ABSTRACT
Cars were “precision” machines, built individually. Vehicles that have been mass-produced with interchangeable parts represent an unusual challenge. Marketed as attainable objects, automobiles are marked not only as consumer products but also as epitomizing shared cultural moments that can transcend traditional barriers of class, race, and gender. The Antique Automobile Club initially published the standards such that a car should appear as it was delivered to the dealer from the factory in order to establish a single standard. The establishment of standards and marque-specific clubs in the 1960s built what was a small movement into a general hobby. A widespread aspiration of middle-class Americans was to own an “original” example of iconic mass-produced cars.
