There was no conscious public need of motor cars

In the past 100 years, cars have become a vital part of our daily life. But will they remain so?

Here are my thoughts and recollections from Scotland. I hope they will encourage you to share your own Motley Stories about the everyday things in your life, and how things change. Our ordinary lives will one day become significant and contribute to history. So, let’s share our stories, capture them in photos, and preserve them for future generations.

"The Model T car was a pioneer. There was no conscious public need of motor cars when we first made it. There were few good roads." Henry Ford. A Model T Ford car at its launch in Australia in 1915.

Cars are part of our everyday lives, but the vehicles and the way we drive is rapidly changing. Self-driving vehicles are already a reality in some places, such as San Fransisco, USA and China, and are set to be on roads in the UK by 2026. What are your thoughts about the way you have used cars in your life?

How things have changed

The wheel was invented in the 4th century BCE, and presumably soon afterwards the horse & cart began to be used as a means of transport¹. Horses pulling a cart or a carriage remained the main form of transport on land for the next 15 centuries. Then the car was invented.

When my grandmother was born in 1909 there were 84,840 private motor-cars registered in the UK. Since the population of the UK was 45 million, car owners were a minority who were wealthy enough to afford to buy and maintain one. My grandmother lived in a farming family, so horses would have been the main source of transport, and cars seen as a novelty. Yet during her lifetime cars became the main source of transport for many people.

During the 20th century means of transport changed at a dizzying pace. The car and the road network dominated and changed the British landscape forever. By the end of the 21st century self-driving vehicles will further change the way we use cars. Cars as we know them may no longer exist.

Some cars in my life

During the 1960s and 70s car transport was thought to be the future, and public transport was downgraded. In the UK many train stations were closed, bus routes reduced and motorways built. During my teenage years (1970s), when I was living with my grandparents in the Highlands, our car was a necessity. But cars were expensive, so many people drove old ‘bangers²’ that nowadays would not pass the mandatory maintenance standards.

Citroen 2 CV 1968. My memory is hazy, but this is like the car my stepmother drove.

My grandparents had a good car, but my stepmother’s car felt like a tin box, with very uncomfortable seats. It was difficult to drive, since it had an unforgiving, stiff clutch and no power steering. It required several tries to start the car, which you did by pulling out the choke³, and if you were not careful you could easily stall (keep trying), or flood the engine (get the bus).

Also, her car did not have a petrol gauge! There were two tanks, and when one emptied you manually switched to the other one. The idea was that you filled the empty tank as soon as possible. Of course, this did not always happen, and we were regularly stuck on a lonely stretch of road, having run out of petrol.

Do you have a story about your car(s)?

Come over to the Motley Story Substack Chat, where you can add a comment and a photo.

Nowadays cars are much more comfortable and easier to drive, they have seat belts, air bags and are built to keep you safer if you crash. But have you noticed how bland cars have become? They seem to be a very similar design and mostly white, with some silver, black, dark blue, or an occasional red. I was on the road for two hours yesterday, and did not see a single green, purple or yellow car! I presume the ‘resale value’ of the car is reduced if it is an unusual colour.

Cars in the local car park - very monochrome.

Since I intend to drive my car until it or I die, it does not matter to me what the resale value is, though sadly I have a white car. My car is second hand so I had little choice about the colour. I dislike white cars as I can never find my car amongst the hundreds of other white cars in car parks, and it shows the dirt. I would love to have an apple green car.

I saw a little green car!

I had been without a car for a few years, since I did not need one in London⁴, but I bought one last summer, when we moved to Scotland. My car is a hybrid - the first car I have had with a battery. I did not buy an electric car because it was too expensive and besides, there too few charging points in Scotland. A hybrid is an automatic car, and great in cities, when changing gears can be annoying. But I miss driving a manual (stick) car - it is a wonderful experience to drive on small, twisty, hilly roads when you are controlling both the wheel and the clutch. The skill of driving a manual car will soon be lost.

I appreciate the privilege of being able afford a car, and the freedom to drive anywhere at any time. In 100 years people may be astonished that we had the luxury of a personal transport vehicle, filled with our paraphernalia, constantly available, just sitting outside our house - and that we could it drive anywhere we wanted.

What will our descendants think of the way we used un-replaceable fossil fuel in our cars, which was readily available, though increasingly expensive⁵? Will we even have our own cars in future, or will we just hire a car for each journey? Whatever the changes, future generations will be interested in our cars, and how we used them.

Article written in January 2025, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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Other viewpoints

• Get A Horse! America’s Skepticism Toward the First Automobiles. The inventor who claimed the first U.S. car ever sold recalls the birth of the industry and the general public skepticism about automobiles.

• Why aren’t cars as colorful as they used to be? A very interesting look at the subject of colourful cars. It seems the peak model year for the green cars that I love was 1997. It will not surprise you that economics is at the root of the bland car colours we see nowadays.

• Cars as a longevity issue. “An estimated 1.1 to 1.4 million people die every single year due to car collisions and are the leading cause of death for people aged 15 to 29 [worldwide].”

  Thorne
  makes the argument for reducing our dependence on cars.

• What self driving cars mean for the city. An insightful article about whether autonomous vehicles will address traffic issues, make it safer for pedestrians, and what their impact on mass transit will be. Also, a very interesting point about cultural drift.

I have included links to articles that I hope you will find interesting. I do not have any financial or business affiliations with these websites. Access to these websites is free, but access may only be available in the UK. Please inform me if any of the links are not working.

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Are you overwhelmed with photos, and not sure how to sort or use them? Coming soon - the Motley Stories Community.

I will soon be launching a series of guides for the Motley Stories Community, to offer advice on how to manage and organise your photos. Additionally, I will provide suggestions for using photos, journals, and notes to easily document and preserve your stories and experiences; including how to incorporate these elements into your memoirs, photo books, and other projects. Access to the Motley Stories Community will be available to paid subscribers. More information soon.

1. Car c. 1300, ‘wheeled vehicle’, from Anglo-French carre, Old North French carre.

2. A banger is a British slang term for an old car in poor condition.

3. A car's choke was a valve in the carburettor that restricted the amount of air that entered the engine when starting it. The choke's purpose was to create a fuel-rich mixture for the engine's cylinders when it was cold. This helped the engine ‘catch’ and start.

4. London has an excellent public transport system of trains, buses and a large underground system. You can also hire taxis, or join a car club to have access to a car parked not far from your house. It is easy to manage without a car.

However, driving a car in London is expensive, since you have to pay a congestion charge of £15 a day if you drive into the centre of the city. Then, if your car does not meet the ultra low emission standards which only modern cars can meet, the charge is £12.50 a day. There is no free parking; charges range from £1.80 to £10 an hour. Driving into London and staying 4 hours, will cost you between £22 ($27) and £70 ($85). 2024 prices.

5. The price of petrol in Edinburgh, UK in January 2025, is around £1.39 per litre of unleaded PPL. It costs around £30 ($37) to fill my tank with petrol. 2025 prices.