Good gawd, seems like only yesterday you were just an 17 year old kid. You would have loved growing up in the 50's when you could tell just by looking at a car the make, model and year and every year we all couldn't wait until around the end of September when the new models came out. Now days, you can't tell what year a car is made unless you look at the title. We're not even half way through 2011 and you can find 2012 model cars and I've even seen a 2013 model. Just shows you how things have changed over the years.
I remember those days well. The cars would be trucked in on haulers in the middle of the night and they were covered. Then the dealers hid them somewhere until the day they were introduced.
You bring up a great memory in the above. Those were the days when a dealer didn't have a lot full of cars you could take home immediately (or at least they didn't anywhere I ever lived). You sat in the showroom model (maybe got to take a test drive but it was no guarantee), then you were given the book and you picked out your options. It was like building a house. For example, back in Indiana in the late 50's a lot of guys had their rods shot in grey primer. A young guy who worked with my father ordered a new 1956 Chevy 2dr HT in primer! When he took delivery he took it to the local paint shop and had it flamed.
I remember back around 1959-1960, or so, the car makers would paint the new models in some sort of striped camouflage paint scheme in order to mask the styling details. They had security patrolling the wooded area around the proving grounds but some one always seemed to manage to shoot a long range picture of a new car, which would show up in the newspaper within a day or two.
