The American Automobile [antikvár]

f all twentieth-century artifacts none is more quintessencially American than the automobile. Germany may have been the birthplace of the automobile and France its cradle, but it was in America that the car first became a part of the lives of ordinary people, and an important contributor to the economy. Although overtaken in recent years by Japan, for eight decades the United States led the world in auto manufacture, passing France in 1906 with an output of 33,200 passenger cars. Automobiles of American manufacture or design have been sold in every country of the world, even in those with opposing political ideologies. The Soviet tractor, car, and truck industry could not have come into existence without the help of Ford; even the architect of the vast Gorki plant was a Ford man, Albert Kahn. The first Chinese trucks of the 1930s used American-made components, while the Jeep Cherokee-based Beijing BJ was China's second largest production car in 1990. The auto industries of Australia, South Africa, and most Latin American countries were founded on American designs. Mass-product ion was brought to Europe by Ford and, later, General Motors. In 1919 two-fifths of all the motor vehicles on British roads were Fords, made in the company's Manchester plant. What is more, almost all the associated aspects of an auto-cencered world which we now cake for granted originated in the United States — clectric traffic lights, parking meters, multilane highways, multistory car parks, and motels, as well as some almost exclusively American ideas such as drive-in movies, restaurants, and banks. It is a cliché to say that the automobile revolutionized the way of life of millions of Americans, but today we often forget just how drastic that revolution was. Take vacations, for instance. Up to the third decade of this century, most working-class families in cities and farming communities never dreamed of caking a vacation. Ownership of an automobile, which became widespread between 1920 and 1930, enabled them to takes short trips away from home, even if only for a weekend. The lure of the big outdoors took Americans by storm; cooking and washing far from modern conveniences became a welcome challenge, while a bed was often no more than a plank propped between two running boards. Hardship was, if anything, an attraction: "We cheerfully endure wet, cold, mosquitoes, blackflies and sleepless nights just to touch naked reality once more," said one of Henry Ford's traveling companions. It has been estimated that the inhabitants of North America collectively spend 62,000 years a week in their cars. It has also been said that 20 percent of Americans arc conceived in automobiles. A few are also born in them, and alas many die in them. Some individualises oven choose to be buried in them. And greater mobility has improved the breed — inbreeding in country districts ended once cars became widespread. "The farmer's boy found that he could court the lady of his choice even if she lived fifty miles away. He could select his mate from the whole wide world" {Middle/own: a Study in Contemporary American Culture, 1929). The part played by the auto industrs- in the American economy is no less striking. More than 2,5 million U.S. citizens earn their living from manufacturing, selling, or repairing motor vehicles, or ministering to them with gasoline and other fuels. Thousands of others are involved in the building and maintenance of the country's highways. In fact the economic health of the nation is closely tied to the success or failure of the industry centered on Detroit. A close watch is kept on the Goodyear display on the road from the airport into Detroit which registers each time a car is completed. In a good year it clicks down ever>-second of every working day. To squeeze 100 years of history, some 4,000 makes of automobile, and an output of about 1.757 billion units into 288 pages has inevitably meant compression and summary, but I have tried to achieve a balance between the technical, social, and personal factors that have created the American automobile in all its variety'. All the significant models have been included, as well as many that were interesting. Detailed credits arc given elsewhere, but I would like to pay tribute to the magnificent photography of my friend Nicky Wright, without whom this book would never have existed. Nick Gcorgano, 1992