A chronicle of the frantic, ultracompetitive, and heroic early days of automobile manufacturing... Buoyant and charming
Capturing the energy and ambition of a time when optimism in the American spirit was unparalleled, Miller also shows that despite the car's profound effect on American culture, it was not the modern panacea some predicted. A must for car lovers and plenty of interesting material to keep other curious readers flipping pages.” Kirkus Reviews
Does the best job of teaching you everything about the 1st decade of American car-making (1900 1910) that I think we are ever likely to get. If you want to learn how the Ford, Olds, Reo, Chevrolet, Buick and GM got started, this book is indispensable. It's really that good.” Jesse Bowers, Just a Car Guy
"Should fan your enthusiasm for automobile history." Examiner.com
"This is a story rich with corporate war, courtroom drama, world-record racing, and larger-than-life charactersin particular Henry Ford, who was not just a mechanical and business genius, but one of America's original speed demons.” Jack Roush, founder and CEO of Roush Fenway Racing, the NASCAR team
Wayne Miller's Men and Speed, about the historic NASCAR season when Dale Earnhardt died, is a sports classic. In Car Crazy, he takes us back to the birth of auto racing when Henry Ford, Barney Oldfield, and other greats risked life and limbtheir own and spectators'in pursuit of money and glory. Some things never change. A must-read for all sports fans.” Bill Reynolds, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Success Is a Choice with Rick Pitino, coauthor of Basketball Junkie with Chris Herren, and author of Fall River Dreams
"With the combination of his historian's eye and a unique, cinematic-style approach to storytelling, Wayne Miller has written an exciting page-turner. With a rag-tag cast of underdogs, death-defying spectacles and thrilling courtroom drama, Car Crazy is a must-read book that explores the against-all-odds survival of the American automotive industry in its infancy." Danny Strong, Emmy-winning screenwriter of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Parts 1 and 2, and Lee Daniels' The Butler
The dawn of the auto age brought with it conflict, controversy, fear and excitement as ably illustrated in G. Wayne Miller's book
Simultaneously tracking several threads of the story of early automobiles, Miller reveals business and legal battles, engineering and mechanical innovations, endurance races over destructive terrain, and the social impact of the car
Several of the people who comprise these threads of Miller's history would make likely movie subjects
[a] lively book with implied lessons about our own time.” Providence Journal
"Absolutely extraordinary... Get this book! It is very, very readable. Fascinating." LLewellyn King, host of PBS' White House Chronicle
"Fascinating... It was a time of off-the-wall characters, eager-to-corner markets and run competitors off the road. We meet the ruthless Frederic Smith, the CEO of Olds Motor Works, and, of course, Ford." Newport Mercury
Engrossing and well-written, Miller's study of the cultural impact of the automobile is also a testament to the elements of the vehicle that car enthusiasts find endearing. This work will attract fans of motor sports as well as entrepreneurs and anyone interested in the power of technology to enact social change.” Library Journal
In Car Crazy, G. Wayne Miller, author of Toy Wars: The Epic Struggle Between G.I. Joe, Barbie, and the Companies That Make Them and Men and Speed: A Wild Ride through NASCAR's Breakout Season, takes listeners back to the wild and wooly years of the early automobile era-from 1893, when the first U.S.-built auto was introduced, through 1908, when General Motors was founded and Ford's Model T went on the market. The motorcar was new, paved roads few, and devotees of this exciting and unregulated technology battled with citizens who thought the car a dangerous scourge of the wealthy which was shattering a more peaceful way of life. As the machine transformed American culture for better and worse, early corporate battles for survival and market share transform the economic landscape. Among the pioneering competitors are: Ransom E. Olds, founder of Olds Motor Works, inventor of the assembly line (Henry Ford copied him), and creator of a new company called REO; Frederic L Smith, cutthroat businessman who became CEO of Olds Motor Works after Olds was ousted in a corporate power play; William C. "Billy" Durant of Buick Motor Company (who would soon create General Motors), and genius inventor Henry Ford.
