Citroën of France, for example, made its own models for promotional purposes as early as 1923. By the 1920s, the manufacturers of real automobiles would design and construct scale as well as full-sized models for design or promotion. Many early model cars were not intended either as toys or for collecting. The scope of the vehicles involved in the hobby, according to Louis Heilbroner Hertz author of The Complete Book of Building and Collecting Model Automobiles, encompasses 'ordinary or stock automobiles, racing cars (), buses, trucks, specialized service vehicles (especially fire engines), military vehicles, including such equipment as self-propelled gun carriers and mobile rocket launchers construction equipment, including bulldozers and road rollers, tractors and related farm equipment mobile showmen's engines, customized automobiles, hot rods, dragsters, the recently popular so-called 'funny cars', early self-propelled road carriages, and so on'. Precision-detailed miniatures made specifically for adults are a significant part of the market since the mid-1980s.

The kit building hobby became popular through the 1950s, while the collecting of miniatures by adults started to pick up momentum around 1970. Because many miniature vehicles were originally aimed at children as playthings, there is no precise difference between a model car and a toy car, yet the word 'model' implies either assembly required or the accurate rendering of an actual vehicle at smaller scale.

are often included in this general category. Other miniature motor vehicles, such as trucks, buses, or even ATVs, etc. A model car, or toy car, is a miniature representation of an automobile.

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