This wide-ranging introduction to the special issue on Automobilities examines various
dimensions of the automobile system and car cultures. In its broadest sense we can think of
many automobilities-modes of autonomous, self-directed movement. It can be argued that
there are many different car cultures and autoscapes which operate around the world, which
cannot be seen as making driving (including freeways, motorways and autobahns) a uniform
experience of movement in a controlled'no-place'space. Yet, there clearly is an increasingly …

The Car System THERE HAS been an upsurge of interest in recent years in the signifi cance
of flows, movement and mobility in social life. 1 Yet it could be argued that one of the
dominant forms of mobility, automobility, has been a neglected topic within sociology,
cultural studies and related disci plines. There are of course noted exceptions. Roland
Barthes (1972: 88), for example, suggests that because cars are both used and'consumed in
image'by the whole population they should be seen as' the exact equival ent of the great …