The rationale for this book, and the research that underpins it, comes from a long, evolving and deepening fascination with car culture; how we use, react to and live with cars and their infrastructures is something that continues to provoke curiosity and, at times, concern. While some of this interest came through explicit academic avenues, it grew and was refined through a more personal, pre-academic biography involving relationships with cars and how some friends ‘felt’ about their vehicles, as well as connections with those who made a living working with, and sometimes against, cars. In the spirit of being open, and no doubt open to an array of criticisms, it is important to state that while not exactly a complete exercise in self-indulgence, this book is based on a desire to explore cars through a framing of the experiences, attitudes and dispositions of car users.

Ubiquitous though it is, and despite the harmful impacts it has generated over the decades, the car continues to represent something beyond utility, with freedom, creativity, status and even deviance being signified by this mass-produced object, which, at its core, still has the basic function of enabling and improving movement. As a development of earlier horseless carriages, cars were supposed to help us become more efficient. And yet, even before the mid 20th century, what we could do and see on the road surpassed this function.

On a typical day on a typical inner-city Bradford road, if such a thing exists, a significant, unusual and varied car presence is witnessed. There are standard, ordinary cars, vans and motorcycles, of various ages and conditions. Occasionally, a car manufactured decades ago appears, turns heads and elicits nostalgia-laced conversation or thought. And then there are modern, and much more expensive, models that seem, in some cases, out of place. Range Rovers, Audi Q7s and BMW X5s are visible across the UK, but the same cannot be said of Bentleys, Lamborghinis and Ferraris. Their presence figures heavily in the developing storyline of Bradford as a ‘car city’:

LR: Bradford's known for its cars, though … got a good following in a way; a lot of cars in Bradford that are nice – expensive cars, vintage cars and done-up cars as well.