ABSTRACT
This chapter explores why the issue of protecting the old way of driving and producing cars has legitimacy. It identifies the elements involved in the transition toward an automobile culture, which sometimes appears to free itself from the old steering wheel. The chapter shows, by comparing the weaknesses and gaps in French heritage with German advances as a case study, a missing link in this little-known culture and history. It is important to make the general observation that individual culture has apparently lost some meaning in a global society, which now more than ever creates the need to identify the outlines and past coherence of transport heritage. Automobilism and road, conceived of as coherent ecosystem, offer an ideal vantage point for assessing contemporary destabilization and reconfiguration connected to digital civilization, sometimes with pronounced qualities resembling brave world. The price of intrusive risk and loss of control is perhaps largely underestimated.
