Everyone wanted a glimpse of the future in the optimistic, prosperous, gadget-loving 1950s, and auto show "dream cars" from General Motors, Ford and Chrysler gave them an eyeful.

Detroit's Big Three automakers called them dream cars because that's what they looked like. They were sensational expressions of automaker visions of the car's future, holding out glittering promises of what production autos would be like.

What will we see on the 2009 show circuit? It looks like just a few promised electric cars with bland styling will be featured. And electric cars have been around since the beginning of the last century

The name "dream cars" was changed to "concept cars" when the world became less romantic and more pragmatic in 1960s America. Many 2008 auto show concept cars are thinly disguised versions of upcoming production models. But that would have been impossible for most 1950s dream cars because they were "far-out" hand-built creations.

One of few dream cars that reached production was the 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser, which dripped with gimmickry such as a reverse-slanted retractable rear window. However, the 1959 Cadillac Cyclone dream car was TOO futuristic with its flip-up transparent top and obstacle-warning avonics that set the stage for today's active safety systems. Not to mention its hands-free two-way radio.

Many dream cars were wildly impractical, but few were built to be driven. For instance, features such as transparent plastic bubble tops would have cooked occupants on hot days. Mostly, they were exercises in advanced exterior and interior design. Instruments, controls, seats and steering wheels were distinctive and attractive enough to qualify as modern art.

Dream car colors were strange and wonderful. They included luscious deep pinks, unusual metallic greens and incredibly bright reds. Red metallic interiors had carpeting that sparkled from glitter woven into it.

Auto styling studios and technical staffs were told to go for broke creating dream cars because GM, Ford and Chrysler dominated the market and one-of-a-kind dream cars were a surefire way to draw show visitors to exhibits of ordinary cars. Also, automakers wanted to test public reaction to dream car features they were thinking of putting on regular autos.

"Those dream cars are works of art, like Rembrandt paintings or Beethoven symphonies. A price can't be put on them because they transcend monetary values, like a Beethoven symphony," said Chicago area businessman and dream car fan Joe Bortz, who was enthralled when he saw dream cars as a kid at 1950s Chicago Auto Shows.

However, a few dream cars have been offered in recent years at classic car auctions and command huge prices. For instance, GM's 1954 Oldsmobile F-88 two-seat dream car sold for a cool $3.3 million to the owner of the Discovery Channel after bidding hit $600,000 within seconds at a Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale classic car auction in Arizona in 2005. That was the highest price paid for any car sold at this well-known auction in any of its 34 years.

The F-88 was a sports car about the size of a 1954 Chevrolet Corvette and wore a rakish fiberglass body. Its 324-cubic-inch V-8 transmitted 250 horsepower through a four-speed GM Hydra-matic automatic transmission. The handsome interior had bucket seats and sparkling gauges at the center of the dashboard.

The F-88 was fully roadworthy. Until GM internal politics killed it as a production auto, the F-88 was to be Oldsmobile's version of the fiberglass-body Corvette, introduced in 1953.

The Olds dream car was styled under the direction of GM's legendary chief designer Harley Earl, who was so proud of it that he sold it to E.L. Cord -- in pieces. Cord, who built advanced 1930s production autos that carried his name, had the F-88 reassembled. It eventually was restored at least twice by other private owners.

Most dream cars, though, aren't for sale because owners know they can never be replaced.

GM built the majority of 1950s dream cars. They followed the very first dream car -- Buick's trendsetting 1937 "Y Job," which Earl drove through the 1940s.

Jet planes were hot in the early 1950s, and Earl's 1951 Buick LeSabre convertible dream car was inspired by his love of military aircraft, especially jets. It was built of aluminum, magnesium and fiberglass and had a rain-sensing switch in the console that automatically closed the roof. Another Earl creation was the 1956 Firebird II Titanium. It's the only vehicle built with a full titanium body, which has complex curves and looks like a land-bound jet plane.

Flamboyant Earl loved dream cars. Bortz seemingly became obsessed with them. He began finding and restoring them years ago and put them in an internationally publicized collection. It had sports cars, convertibles, limos and even a station wagon. The 1956 Chrysler Plainsman wagon had a power-operated rear bumper and steps to help passengers get into a power rear-facing third seat. The steps disappeared when the power tailgate was closed.

Finding most dream cars was tough because the Big Three ordered nearly all destroyed after show seasons. While they cost a bundle to make, automakers feared liability issues if they were bought by individuals who got into accidents with them. Unlike production cars, they weren't tested for flaws and thus had such things as unproven brakes.

Not all were scrapped. Some were slipped to dream car designers, others to auto executives who tucked them away. Bortz said there were few GM-style dream car deals at Ford "because it was a family owned company that wouldn't allow such deals."

Bortz began his dream car collection in the early 1970s "when I found a 1953 Pontiac Bonneville dream car with a transparent Plexiglas canopy, like a jet fighter plane's. It was in a Detroit auto museum and belonged to a private partly, who agreed to sell it."

Some famous GM dream cars languished for decades in a Detroit-area wrecking yard, called Warhoops, near the GM Technical Center. Fortunately, a Warhoops employee felt the cars were too sensational to be destroyed and only partly disassembled them. He hid parts so GM would think the cars had been reduced to rubble. Bortz got them and their remaining parts.

Some 1950s auto show dream cars had no engine, but others were advanced. For instance, the 1951 Buick LeSabre and XP-300 had bodies that made much use of aluminum and magnesium and possessed an experimental aluminum supercharged 353-horsepower V-8. The top engine in a production steel-body 1951 Buick was a bulky 152-horsepower inline eight-cylinder. GM's 1950s LaSalle II had a light, aluminum, fuel-injected, double-overhead-camshaft V-6, when U.S. cars had heavy cast-iron pushrod V-8s with carburetors.

Bortz restored a 1953 Buick Wildcat I with "Roto-Static" scooped hubcaps that remained fixed as the wheels turned to feed cooling air to the brakes. That feature never was on production Buicks, but the Wildcat's front styling hinted at 1955-56 Buick front ends.

Earl was succeeded at GM by Bill Mitchell, who displayed and raced his zoomy 1959 Sting Ray sports car dream auto. The radical-looking 1963 Chevrolet Corvette closely resembled the 1963-67 production Corvette.

Other dream cars included Ford Motor's 1955 Lincoln Futura, which had a flip-up, transparent "double-bubble roof." The car was used in mildly customized form as the Batmobile in the popular 1960s Batman television series. It was by far the best-looking "Batmobile."