Machines of Youth: America's Car Obsession by Gary S. Cross (review)

Machines of Youth is a colorful chronology of American youth car cultures from the early automotive age to the present day. Relying on an eclectic assemblage of sources—interviews, print media, automotive publications, popular culture, and personal anecdotes—historian Gary Cross has constructed a compelling examination of a rarely researched subject and subculture. Although the book stands on its own as an in-depth exploration of young men's involvement and fascination with cars over the past century, it also serves as a rarely examined but timely analysis of white working-class youth culture in twentieth-century America. In Machines of Youth, Cross takes us beyond the scope of traditional automotive histories to investigate the teenage cultures that evolved along their margins. To young working-class men, Cross argues, car culture was not only a community in which automotive craftsmanship and knowledge could be developed and shared, but it also served as an important source of masculinity, autonomy, individualism, self-expression, and rebellion.

Cross skillfully intertwines automobile history with the teenage cultures it generated. Each chapter introduces cars of a particular generation and the young men who became engaged, if not obsessed, with the growing automotive phenomenon. Some of the stops along the way include the early auto age and young men's growing preoccupation with the gasoline-powered automobile, the 1930s customizing and "souping up" craze, the 1940s hot rod wars, the 1950s and '60s cruising and parking culture, and the Fast and Furious era of Japanese "rice burners." Cross also makes an intriguing detour into the familial and community Latino car culture of "low and slow." At each juncture, Cross delves into how a particular culture came to be, considers how and why boys became involved, investigates the influence of club life and the media, considers how the subcultures were regarded by the public, and discusses the efforts made to suppress, disregard, or encourage young men's automotive activities. Cross concludes the book by considering the state of car culture today, the role of nostalgia in its maintenance, as well as whether there remains enough automotive interest for its continuance into the future.

Although car cultures attracted teens from all walks of life—e.g., baby boomer muscle car enthusiasts and middle-class hippies who tinkered with aging VW Beetles—Cross is particularly interested in the role that the automobile played in the lives of white working-class youth. In the chapter devoted to "greasers and their rods," he examines how cars gave these "marginal" high school boys an opportunity to define themselves apart from the mainstream white middle-class population. As he notes, while middle-class teens on the "college prep" track were likely to drive cars owned or purchased by their parents, working-class youth in the vocational curriculum took pride in working on their own jalopies. Thus, "the customized car offered a token of dignity to a group that had always been subordinate, but which in the mid-twentieth century was steadily losing ground" (99). Cross's examination of white working-class youth is particularly timely given the current political climate, which has witnessed a growing sentiment of discontent and disaffection among rural white working-class men.

Machines of Youth is a welcome and important addition to existing automotive scholarship. Although much has been written on the history of the automobile, only a handful of scholars (e.g., Karen Lumsden, Amy Best, Brenda Bright, Sarah Redshaw) have investigated specific car cultures. And while Cross presents an engaging examination of the history of young men's involvement with cars, the volume's strength comes from its unique focus on class (in addition to gender and race) as an influential and crucial component of American youth car cultures. What the book lacks, however, is diversity in research location. Although the west coast was certainly an important breeding ground for youth car cultures, there is a little too much emphasis on the California car...