I see what you did there, and agree 110% Some people just can't let things go and want to cause drama.

Its sad, but it makes the world go round

Edited September 7, 2013 by martinfan5

[ERIK88]

Tell me how building a model car will teach you how a real car works.

If you have no idea how a car works, how will putting together a model car change that?

What you will learn is how to put a plastic kit together. That hardly relates to the function of a 1/1 car.

Because it will develop your curiousity to want to know howa car operates when your building it, putting it together. You want to learn what a v8, v6 means. It develops your mind to explore into other areas lmao.

[Dave Ambrose]

Tell me how building a model car will teach you how a real car works.

If you have no idea how a car works, how will putting together a model car change that?

What you will learn is how to put a plastic kit together. That hardly relates to the function of a 1/1 car.

For me, it was more of a curiosity stimulant than a source of information. It caused me to ask questions. I needed multiple sources too. My dad was a smart guy. He could talk for an hour on how rocket motors work, chamber profiles and pressures, and the role of the nozzle, and why you want different shapes as you get more altitude. But, he couldn't tell me very much about cars. Fortunately, my brother in law was willing to put up with a snotty-nosed kid asking a lot of questions about cars. I can't really tell you how I got interested in cars. It was just something I picked up.

And Harry, I'm not trying to generalize my experience to everyone. But, I have seen the notion of model building as educational get traction with parents. Maybe we put some extra information in the instructions, of put it on a web site. Parents would use it. The important thing here is that it would open up modeling to a new audience.

I'm not old enough to be aware if any kind of learning aspect was ever used to sell models. I've never seen it. But I do think that model building was considered a good, wholesome activity for boys. Now-days, we should include girls too.On that basis alone, it should be a good thing.

[ERIK88]

Because it will develop your curiousity to want to know how a car operates when your building it, putting it together. You want to learn what a v8, v6 means or what all those numbers crunched out in the model's instruction manual mean explaining its horsepower that you wouldn't much do so without ever having built a car. It develops your mind to explore into other areas which in turn leads to maybe wanting to know why some of the 50s era vehicles depict rockets or space ships so much, or why the end of the muscle car era came which then leads to a connection to sociology, Its all inter connected.

[ERIK88]

I think im done in this thread, I have explained a lot and still won't get my point across to those nonbelievers of the ability to learn from model building. I didn't expect too anyway, but I liked expressing my point of view on a topic that is very special to me, which is the automotive world and model building,

Edited September 7, 2013 by ERIK88

[Tonioseven]

Nothing is educational to a "know it all"

Indeed.

[Harry P.]

For me, it was more of a curiosity stimulant than a source of information.

Exactly!

Build a model, and maybe you decide you want to find out about that particular car or that particular manufacturer, or if it's a race car model maybe you want to know more about that car's history or driver... or whatever. So you go out and do some research or ask some questions. And maybe you learn something by doing some research or asking some questions. But what you learned, if anything, was not learned by building that model. It was learned by your own efforts to satisfy your curiosity or get you questions answered. Building a model in and of itself is not "educational" aside from learning how to build that model. The educational part is when you put down the model and you go looking for (and finding) answers to your questions

If I have never had Ethiopian food, and a friend takes me to an Ethiopian restaurant and I have a meal there, and my curiosity is peaked and later I decide to go online and look up Ethiopia and I find all sorts of information about the country... was my eating the food educational. or was it my researching of Etthiopia that was educational?

[JunkPile]

Sounds like a piss'n contest with just one player

[chevyfever2009]

It can build patience

[Tom Geiger]

To get this one back on topic....

I think the hobby will get a bump as us baby boomers retire and get back to hobbies. Note that in the "Introduce Yourself" section we have "Life Long Model Builder Returning From A Hiatus", "Another Returning Builder", "Getting Back Into Models Again" and many others, some saying they're getting involved for the first time. And that's just this week's new recruits for the board. And some of them are even young guys.

[Richard Bartrop]

If it's like the Ethiopian place I went to, you learn what Ethiopians eat, how they eat it, and the joke about Ethiopian cookbooks is wildly inaccurate.

Based on experience, what I learned things from building models that wasn't always in books. I learned that the transmission in a blower Bentley isn't bolted directly to the engine like a modern car, I learned about Formula One suspensions from building Tamiya kits, and kits with detailed chassis, taught me about cars that I just didn't have access to. I certainly don't claim to be an expert on any of these things, but I did end up knowing more about these things than I did before. Even when I did have a whole bunch of facts and figures on a subject, having that three dimensional representation was very useful for understanding how they all related.

[charlie8575]

Prices would probably be cheaper if they had a younger audience target.

