I have thought about those old deusenburgs, patrician sedans, and model a's before, and I guess I was just in denial about the muscle car meeting the same fate (the same fate being a very small, select group of die-hard enthusiasts versus the other 99.9% of the world).
A big difference between now and then using your example is that demand for muscle cars is great enough that you can buy entirely new 55-57 Chevys, 67-69 Camaros, 67-70 Mustangs and 70 Challengers and build them up without ever using a single original manufacturer part. The pre-war collector cars, while expensive and exclusive, never enjoyed demand to the level that reproduction bodies ever became available. The exception being the early 30s Ford which are abundantly available in 'glass and steel. As such, what we will see is a division among the muscle cars as time moves on. The original, factory produced, pedigreed cars, like Hemis, 6 paks, COPOS, etc, will still command large $$ and be regulated to museums and collections. On the other hand, those cars listed above will live on like '32 fords live on, in the hands of mostly average enthusiasts who have no fear about using a non original vehicle as it was intended. Witness teh growth of the Hot Rod Power Tour and Car Craft Anti-Tour as a testiment that more and more people, including younger and younger generations, will continue to use, drive, and enjoy these cars for many years to come.
Also worth mentioning is that unlike the pre-war cars, or even the post war golden era, creating and reproducing hard to find parts is becoming easier and easier. No longer do you need a machinist working for weeks at great cost to create a part. Through 3D model, cad/cam, and other new technologies, prototypes can be built in a few hours by a programmer. Once dimensionally verified, models built and programmed in plastic can be transfered to metal and within a day a part that never existed before can be reproduced in volume.
Yeah, the future doesn't look too bad actually. Granted the mass of public involved in cars as a passion is not as great as it may have appeared to be 40 years ago, but the core that still is there is getting better at keeping these cars on the road and the interest in the cars is actually growing more world wide than it may be within the US. These cars are going to be around with us for quite a while longer.
