The Motoring Age
F.M.L. Thompson reviews two publications on the history of the automobile.
The Motoring Age: The Automobile and Britain, 1896-1939
Peter Thorold
Profile Books x + 294pp £20
ISBN 1 861 97378 0
Drive On! A Social History of the Motor Car
L.E.T. Setright
Granta Books ix + 400pp £25
ISBN 1 862 07628 6
Carriage folk’ was a label with a clear social message in 1900. It was an easily understood way of depicting the upper class and the privileged status of those who owned, or controlled, their own personal transport. A hundred years later ‘car folk’ or ‘motorist’ had no social meaning whatever. It seemed as if everyone had a car, or soon would have, and notwithstanding that there was no such thing as society ‘the great car society’ embraced by Margaret Thatcher was perceived as socially inclusive.
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