A few things to consider....

What costs will come with cheaper? Less detail? Highly-simplified assemblies? Inferior quality (even worse than some of the molding now??), corners cut in design?

We have seen huge advances in kit engineering and design, and my fear- and not an unreasonable one, is that if we drive for cheaper again, the corners that will be cut will be the ones that matter most, and we'll be back to inferior products.

There are other ways to reduce costs, but the entrenched management models won't necessarily allow for that, the licensors will probably not be asking for less of their piece of the pie. The commodities markets, which plastics are sold on, won't be dropping in the foreseeable future, barring another massive drop in oil prices and/or the take-off of plant-derived materials for applications they're appropriate for (PLA and switchgrass-derived polypropylene being two prime examples), and the cost of the materials and labor for the molds, plus other costs of doing business, such as insurance, utilities, real estate and the like.

What you and Johnathan are both touching on is a subject in economics called opportunity cost.

Opportunity cost is how the use of resources for one item disallow the use of their use for another. For example, let's say you have $100. You can use that to save, put a down-payment on a weekend away, or buy something. With the possible exception of saving, which you could argue is "deferred opportunity," once you use that money, it's been used.

The dollars and materials available to the model companies are limited, as are resources available to any firm. Use of these resources are dictated by the market. So, if 45+ is the major group of consumers in a market, most of these guys are interested in....cars of their youth, to no surprise. So, we'll see GTOs and Chargers and early Mustangs and 1950s cars and the cars of the 1970s and '80s.

Is mis-allocation of resources possible. Sure! Examples of mis-allocation abound, and where we're dealing with people, errors, by nature, will happen.

So, this brings us to the major question raised- do we have a mis-allocation of resources?

Perhaps, perhaps not.

I'm 38, and from my youngest memories, I have had very little interest in new cars. Even when I was younger, I was very interested in the vehicles of the time before I was born. When I have a teaching job, I found that aside from things like sports cars, trucks and the high-end luxury stuff, most the kids I've dealt with are more interested in cars that existed before they did. Their imaginations are captivated by vehicles like the Gran Torino in the movie of the same name, cars seen in The Great Gatsby, and are amazed to find out Doc Hudson is real. I've shown them my own projects (generally a car from 1940-80, with the occasional capital "C" classic car or something else from the early days of motoring), and they find it interesting, and I think I even created a modeler or two.

This is the type of product oft-criticized by people in my age group. Yet, it has universal appeal. Thus, we continue to see it from the companies that have the most limited resources- which, right now, are the American manufacturers.

The Japanese manufacturers have much deeper pockets, and can afford to take on the subjects they do, which, while perhaps having great appeal in other countries, don't sell as well here.

Would I love to see, say AMT, take a real gamble and release a full-detail Ram 1500? Or the new Chevy/GMC full-size pickup? Absolutely! I think this is a grossly-under-represented market. And with the right parts, I think these would sell. Even a well-done Snap-Fast/Snap-Tite kit, with provisions to add full detail later, would be well-received.

Or even one of the contemporary American cars that isn't necessarily a performance model, perhaps something like a Ford Focus or a Chevy Malibu? Yes, I think some of our typical everyday cars, as was done in the 1960s, should be in plastic.

The simple fact, however, is that with a few exceptions, today's automobiles, with nearly all aspects of their creation dictated by lawyers, government, focus groups composed of sheep, insurance companies and other assorted groups of meddling busy-bodies simply do not fire the imagination like the cars of even twenty-five or thirty years ago, which, while still subject to those things, still had a greater degree of imagination allowed in their design and execution.

And that, I believe, is why we see a severe lack of modern machinery in styrene.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but that's how I see the model and 1:1 car market of today.

So...how do we preserve the hobby?

I think the best way to create a new group of younger modelers is to not hide your hobby.

Another adult makes fun of your building? Tell them- very politely to buzz off. Or that this is your hobby where you can relieve stress. Whether you decide to add in that they're a form of stress is your discretion and I accept no responsibility for consequences if you do.

Show the kids you know that process and caring about the job you do is a good thing; explain the creative process to them. I'll touch on some of the other educational benefits in my subsequent posts.

Cost is an issue- I think the well-detailed snap kit Ala the newer AMT/Revell kits is a solid way to address that. Even starter-level glue kits that make a credible model when completed are a good way forward- something along the lines of the re-issued Monogram '85 Z-28.

To make a long story short, the hobby will only die if we allow it.

Charlie Larkin

Edited September 7, 2013 by charlie8575

[Richard Bartrop]

A few things to consider....

