Love or despise them, cars are an important and ubiquitous part of nearly all of our lives. Our relationship with the car has always been intimately connected with design. In this book, Gregory Votolato shows us how and why the automobile has become - since its rise in the late nineteenth century - at once an object of unparalleled popular desire and a hugely problematic emblem of the modern world.
Over the past century the internal combustion engine, lightweight steam engine and electric motor proved their value to industry and commerce by powering tractors, pickup trucks and delivery vans, while supporting civic order and public service in police vehicles and ambulances. Yet it was the private passenger car that became the most glamorous product of the industrial age, serving psychological, social and economic functions well beyond its utility as a means of transportation. Car introduces the automotive design process, exploring engineering innovation and stagnation, mass-production and aesthetic obsolescence, branded styling and genuine artistry. Including insights from designers, manufacturers and drivers themselves and tracing the life cycle of the automobile from the drawing board to the scrapyard, this book offers fascinating insights into the ways our attachments to cars may develop in light of environmental pressures, emerging technologies and changing lifestyles.
