About the Book
In this lively and entertaining work, Witold Rybczynski—hailed as “one of the best writers on design working today” by Publishers Weekly—tells the story of the most distinctive cars in history and the artists, engineers, dreamers, and gearheads who created them. Delving into more than 170 years of ingenuity in design, technology, and engineering, he takes us from Carl Benz’s three-wheel motorcar in 1855 to the present-day shift to electric cars. Along the way, he looks at the emergence of mass production with Henry Ford’s Model T; the Golden Age of American car design and the rise of car culture; postwar European subcompacts typified by the Mini Cooper; and the long tradition of the streamlined and elegant sports car. Rybczynski explores how cars have reflected national character (the charming Italian Fiat Cinquecento), served as icons of a subculture (the VW bus for American hippies), and even emulated an era (the practical Chrysler minivan). He explains key developments in automotive technology, including the electric starter, rack-and-pinion steering, and disc brakes, highlighting how the modern automobile is the result of more than a century of trial and error. And he weaves in charming accounts of the many cars he’s owned and driven, starting with his first—the iconic Volkswagen Beetle. The Driving Machine is a breezy and fascinating history of design, illustrated with the author’s delightful drawings.
About the Author
Witold Rybczynski, of Polish parentage, was born in Edinburgh, raised in London, and attended Jesuit schools in England and Canada. He studied architecture at McGill University in Montreal, where he also taught; he is currently emeritus professor of urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania. His architectural experience has included designing houses as a registered architect, as well as researching low-cost housing for which he received a 1991 Progressive Architecture award. In 1993, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and he has received honorary doctorates from McGill University and the University of Western Ontario. In 2007, he received the Vincent Scully Prize, the Seaside Prize, and the Institute Collaborative Honors from the AIA. He served on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts from 2004 to 2012. Library Journal described Rybczynski as “one of our most original, accessible, and stimulating writers on architecture.” He has written twenty-two books on subjects as varied as the evolution of comfort, a history of the weekend, American urbanism, the development of a new community, and a search for the origins of the screwdriver. Home has been translated into ten languages, and was nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Prize, while A Clearing in the Distance, a biography of Frederick Law Olmsted, received the J. Anthony Lukas Prize, a Christopher Award, a Philadelphia Athenæum literary award, and was shortlisted for the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Nonfiction. His essays have appeared regularly in Architect and The New York Times, and he has written for The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The New York Review of Books. In 2014, he was a finalist for a National Magazine Award. He has been an architecture critic for Saturday Night, Wigwag, and Slate. In 2014, Rybczynski received the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Design Mind, and in 2023, he received an Arthur Ross Award for Publishing. His latest book is The Driving Machine, a design history of the car. Witold Rybczynski lives in Philadelphia.