What costs will come with cheaper? Less detail? Highly-simplified assemblies? Inferior quality (even worse than some of the molding now??), corners cut in design?

We have seen huge advances in kit engineering and design, and my fear- and not an unreasonable one, is that if we drive for cheaper again, the corners that will be cut will be the ones that matter most, and we'll be back to inferior products.

There are other ways to reduce costs, but the entrenched management models won't necessarily allow for that, the licensors will probably not be asking for less of their piece of the pie. The commodities markets, which plastics are sold on, won't be dropping in the foreseeable future, barring another massive drop in oil prices and/or the take-off of plant-derived materials for applications they're appropriate for (PLA and switchgrass-derived polypropylene being two prime examples), and the cost of the materials and labor for the molds, plus other costs of doing business, such as insurance, utilities, real estate and the like.

What you and Johnathan are both touching on is a subject in economics called opportunity cost.

Opportunity cost is how the use of resources for one item disallow the use of their use for another. For example, let's say you have $100. You can use that to save, put a down-payment on a weekend away, or buy something. With the possible exception of saving, which you could argue is "deferred opportunity," once you use that money, it's been used.

The dollars and materials available to the model companies are limited, as are resources available to any firm. Use of these resources are dictated by the market. So, if 45+ is the major group of consumers in a market, most of these guys are interested in....cars of their youth, to no surprise. So, we'll see GTOs and Chargers and early Mustangs and 1950s cars and the cars of the 1970s and '80s.

Is mis-allocation of resources possible. Sure! Examples of mis-allocation abound, and where we're dealing with people, errors, by nature, will happen.

So, this brings us to the major question raised- do we have a mis-allocation of resources?

Perhaps, perhaps not.

I'm 38, and from my youngest memories, I have had very little interest in new cars. Even when I was younger, I was very interested in the vehicles of the time before I was born. When I have a teaching job, I found that aside from things like sports cars, trucks and the high-end luxury stuff, most the kids I've dealt with are more interested in cars that existed before they did. Their imaginations are captivated by vehicles like the Gran Torino in the movie of the same name, cars seen in The Great Gatsby, and are amazed to find out Doc Hudson is real. I've shown them my own projects (generally a car from 1940-80, with the occasional capital "C" classic car or something else from the early days of motoring), and they find it interesting, and I think I even created a modeler or two.

This is the type of product oft-criticized by people in my age group. Yet, it has universal appeal. Thus, we continue to see it from the companies that have the most limited resources- which, right now, are the American manufacturers.

The Japanese manufacturers have much deeper pockets, and can afford to take on the subjects they do, which, while perhaps having great appeal in other countries, don't sell as well here.

Would I love to see, say AMT, take a real gamble and release a full-detail Ram 1500? Or the new Chevy/GMC full-size pickup? Absolutely! I think this is a grossly-under-represented market. And with the right parts, I think these would sell. Even a well-done Snap-Fast/Snap-Tite kit, with provisions to add full detail later, would be well-received.

Or even one of the contemporary American cars that isn't necessarily a performance model, perhaps something like a Ford Focus or a Chevy Malibu? Yes, I think some of our typical everyday cars, as was done in the 1960s, should be in plastic.

The simple fact, however, is that with a few exceptions, today's automobiles, with nearly all aspects of their creation dictated by lawyers, government, focus groups composed of sheep, insurance companies and other assorted groups of meddling busy-bodies simply do not fire the imagination like the cars of even twenty-five or thirty years ago, which, while still subject to those things, still had a greater degree of imagination allowed in their design and execution.

And that, I believe, is why we see a severe lack of modern machinery in styrene.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but that's how I see the model and 1:1 car market of today.

I'm 54 now, and I've been reading up in the history of automobiles since I was a kid, and that particular refrain has been constantly repeated throughout the years almost word for word, with periodic updates to the official date as to when they stopped building "real cars". When I hear yet another chorus of this, I hope you'll understand if I'm skeptical. Are most of today's cars boring transportation appliances designed by the timid, and built by the disinterested? Of course they are, but it's been that way since the days of the Model T.

What makes the old ones special is the passage of time. The world changes, most have been scrapped, and eventually that transportation appliance becomes a rare artifact from a bygone age. A 1953 Hudson in 1953 is as boring a thing as was ever created, but one in 2013 is something pretty special. So a lack of interest in modeling contemporary cars is understandable. What's the point of building a model of something you can see every day on the street? When Revell got into the model car business, what was their first release? Not a contemporary car, but a 1910 Maxwell. 40 years seems to be the magic number for turning automotive lead into collectible gold.

