A01=David N. Lucsko
aftermarket
Author_David N. Lucsko
automobile enthusiasm
Category=KNDR
Category=NHTK
customization
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
high-performance
hot rod
hot rod industry
SEMA
speed equipment
speed equipment manufacturing
Product details
- ISBN 9780801889905
- Weight: 680g
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 29 Dec 2008
- Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Since the mass production of Henry Ford's Model T, car enthusiasts have been redesigning, rebuilding, and reengineering their vehicles for increased speed and technical efficiency. They purchase aftermarket parts, reconstruct engines, and enhance body designs, all in an effort to personalize and improve their vehicles. Why do these car enthusiasts modify their cars and where do they get their aftermarket parts? Here, David N. Lucsko provides the first scholarly history of America's hot rod business. Lucsko examines the evolution of performance tuning through the lens of the 34-billion speed equipment industry that supports it. As early as 1910, dozens of small shops across the United States designed, manufactured, and sold add-on parts to consumers eager to employ new technologies as they tinkered with their cars. Operating for much of the twentieth century in the shadow of the Big Three automobile manufacturers-General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler-these businesses grew at an impressive rate, supplying young and old hot rodders with thousands of performance-boosting gadgets.
Lucsko offers a rich and heretofore untold account of the culture and technology of the high-performance automotive aftermarket in the United States, offering a fresh perspective on the history of the automobile in America.
David N. Lucsko is managing editor of Technology and Culture and an instructor of technological history at the University of Detroit Mercy.
