Machines of Youth: America's Car Obsession

Abstract

Machines of Youth is about men and boys and their relationship with the automobile in the last century. While Gary S. Cross offers a chapter on the low-rider movement within the Hispanic community and makes occasional references to African Americans and women, the book is mainly about white, primarily working-class boys and men and their desire to modify cars into hot rods ready to cruise the strip, hoping to attract women, to race the cars in the streets, or to impress other aficionados. Cross has written widely on consumer behavior and like his Consumed Nostalgia (2015), where he also explores hot-rod culture during the 1950s. In Machines of Youth he blends ethnographic and historical approaches to better discuss the influence and meaning of the automobile, which shaped “several generations of American youth” (p. 17). The depression and World War II eras provided the starting point for young men to buy cheap used cars and modify them into hot rods. The do-it-yourself mentality and the desire to tinker with the machine technology proved attractive for many primarily young, white teenagers, and they quickly learned how to modify their jalopies into hot rods designed to show off their customizing skills and speed. This led to a rise in street racing as the hot rod “represented a challenge to the established order” (p. 32). After the war, tensions between the adult world and young men and their cars became a social problem, encouraging the rise of hot-rods clubs, magazines, and a national organization—the National Hot Rod Association—which sought to legitimize the hobby and make it more acceptable to mainstream America. The hot-rod culture played a central role in many teenage boys' social lives from the 1950s to the 1970s, especially as it related to rebellion (in the form of street racing), defining their masculinity, and changing courtship patterns. Especially interesting is Cross's discussion of the cruise culture, “embodied the thrill of initiation into adult society and freedom from adult constraints” (p. 82).