I don't think the model car hobby is ever going to go away entirely. People have been building models since before recorded history, and there will still be people building models after all the kit makers have crumbled back into the earth. Even if all the kit companies were to shut their doors, we have a wealth of tools and materials at our disposal that we never had before.

What will get younger people interested? Despite the best efforts of some, interesting cars still get made. The exotics are always a good choice, I think. They are fantasy vehicles that are designed to appeal to children of all ages, and they seem to have been a moneymaker for companies like Tamiya. The latest Lamborghini certainly looks promising, and maybe it's worth checking into how much companies like Panoz and Keonigsegg want to license their designs.

As Charlie mentioned, young people remain interested in the strange and exotic world that existed before they were born, so maybe it's time to start looking into more 70s land yachts. My personal vote for a winner would be a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible. In its own way, it's as much a symbol of its time as the 1959 Cadillac was of its time. Likewise, I think a 1971-73 Riviera would have enough flash to appeal to a wide audience.

Anyway, that's my $.02

[Rob Hall]

The hobby has a limited future if the only subjects made are old. There has to be a balance...the old stuff is great, but the limited selection of current subject kits is very frustrating. I like quite a few real world cars of the here and now and love to have more of them available in models....not everyone lives in the past and hates modern cars..that's a stereotype of modelers, it seems.

Edited September 7, 2013 by Rob Hall

[charlie8575]

There has been a running theme in this thread- the educational value of modeling.

Tom, Dave, Harry, (what- no Dick?!), James, Art, Johnathan, Erik and a couple of other of people have made some very interesting comments on this.

And, to one degree or another, each one of you were absolutely correct.

*Donning M.Ed./teacher-training hat*

1. Model-building is, in a real sense, educational. Even the most casual modeler learns about process, trial-and-error, interpretation of directions and drawings, and the other cognitive and physical capacities needed to build a model. This includes not just step 1/step 2/step 3, but how to compensate for unplanned issues and working around a badly-engineered part of poorly-done instruction diagram.

This is called experiential learning- the act of learning by doing.

2. Model building, or a particular model, as Harry pointed out, might not in and of itself be necessarily education, but it can prompt curiosity which is educational. Using Harry's example of the Ethiopian restaurant, while the food itself might not be educational strictly-speaking, it serves as an awareness tool, which prompts self-directed learning- learning you do for your own interest or sake.

Yet- that food, while not directly educational, most certainly was! By entering the establishment, reading the menu, and reading about the heritage and contents of the meal, as many ethnic restaurants tend to have in their menu, that is education in a very elementary sense. So, relating back to models, the kit, although perhaps not educational in an absolute sense, still provided a small amount of learning and gave a gateway to more acquisition of knowledge. Yet, the gateway still provided some opportunity to learn.

3. Informal learning, which is the natural extension of self-directed learning, is the process of learning outside of a classroom or other formalized setting, does occur with modeling.

Tom, Dave, and Art all touched on this, and I'd like to re-state the essential points and condense their arguments.

For example, although building a model car and building a real car are vastly different, you still learn what some of the components are, and then that leads to "gee, I wonder what that does." So, those who desire further knowledge can acquire it, and the curiosity was prompted by the building process.

Similarly, searching for photos or the real car to get some detail pictures is a way of learning, as you learn not only about colors and materials, but appearances, texturing and you, as the modeler, can decide how far you want to carry that. But, you still learned something.

You can learn about weathering and the way the elements affect an automobile. This can stumble into the science behind weather or other natural elements.

Cars, like any other product of man, are a product of their times- public interest, public attitude, art aesthetic, the advancement of science and engineering at that point in history, and the refinement of those disciplines can be traced from a 1908 Model T to a 2010 Mustang. Similarly, you can learn much about the attitudes and theories approaching management and business.

4. You learn to appreciate things like process, planning, control over the outcome of a product, following directions and adjusting instructions when needed to achieve the desired results. With regard to today's youth, these lessons are very important, as they teach that instant gratification isn't always the answer. The preceding points also require a bit of imagination, something that is being bred out of most kids today by "numbers-driven" schools- a nice way of saying kids are being tested to death and individuality is not only not prized, but in far too many cases, penalized. These two articles might provide some more insight.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/is-technology-sapping-childrens-creativity/2012/09/12/10c63c7e-fced-11e1-a31e-804fccb658f9_blog.html

http://www.livescience.com/15535-children-creative.html

The short answer is yes, model building is a beneficial activity, whether it's done with plastic kits, Legos, Tinkertoys or Erector sets.

Charlie Larkin

[charlie8575]

The hobby has a limited future if the only subjects made are old. There has to be a balance...the old stuff is great, but the limited selection of current subject kits is very frustrating. I like quite a few real world cars of the here and now and love to have more of them available in models....not everyone lives in the past and hates modern cars..that's a stereotype of modelers, it seems.

