cars

• 
• 9/4/2022
  

  Considering the Automobile's Influence on Society—Before the Next Influence Takes Over?

  by Bryan Appleyard

  The story of the car—a story of genius and folly in equal measure—is the story of the making of the modern world. A new book weaves the threads of the automobile's influence through landscape, war and peace, mass production and individualism, and the environment. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  7/18/2022
  

  What Does an Electric Makeover Mean for the Car of the Counterculture?

  by Jill Lepore

  The new electric VW bus seems to lack the charm of the vehicle of the counterculture, reflecting changes in technology and society. 

• 
• SOURCE: Bloomberg
  6/10/2022
  

  When Cities Put Up Monuments to Traffic Deaths

  by Peter Norton

  Rising pedestrian and cyclist deaths in American communities are a call to question the primacy of the automobile and stop accepting roadway carnage. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  5/18/2021
  

  How Parking Destroys Cities

  by Michael Manville

  A long line of historians and urbanists from Lewis Mumford to Jane Jacobs have warned about the negative impacts of building cities around cars. Why have urban planners ignored these warnings? And will things change? 

• 
• SOURCE: The Metropole
  4/20/2020
  

  Policing The Automobile: “Private” Transit In “Public” Spaces?

  by Sarah A. Seo

  "As much as courts throughout the twentieth century sought to differentiate cars from houses, the automobile straddled the public/private divide in American life." argues professor Sarah A. Seo.

• 
• 3/15/2020
  

  "Faster" Author Neal Bascomb on the Jewish Auto Racer who Defied Hitler

  by Neal Bascomb

  Rene Dreyfus, a former top driver on the international racecar circuit, had been banned from the best European teams—and fastest cars—by the mid-1930s because of his Jewish heritage.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  2-11-14
  

  Shelby Cobra Coupe Becomes the First Federally Registered Historic Car

  The Shelby Cobra revolutionized the racing world upon making its 1964 debut.

• 
• SOURCE: Der Spiegel
  8-27-13
  

  Göring's Convertible Said to Be in America

  The automobile is being restored in North Carolina.

• SOURCE: NYT
  3-31-13
  

  Lowrider culture spreads to Brazil

  ...The word “cholo” itself has a contentious history. In the Spanish colonial era, it was a derogatory term for some indigenous people, and by the 19th century it was used in the United States to demean Mexican laborers and some mixed-raced people, according to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States.By the 20th century, the term “cholo” shifted to refer to people associated with a gang, or to those who simply copied their aesthetics and style, implying “a refusal to assimilate” into the dominant mainstream culture, the encyclopedia explains. Today, the term is deplored by some and embraced by others.In Brazil, however, lowriders and the aesthetics of Mexican-American street culture took a different route, one that sometimes passed through another country first. “I saw my first lowriders in Japan, and I was immediately fascinated by their allure,” said Sergio Hideo Yoshinaga, 43, the owner of a garage in São Paulo where motorists pay hefty amounts, sometimes reaching more than $100,000, to have their cars transformed into curb-crawling masterpieces....

• SOURCE: NYT
  3-20-13
  

  John Dillinger’s terraplane revisits his childhood home

  An eight-cylinder 1933 Essex-Terraplane briefly used by the notorious bank robber and jail escapee John Dillinger is on display at the Indianapolis International Airport, where, according to airport representatives, it is attracting crowds of visitors.The car is owned by the Crime Museum in Washington, but has been shown at various other locations for the past four years. It was a guest at Baltimore-Washington Airport for two years, spent two more at the Richmond Convention Center and has now arrived in Indianapolis, where it appears roped off near the ticket counters. The Essex will be at the airport until March 2015....