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‘Autistic’ Boy Can Name Any Car Ever Made—and Makes Amazingly Lifelike Photos With his Model Collection
Anthony Schmidt, who has autism, knows the make, model, and year of every car. He allso does amazing photoshoots with his car models.
Social & Lifestyle
People with autism generally see the world through a different lens than the rest of the world, and it’s often one with a singular focus. Such is the case with 12-year-old Anthony Schmidt. Anthony is driven—by his obsession for cars.
His extensive collection of model cars is mind-boggling, but Anthony’s love of automobiles doesn’t stop there. He also has an encyclopedic knowledge of pretty much every car that’s ever been built from their first inception to today’s latest models.
Show him a car, and he can tell you everything about it down to the smallest detail. It was a skill that came in handy for some New York detectives who had only a grainy image of a suspect’s car in an ongoing criminal investigation.
When Anthony saw the picture, he was able to identify its make, model, and year immediately—making it one getaway car that didn’t get away after all. Thanks to Anthony’s fine-tuned savvy, the suspect was apprehended soon after.
Anthony lives with his mom, Ramona, near Seattle, Washington. She says her son’s car enthusiasm began when he was about 2 years old. By age 6, he’d begun creating a photographing series of tableaus starring his model cars staged in hyper-realistic settings.