The fiercest fight pits Henry Ford against Frederic Smith of Olds. Olds was the early winner in the race for dominance, but now the Olds empire is in trouble, its once-industry leading market share shrinking, its cash dwindling. Ford is just revving up. But this is Ford's third attempt at a successful auto company-and if this one fails, quite possibly his last. So Smith fights Ford with the weapons he knows best: lawyers, blackmail, intimidation, and a vicious advertising smear campaign that ultimately backfires.
Increasingly desperate, in need of dazzling PR that will help lure customers to his showrooms, Smith stages the most outrageous stunt of the era: the first car race across the continental United States, with two of his Olds cars. The race pits the dashing writer Percy Megargel, a wealthy New Yorker, against Everyman mechanic Dwight B. Huss, a sturdy Midwesterner-men who share a passion for adventure and the new machine. Covered breathlessly by the press and witnessed by thousands in the communities they pass through, Megargel and Huss encounter marvel, mishap, conflict, and danger on their wild 3,500-mile race from Manhattan to Portland, Oregon, most of it through regions lacking paved roads-or any roads at all...Meanwhile, the Ford/Smith battle develops in the newspapers and courtroom dramas. Its outcome will shape the American car industry for a century to come.
Car Crazy is an exciting story of popular culture, business, and sport at the dawn of the twentieth century, filled with compelling, larger-than-life characters, each an American original.
1121985270
Car Crazy: The Battle for Supremacy between Ford and Olds and the Dawn of the Automobile Age
In Car Crazy, G. Wayne Miller, author of Toy Wars: The Epic Struggle Between G.I. Joe, Barbie, and the Companies That Make Them and Men and Speed: A Wild Ride through NASCAR's Breakout Season, takes listeners back to the wild and wooly years of the early automobile era-from 1893, when the first U.S.-built auto was introduced, through 1908, when General Motors was founded and Ford's Model T went on the market. The motorcar was new, paved roads few, and devotees of this exciting and unregulated technology battled with citizens who thought the car a dangerous scourge of the wealthy which was shattering a more peaceful way of life. As the machine transformed American culture for better and worse, early corporate battles for survival and market share transform the economic landscape. Among the pioneering competitors are: Ransom E. Olds, founder of Olds Motor Works, inventor of the assembly line (Henry Ford copied him), and creator of a new company called REO; Frederic L Smith, cutthroat businessman who became CEO of Olds Motor Works after Olds was ousted in a corporate power play; William C. "Billy" Durant of Buick Motor Company (who would soon create General Motors), and genius inventor Henry Ford.
The fiercest fight pits Henry Ford against Frederic Smith of Olds. Olds was the early winner in the race for dominance, but now the Olds empire is in trouble, its once-industry leading market share shrinking, its cash dwindling. Ford is just revving up. But this is Ford's third attempt at a successful auto company-and if this one fails, quite possibly his last. So Smith fights Ford with the weapons he knows best: lawyers, blackmail, intimidation, and a vicious advertising smear campaign that ultimately backfires.
Increasingly desperate, in need of dazzling PR that will help lure customers to his showrooms, Smith stages the most outrageous stunt of the era: the first car race across the continental United States, with two of his Olds cars. The race pits the dashing writer Percy Megargel, a wealthy New Yorker, against Everyman mechanic Dwight B. Huss, a sturdy Midwesterner-men who share a passion for adventure and the new machine. Covered breathlessly by the press and witnessed by thousands in the communities they pass through, Megargel and Huss encounter marvel, mishap, conflict, and danger on their wild 3,500-mile race from Manhattan to Portland, Oregon, most of it through regions lacking paved roads-or any roads at all...Meanwhile, the Ford/Smith battle develops in the newspapers and courtroom dramas. Its outcome will shape the American car industry for a century to come.
Car Crazy is an exciting story of popular culture, business, and sport at the dawn of the twentieth century, filled with compelling, larger-than-life characters, each an American original.
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Editorial Reviews
Product Details
BN ID: | 2940171474454 |
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Publisher: | Ascent Audio |
Publication date: | 12/01/2015 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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