Archive for December, 2011

It takes years of dedication to something before their hobby turns into a collection, and car collections can take a long time, and a lot of space. Not everyone has room for the real thing, and the cost of an upkeep in a real garage, with all that real automotive repair, would be a bit too much for most people.  Of course, this is all a tongue in cheek way of talking about the real passion that lies beneath any collection, and collecting model cars is its own animal.

The idea of a model car collection really comes out of several different impulses at once, and sometimes the least of these has anything to do with the desire for the real car.  Some of the more essential model car collections come from a childlike desire to know how something works, that eventually turns into a serious study.  Making models of cars is something that adults remember with a lot of fondness, because time offers space for reflection.  A beautiful car on a box in the store creates a desire to have this in one’s own home, along with the satisfaction of putting it together with one’s own hands.

 

The most difficult models may have created headaches for the children and their parents at the time, but these were also the ones that created the greatest sense of mystery.  Difficult models with small parts and tough gluing situations always demonstrate the skill and engineering in the car’s construction.  They also gave a better glimpse into the complicated mechanics of that particular car.  While the kids that make models cars eventually get older and move on to real cars, looking for the chevrolet service manual download to fix a problem can certainly bring back some of the best memories of childhood.

 

There is a correspondence between the actual life-sized machine and their 1:24 versions.  Working on the smaller ones can be a way to learn what makes the larger ones function.  But they can also teach a certain love and admiration for the mechanics of cars in general, as well as illuminate a sense of wonder at engineering and technology.  The full-sized versions are not always possible to keep around, and some of the best examples of older cars would take more maintenance than most people would have time for.  They can be captured, however, in a model version, frozen in time and put on display.  Miniature versions of marvelous things do something to a collector, reinforcing the constant wonder in the physical world.

 

 

Posted by on December 21, 2011