ABSTRACT
This chapter points to a high-profile public event that exemplifies our ongoing deep and complex relationship with the automobile, its universal appeal, and the need to explore its impact on our past, current, and future culture. Cars facilitate our stable vocations and fulfill our nomadic wanderlust. The automobile's relationship with us is uniquely symbiotic, in that it requires constant human input for its operation. It is both companion and collaborator in the creation of our culture. Historically, automobiles have been the great nurturer of innovation. Society’s race to build a bigger, faster, more efficient, more comfortable, and more attractive car has been eclipsed by little else in the past century. However, automobiles are again setting the stage to influence human history. Finite fossil fuel supplies and plateauing efficiencies of gasoline-powered engine technology have created economic disparity worldwide. It is apparent that cars are ingrained into every aspect of our culture, at a macro and a micro level.
