The Automobile As Modern Art

When Los Angeles Times auto writer Dan Neil won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism last year, there were more than a few howls of outrage from the cultural elite. "If you write about cars, it is reportage," huffed John Simon, theater critic of New York magazine, quoted in The New York Times. "It is not criticism, even though it postures as criticism. Cars are utilitarian things. You might as well be a critic of kitchen utensils."

As Mr. Simon likely lives in Manhattan, where most cars are either yellow or black and for hire, his reaction is, I guess, understandable. But he's wrong, of course. I mean, when was the last time you went to a spoon museum? Or heard a song about a fork? Or hung out in the garage with your buddies talking about cutlery? Thought so...

The car is truly the machine that changed the world. It's shaped our lives, our cities, and, yes, our culture. Rock 'n' roll started with a song about a car: Elvis Presley was still driving a delivery truck when 19-year-old Ike Turner walked into a tiny studio owned by Sam Phillips in Memphis in 1951 and recorded "Rocket 88," a paean to the fastest American sedan you could buy at the time, the 135-horsepower Oldsmobile Rocket 88.

"Rocket 88" was an unexpected hit, and the royalties enabled Phillips to start Sun Records, the label that gave people like BB King, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and, of course, Elvis their start. Although some rock historians believe a number of late-1940s R&B songs lay claim to the title, Phillips regards "Rocket 88," later covered by Bill Haley and His Comets, to be the first true rock-'n'-roll record. And as the man who discovered Elvis, he ought to know.

If rock 'n' roll is a bit too lowbrow, perhaps