Dream Car

Malcolm Bricklin's Fantastic SV1 and the End of Industrial Modernity

By Dimitry Anastakis
Categories: Literature & Language Studies, Auto/biography & Memoir, History, World History, Canadian History, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Business, Economics & Industry, Business
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Hardcover : 9781487555818, 488 pages, April 2024
Paperback : 9781487555825, 488 pages, April 2024
Ebook (PDF) : 9781487555832, 488 pages, March 2024
Ebook (EPUB) : 9781487555856, 488 pages, March 2024

Table of contents

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

Description

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.