Dream Car tells the story of entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin's fantastical 1970s-era Safety Vehicle-1 (SV1), audaciously launched during a tumultuous breakpoint in postwar history. The tale of the sexy-yet-safe SV1 reveals the influence of automobiles on ideas about the future, technology, entrepreneurship, risk, safety, showmanship, politics, sex, gender, business, and the state, as well as the history of the auto industry's birth, decline, and rebirth.
Written as an ""open road,"" the book invites readers to travel a narrative arc that unfolds chronologically and thematically. Dream Car's seven chapters have been structured so that they can be read in any order, determined by whichever theme each reader finds most interesting. The book also includes a musical playlist of car songs from the era and songs about the SV1 itself.
By:
Dimitry Anastakis
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions:
Height: 246mm,
Width: 178mm,
Spine: 30mm
Weight: 850g
ISBN: 9781487555825
ISBN 10: 1487555822
Pages: 488
Publication Date: 15 July 2024
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Preface Playlist Prologue: On Stage, the Four Seasons Restaurant, New York City, June 25, 1974: Malcolm Bricklin, Ritchard Hatfield, and Their Fantastic Car Introduction: Industrial Modernity, Bricklin, and Industrial Postmodernity, 1890s–1974–2020s 1. The Future (Technology) 2. Entrepreneur (Archetype) 3. Risk (Safety) 4. Showman (Politician) 5. Sex (Gender) 6. Business (The State) 7. Demise (Rebirth) Conclusion: Malcolm Bricklin and His SV1: From Industrial Modernity to Industrial Postmodernity Epilogue: Tesla Factory, Fremont, California, August 2018 – Elon Musk, the Model 3, and “Production Hell” Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Notes about Sources Notes Bibliography List of Illustrations and Credits Index
Dimitry Anastakis is the L.R. Wilson and R.J. Currie Chair in Canadian Business History in the Department of History and the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.
Reviews for Dream Car: Malcolm Bricklin's Fantastic SV1 and the End of Industrial Modernity
"""Innovative, engaging, and, like the car on which it focuses, eccentric in the best way, Dream Car convincingly puts Malcolm Bricklin's SV1 at the pivot point of North American political economy in the 1970s. Anastakis expertly draws the reader through a narrative of utopian dreams and remunerative schemes gone awry, and he even provides a killer playlist for the journey."" --Cotten Seiler, Professor of American Studies, Dickinson College ""Dream Car adroitly manages the unlikely feat of analysing the automotive industry's transformation from industrial modernity to postmodernity through the lens of a mostly forgotten episode from the 1970s: the entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin and the launch of his SV1. The analysis is insightful, and the book is an enjoyable read!""--Thomas Klier, Economist"
