[As his 16th birthday approaches, my younger son has begun the driving lessons that will soon mean I have two youthful drivers in the family. To help me deal with that stunning reflection of the passage of time, this week I’ll blog about a handful of American car histories and cars. Share your thoughts on all things American cars for a crowd-sourced weekend post, please!]
On
AmericanStudies contexts for three early 20th century crime cars.
1)
Bonnie and Clyde’s car: That
extensive hyperlinked article on the many fake versions of Bonnie Parker and
Clyde Barrow’s stolen
V8 Ford and the current resting place for the one authentic one (at a
Nevada casino’s car museum that also houses the second crime car below) reveals
just how much of a hold this particular early 20th century car has
on the American imagination. It had at least a much a hold on Clyde himself, who
famously wrote
to Henry Ford, just a month before the May 1934 police ambush that killed
the pair and shot up their car, “While
I still have got breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make.
I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained
speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got every other car skinned and
even if my business hasn't been strictly legal it don't hurt anything to tell
you what a fine car you got in the V-8.” That’s the kind of detail that
would feel outrageous in a novel, but stranger than fiction, y’know.
2)
Al Capone’s car: Again
that same Primm, Nevada casino and museum holds Al Capone’s bulletproof 1928
Cadillac, a helpful alteration for a life of crime that would have served
Bonnie and Clyde well; the car was already
bulletproofed when Capone bogarted it from deceased gangster Dutch Schultz,
and it never took any fire during Capone’s life (although casino/museum owner
Gary Primm shot a bunch of bullets at it to prove the point and make it more
tourist-friendly). Of course Bonnie and Clyde’s car was stolen late in their
crime spree while Capone’s was (after he acquired it in tellingly gangster
fashion) his own and integral to the day to day operations of his criminal
enterprises. But while that distinction reflects the very different types of
criminals we’re talking about, the common thread is that by the 1930s, the most
famous criminals all had equally famous wheels.
3)
Gatsby’s
car: Jay Gatsby was a fictional character, but in his world he was just as
famous as these figures; his criminality was a matter of more dispute, but many
of the rumors about him do define him in that way, and it seems from the novel’s
final revelations that he was indeed in some sort of nefarious business with
gangsters like Meyer
Wolfsheim. But while Gatsby’s yellow automobile might well have been
purchased with ill-gotten gains, it becomes a crime car in a very different and
much more tragic way: when Gatsby allows novice driver Daisy Buchanan to steer
back from New York City and she hits and kills Myrtle Wilson (and then flees
the scene of the crime). While mythic real-life criminals like Capone and
Bonnie and Clyde can capture our collective imaginations, it’s fair to say that
this fictional accidental criminal tragedy is much more like the reality of
both crime and the human experience. With cars as a through-line across every
form of story to be sure.
Next
CarStudying tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Car histories or stories you’d highlight?
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