I went to the opening of the new "Dream Cars Collection" in the Campona Shopping Center this weekend, which featured about 40 mostly American cars from the 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s. They glittered under the bright showroom lights. They were massive, long, heavy, and evoked an American era when automobiles rose as status symbol, an emblem of personality. The sum of design elements and overall "aura" of each model captured different trajectories of the American Dream — I was reminded of Miami's Cubans in the 1970s, New York's mafioso, the 1950s nuclear family, the American greaser sub-culture. The pictures speak for themselves.