Perhaps I mis-spoke a little.

While I'll openly admit I don't care for most of what's being made now, there are some exceptions.

I love the current Mustang/Camaro/Challenger.

I think the Chrysler 300/Dodge Charger are the two best-looking 4-doors in production right now.

I think the 2014 Chevy and GMC big pickups look very nice. I've seen a few on the roads and a few at the lots. I also like the looks of the Ram, and have since Dodge went to its theme in 1994 and the refinements made since.

I think the Cadillac CTS coupe is very cool.

And there are a few other cars out there that aren't offensive looking- perhaps not outstanding, but not horrible.

What I was trying to drive at is there's a noticable lack of personality amongst a lot of cars.

While the designs of automobiles from one particular vintage seem to center around a few elements, there was still personality present in how they're used. With today's common elements being a crash barrier, a wind-tunnel and a bunch of crash-test dummies creating government and private meddling (apologies to real crash-test dummies- at least they serve a purpose), they now lack the ability to really get people dreaming and imagining like cars designed in a capacity as much of an art as a science, do.

Sure, if you line up say, five different cars from pre-1970 (the common demarcating line) and take them out for a drive, you'll still see some similarities, but you'll see a lot of differences, too. Cars, for want of a better way of putting it, really did have a personality. A Chevy felt a little different from a Ford or Plymouth or Rambler Ambassador.

A Dodge performed and operated differently from a Pontiac or a Mercury.

A Buick would give you a heavy surge of low-end torque and a nice soft ride. An Olds had more mid and top-end power with a firmer ride and better handling. A Chrysler would out-handle either of them while delivering more consistent performance throughout the operating range.

Cadillacs, Imperials and Lincolns were three very different cars.

The point I'm trying to make is that while every era saw its cars in a way as appliances, we have reached a new low in creating a 4-wheeled Toastmaster, and it's that lack of differentiation that the older cars had. That differeentiation was carried over into styling, interior planning and a host of other features.

So, while I don't "hate" new cars, I think the vast majority of them are simply incapable of holding interest like they once did.

Charlie Larkin

[Chris White]

Perhaps I mis-spoke a little.

While I'll openly admit I don't care for most of what's being made now, there are some exceptions.

I love the current Mustang/Camaro/Challenger.

I think the Chrysler 300/Dodge Charger are the two best-looking 4-doors in production right now.

I think the 2014 Chevy and GMC big pickups look very nice. I've seen a few on the roads and a few at the lots. I also like the looks of the Ram, and have since Dodge went to its theme in 1994 and the refinements made since.

I think the Cadillac CTS coupe is very cool.

And there are a few other cars out there that aren't offensive looking- perhaps not outstanding, but not horrible.

What I was trying to drive at is there's a noticable lack of personality amongst a lot of cars.

While the designs of automobiles from one particular vintage seem to center around a few elements, there was still personality present in how they're used. With today's common elements being a crash barrier, a wind-tunnel and a bunch of crash-test dummies creating government and private meddling (apologies to real crash-test dummies- at least they serve a purpose), they now lack the ability to really get people dreaming and imagining like cars designed in a capacity as much of an art as a science, do.

Sure, if you line up say, five different cars from pre-1970 (the common demarcating line) and take them out for a drive, you'll still see some similarities, but you'll see a lot of differences, too. Cars, for want of a better way of putting it, really did have a personality. A Chevy felt a little different from a Ford or Plymouth or Rambler Ambassador.

A Dodge performed and operated differently from a Pontiac or a Mercury.

A Buick would give you a heavy surge of low-end torque and a nice soft ride. An Olds had more mid and top-end power with a firmer ride and better handling. A Chrysler would out-handle either of them while delivering more consistent performance throughout the operating range.

Cadillacs, Imperials and Lincolns were three very different cars.

The point I'm trying to make is that while every era saw its cars in a way as appliances, we have reached a new low in creating a 4-wheeled Toastmaster, and it's that lack of differentiation that the older cars had. That differeentiation was carried over into styling, interior planning and a host of other features.

So, while I don't "hate" new cars, I think the vast majority of them are simply incapable of holding interest like they once did.

Charlie Larkin

Keep in mind Charlie, when we where young, the cars of our time caught our interest and attention. We wanted them, but could not have them. Some of us were lucky enough to be around them, but most of us where left to drool. At least that's how I felt. Hopefully the kids of today will lust after the slush econoboxes of today, the way we did.......and want to own them, any way they can....like models???????