Tough Guys and Pretty Boys: The Cultural Antagonisms of
Engineering and Aesthetics in Automotive History by David
Gartman Utilitarian Vision of Henry Ford The automobile entered
the American scene around the turn of the century as an
expensive toy for the rich, for its high price ($600 up to
$7500) put ownership beyond the reach of all but the affluent.
Wealthy families like the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers used
their cars not as utilitarian transportation but as objects of
sport and display in a leisured lifestyle. The rich
conspicuously displayed their wealth by racing, parading, and
touring their expensive vehicles in public. The bodies of these
early automobiles also displayed their good taste, for they were
works of the coachbuilding art. Designed and built separately by
the skilled craftsmen of coachbuilding firms such as Brewster,
Fleetwood, and Judkins, the bodies of these cars were molded
into fashionable forms and finished with layer after layer of
lacquer paints. Above all, the early American car w