DMC isn’t the only one to be filled with  the hope of bringing back bygone autos. Herpa, a German company that makes miniature cars, has bought the rights to the Trabant name and is planning to partner with a full-size manufacturer to build 5,000 Trabants—the automotive symbol of communist East Germany. The originals, with their plastic bodies and dirty two-cylinder rear engines, are now collectibles. The new Trabants will have metal bodies and modern running gear—Herpa is considering a BMW engine, which would put the total price at about $70,000—but retain the distinctive styling and sky-blue color.  

These are far from the first reborn cars, however. (See slideshow.) Almost 30 years ago, Shay Motors of Battle Creek, Michigan, built thousands of Ford Model A Roadsters, which had been designed in the early 1900s. Occasionally even major automakers—MG and Ford, for example—have remanufactured classic models. But results were mixed, and ambitions often met with a quick demise.

From 1978 to 1982, Shay Motors produced more than 5,000 Model As, hiding modern running gear—the four-cylinder Ford Fairmont engine—under a fiberglass Model A body. With up-to-date suspension and brakes, the Shay appeared to be a 50-year-old classic that could tackle contemporary traffic. But the company was woefully underfinanced, and the vehicles had numerous quality problems: suspension vibrations, erratic speedometers, balky gearshifts, doors that didn’t fit properly. Fed-up customers and the early eighties recession did Shay Motors in—the company collapsed the same year as DeLorean Motor Co.

Major automakers should be immune to such quality problems when putting their own classics back into production. From 1992 to 1996, the MG arm of Britain’s Rover   created a version of its classic MGB (manufactured from 1962 to 1980) fitted with a V-8. Built by hand in small numbers, with luxury touches the original never possessed, the resulting MGR did well in Japan—but it remains a footnote to the affection inspired by the hundreds of thousands of original MGBs.

Similarly, Ford celebrated its GT40 racecar—which won the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race from 1966 to 1969 and was never sold for street use—by building 4,000 Ford GTs from 2004 to 2006. The sleek styling of the original remained, and the car, priced at $140,000, delivered exceptional performance thanks to its 550-hp V-8. But Ford learned the hard way that wealthy people who buy expensive cars have little patience for variable quality and frequent recalls.

The new Trabis won’t be sold in the U.S.—some auto memories are just too specific. And it’s the memories that lure buyers: what the cars were and how they made us feel, and the desire to recapture those feelings. With air conditioning, power brakes, a stereo, and a sunroof, of course.