Engines of Change

A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars

By: Paul Ingrassia

Narrated by: Sean Runnette

Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

America was made manifest by its cars. From the assembly lines of Henry Ford to the open roads of Route 66 and Jack Kerouac, America's history is a vehicular history-an idea brought brilliantly to life in this major work by the acclaimed author of Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry's Road from Glory to Disaster.

One of the nation's most eloquent and impassioned car nuts, Paul Ingrassia offers a wondrous epic in fifteen automobiles, including the VW Beetle, the Chevy Corvair, Robert McNamara and Lee Iacocca's Mustang, the Pontiac GTO, Honda's Accord, the BMW 3 Series, and the Jeep, among others. Through them, the author shows us much more than the car's ability to exhibit the particularly American tension between the lure of freedom and the obligations of utility; he takes us through the rise of American manufacturing, the suburbanization of the country, the birth of the Hippy and the Yuppy, the emancipation of women, and so much more, including the car's unintended consequences: trial lawyers, energy crises, and pollution. Narrative history of the highest caliber, Engines of Change is an entirely edifying new way to look at the American story.

©2012 Paul Ingrassia (P)2012 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A thoughtful, propulsive assay of the machine that changed a nation, a world." ( The Wall Street Journal)

Great Book

I have listened to this book 3 times. Well written, humorous, educational, and entertaining. If you are interested in cars at all you will enjoy this book.

Less about cars, more about car men

This is a fascinating topic and there are sections which I really enjoyed in this book. The Volkswagen story was a great expansion on the vague outline I already knew. We have all heard stories of the hard struggle Henry Ford suffered to get his cheap, reliable Model T on America's roads, but I learned new details here.

But there is way too much that reads like the newspaper articles Ingrassia wrote throughout his career. Names and dates, education, work history, job titles - way too much to remember and certainly too much to care about. The "man on the street" quotes especially grated on me - I do not care why 200 average Joes bought their first Beetle or what they think of BMV drivers.

The main focus of the book is on the cars of the 1950s to 1970s. I wish Ingrassia had spent time on the shortsighted management decisions of the late 70s and 80s and the blinders the Big 3 wore when it came to Japanese cars. I remember an apocryphal quote from one Detroit-based executive "I am not worried about Japanese imports - no one I know drives a Japanese car." Well, I grew up in California and just about everyone I knew drive a foreign car. From this book, you would think the only Hondas on the road are the Accords built in Ohio. The one exception is the final chapter which discusses the game-changing Prius.

So while I did learn some new aspects of the business, the scattered focus of this book left me frustrated. This could have been a much better book. I have a nagging feeling that I read this book before - in the front page center column stories of the Wall Street Journal where Ingrassia spent his career. There is a big difference between a great feature article and a great book.

More about American Culture & History than Automob

What did you like best about Engines of Change? What did you like least?

I personally am a big fan of 20th century American history so I enjoyed this book. However, if you are a "car" guy or gal, you may be disappointed with some relatively long dissertations on subjects not related to automobiles.

What could Paul Ingrassia have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

A different, more enthusiastic moderator.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yes

Could have been a great book

While the author presents a lot of information on his "15 Most Important Cars", the book is riddled with mistakes, some minor, a few major and some just ridiculous ("in 2000, on the 50th anniversary of the Edsel....". The Edsel was made from 1958 to November 1959; he even mentions that earlier in the book.) ("the Tucker failed because of it's rear-engine design". The Tucker never even made it into full production). The list goes on. And even when the author presents new and interesting info on a car, he often clutters it up with seemingly endless sociological background information. It's one thing to examine why society embraces a certain type of car (say, a Chrysler minivan). But the book often beats it to death.
That said, the book is still on OK listen for car buffs. I have no beef with the cars chosen (the possible exception being LaSalle) and he even explains in the Epilogue why he picked the ones he did, mostly with good reasoning.
The narration is passable, but could have been a little more emotional.

Not very interesting

The author made a good effort to integrate American history and a few cars. A good effort but not very interesting. A tough one to finish even for the car enthusiast.

Anecdotes engrossing

What did you like best about Engines of Change? What did you like least?

I found the author's research into aspects of the auto business very entertaining, not to mention the idiosyncratic twists and turns in fortune of various designs.

Would you be willing to try another book from Paul Ingrassia? Why or why not?

Sure