32. The Creation of the Automotive World

"We shape our tools," philosopher Marshall McLuhan said, "and then our tools shape us."

As our celestial odometer rolls off another 100 years, and the average American driver racks up his 14 000 miles this year, it's hard to imagine a tool that's changed us more in this century than the automobile.

Turn the calendar back to the turn of the last century, and in New York, for example, you'll find 15 000 horses dying in the streets annually from exhaustion, beating or accidents. Dust from a million pounds of manure produced every day kept windows closed even in the hottest months. And the clatter of iron wheels and horseshoes against paving stones—Edgar Allan Poe called it the best "contrivance for driving men mad through sheer noise."

Matters were not much better in rural areas. There, the world was a circle with a narrow radius, based on the distance a horse could travel in a day. Twenty miles over average roads could easily be a four-hour ride in a horse-drawn carriage. Trains were an extravagance. Medicine was do-it-yourself.

All of this led many people to see that a vehicle as flexible as a horse but powered by an engine would be the wave of the future.

The first, primitive cars were built in the late 1800s. By 1900, some 300 companies were trying to build automobiles in the United States, many located around New York, most unsuccessful. About 4 000 autos had actually been sold.

While cars were growing in popularity, they were still outnumbered by horses, still prone to breakdowns, still the target of booby traps from farmers upset with the noisy contraptions bringing trespassing city folk to their land.

It would take a different kind of automobile—and automaker—to remake our landscape.

Henry Ford was the kind of child you hid your watch from, for fear it would get taken apart while you weren't looking.

He grew up on a farm in Dearborn but moved as soon as he could to Detroit, where he worked nights at Detroit Edison and tinkered with engines.

They fascinated him, and he built his first car in 1896. Ten years later, the Ford Motor Co. would be cranking out more than 10 000 cars a year from its plant in Detroit. His business partner wanted Ford to build luxury cars; Ford wanted to build "a motorcar for the multitude." Ford bought out his partner, and went to work on a new design.

After two years of work, the Model T went into production, designed with the engineering values of a farmer—simple, tough, easy to understand. Old leather belts could be used in the transmission. The first version cost $850, and was a strong seller.

Then Ford opened a new factory with a novel idea—a moving assembly line that let his workers stand in one place and repeat the same tasks. It boosted production and cut costs: by 1912, the price of the Model T had dropped below the average annual wage for a U.S. worker. In 1923, annual Model T production topped out at 1.8 million. Altogether, Ford would eventually build 15 million.

"A Ford," he said, "will take you everywhere except into society."

The automotive world we know took shape rapidly.

1903: First speed limit set—20 mph, in England.

1914: More cars are produced than horse-drawn carriages or wagons.

1933: Camden, N.J., entrepreneur Richard Hollingshead opens the first drive-in movie theater.

1941: Auto industry converts to wartime production, bringing out the jeep in the process.

After World War II, the car became an essential of life, an expression and extension of freedom, a benchmark of progress.

1951: Museum of Modem Art holds first exhibit of cars as art.

1972: More than 54 000 people die in U.S. traffic accidents, the highest in any one year.

1973: The Volkswagen Beetle passes the Model T as the most popular car ever made.

1999: Automakers approach record sales of more than 16 million vehicles.

Today cars are everywhere. There are an estimated 215 million in the United States. Nearly 60 percent of American homes have at least two cars; 19 percent have three or more. The typical household will spend about $6 000 a year on automotive expenses—vehicles, gas, insurance. The average American driver logs 39 miles a day.

All those drivers can choose from 3.9 million miles of road, stopping at any of about 187 000 gas stations, 94 200 convenience stores or 186 000 fast-food restaurants.

But watch what you eat. A recent editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association blamed a rise in obesity in part on our love affair with our vehicles. It said 25 percent of all car trips are for less than one mile, and added, "Walking or bicycling has been replaced by automobile travel for all but the shortest distances."

We've shaped our tools. Now they shape us.