DRIVE!

Sub-titled 'Henry Ford, George Selden, and the Race to Invent the Auto Age', from the acclaimed author of Birdmen comes a revelatory new history of the birth of the automobile, a true tale of invention, competition, visionaries, hustlers and swindlers who came together to transform the world. In 1900, the Automobile Club of America sponsored the nation's first car show in New York's Madison Square Garden. The event was a spectacular success, attracting 70 exhibitors and nearly 50,000 visitors. Among the spectators was an obscure would-be automaker named Henry Ford, who walked the floor speaking with designers and engineers, trying to gauge public enthusiasm for what was then a revolutionary invention. He concluded that the car was going to be a fixture of American society, both in the city and on the farm, and one that would make some people very rich. The book is the most complete account to date of the wild early days and how the internal combustion engine evolved into an innovation that would change history. There are men with names like Benz, Peugeot, Renault and Daimler who were building and marketing the world's first cars and Goldstone breaths life into this extraordinary cast of characters and the financiers who risked everything for their visions. Here too are visionary lawyers like George Seldon who fought for and won the first patent for the gasoline-powered automobile. The race was on. 372pp, photos. Remainder mark.