Southern-style Car Culture

I have toyed with the idea long enough, so now I am taking a leap of faith.  Here is a new blog dedicated to my current car project.  In the coming weeks and months, I hope to post logs detailing some aspect of a research project I am calling "All The Horses Had Four Wheels."  Since the American South, as a region, has remained attached to notions of "place," the power of a technology that moved individuals and groups from one location to another quickly posed a significant threat to the centrality of place.  Our highly mobile society means that we are more likely to be detached from any one place than connected to it.  This quick adoption also meant that southerners did not fully anticipate the changes the car would make on the region.  Though I am aware that the car culture is a national reality, there has been very little scholarship on the subject in the South.  More importantly, there has been very little documentation of the cars southerners have owned beyond registration lists.  I want to begin a process where we start collecting stories about the cars themselves and our relationship with them.  If you follow this blog, I encourage you to share your own stories about your first car or a parent's first car.