THE HISTORY OF AMERICA IS THE HISTORY OF THE AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY— WHICH IS FAR OLDER AND STRANGER THAN YOU MIGHT IMAGINE.

Four cars were registered in the United States in 1895. By 1916, 3,376,889 had been registered, a variety of makes and models almost impossible to imagine, a diversity like the animals roaming on the savannah, from the lion crashing through the bush to the wet-eyed tree frog glaring from a cool place under the eucalyptus. In 1915, Ford began selling cars on installment plans, the dawn of a credit revolution that would stretch and bend and distort the dollar until, fifteen years later, it collapsed,

If you wanted to buy a car, you had to decide, in addition to choosing a color and interior, what you wanted your car to run on: gasoline, ethanol, acetylene, liquid air, compressed air, carbonic acid, electricity, steam. In the early years, the most popular cars were powered by kerosene-generated steam, the tailpipe sending up a plume of vapor.

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