Dream Museum

A day after we did a blog on Chrysler dream cars we received a call from dream car collector Joe Bortz of Chicago. Joe had just called to chat about this and that, but we wanted to ask him a question.

In a certain antique auto parts catalog there is a side-bar story about Joe obtaining his second Pontiac Bonneville Special dream car after a kid told him about there being a second green one. This wasn’t how we remembered the story of obtaining that car and we wanted to do a fact check.

Joe assured us that our memory wasn’t fading. The original story we heard was true. This involved a man from Michigan calling him and saying, “I heard you collect dream cars and I have the Bonneville.” Joe told him that couldn’t be right because Bortz had the bronze-colored Bonneville, which everyone thought at that time was the only one made.

The man sent Joe photos of the car and he could see it was a different color. He tried calling the man back, but got no answer. So, he tucked the lead away and gave up calling the man. About two or three years later, he stumbled on the lead and called the number. It turned out the man with the car had passed away. But Joe was ultimately able to buy it from the widow.

Later, the car was sold to a publisher in Colorado who really loved it and treated it to a six-figure restoration. Later the car was resold again for several million bucks. And as most OCW readers know, the car is now consigned to the 2015 Barrett-Jackson sale in Arizona.

Well, all of this chatter about dream cars sent an idea flashing through our head. Wouldn’t it be great if someone started a museum for dream cars? They could call it the “Dream Museum.” After all, the dream cars and concept vehicles produced by all of the American automakers were forward-looking visions of the automobile of the future. And having a bunch of them gathered in one museum would make a powerful statement about how important it is to have dreams.