Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
My own Datsun 210 was a "practical" car, and lived to reach 138,000 miles in fourteen years. Its only bit of rust resulted from a romantic evening when it was parked on a San Francisco hill. The emergency brake was nudged off during a parting kiss, and my Datsun briefly met the pointy nose of a Cadillac parked directly behind it. Whenever I caught sight of its tiny dent, and the resulting rust, I was lulled back to fond memories of that evening.
The Datsun survived the heat waves of Southern California summers, the snow of Massachusetts, the trials and tribulations of city combat driving, and was even once stolen and recovered. It never complained, and never left me stranded. Its life was cut short when another car plowed into the driver's side. When its door was pried open, I saw that the Datsun had given its life for mine. Its frame was bent, yet its deluxe blue pinstriping held on, and I was fine. Even though the Datsun didn't make 200,000 miles, as I was once certain it would, it protected me beyond my wildest dreams, and will never be forgotten. Today I drive a Saturn, unassuming on the outside, adorned on the interior with mementos of the road trips I love to take.
In my professional life, I am a photographer of events, places, and people. While photographing one woman with a very important feline friend for a book project, I realized that our relationships are not only with people or animals, but also with our possessions. Among our most treasured possessions, our cars loom large, helping us, as they do, to live our lives to the fullest.
Women and cars, I thought. Why not? Even automotive advertisements from the 1920s featured women prominently in the driver's seat. Today, women buy almost half of the cars sold in the United States-roughly eight million new cars and another eight million used cars each year. The automotive object of affection doesn't have to be expensive, classic, or fancy. During the course of photographing women for this book, I realized just how special each and every vehicle is to its owner.
Over a five-year period, I photographed and interviewed nearly 100 women for this book. When I talked with women about their cars, motorcycles, trucks, and buses, I heard more than simple stories about practical transportation. They shared with me their tales of independence, growth, creativity, growing up, growing older, children, relationships, divorce, and loss. Our conversations were filled with laughter too, as we recounted our automotive histories, the trials and tribulations of driving, the nicknames we bestowed on our cars, our urges to personalize and decorate them, popular culture, the lure of the road, and the innumerable ways our vehicles change our lives. Indeed, for many women, the stories of their relationships with their vehicles are not only those of transportation, but of transformation.
The forty-two women in this book express their automotive affection with choices ranging from the Stanley Steamer (marketed to women in the early part of the twentieth century because it was easier to start than a car with a crank) to a late-model Saturn, and everything in between. In these pages you'll find women who are competent, creative, compassionate, and passionate, with their vehicles: cars, buses, trucks, vans, motorcycles, factory-equipped, or personally embellished, classics from the 1960s or shiny, brand-new models straight from the dealer's showroom.
As much as possible, I use each woman's own words to relate her own story. Many of these women have become adept at car repairs; some have turned their know-how into careers. Others travel thousands of miles in our great country and beyond, seeing the sights and enjoying the freedom. The women in this book often relate to their vehicles as a part of themselves.
One thing is certain: women at the wheel are a force to be reckoned with, steering their lives toward new horizons...
Marilyn Root, Massachusetts, January 1999
