move into a subsidiary role in the culture.

     In the middle of the nineteenth century great success was 
achieved with steam-engined cars on the open road. Only the 
heavy toll-taxes levied by local road authorities discouraged 
steam engines on the highways. Pneumatic tires were fitted to 
a steam car in France in 1887. The American Stanley Steamer 
began to flourish in 1899. Ford had already built his first car in 
1896, and the Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903. It 
was the electric spark that enabled the gasoline engine to take 
over from the steam engine. The crossing of electricity, the 
biological form, with the mechanical form was never to release 
a greater force.

     It is TV that has dealt the heavy blow to the American 
car. The car and the assembly line had become the ultimate