Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Auto Biography: A Classic Car, an Outlaw Motorhead, and 57 Years of the American Dream
    Unavailable
    Auto Biography: A Classic Car, an Outlaw Motorhead, and 57 Years of the American Dream
    Unavailable
    Auto Biography: A Classic Car, an Outlaw Motorhead, and 57 Years of the American Dream
    Ebook462 pages7 hours

    Auto Biography: A Classic Car, an Outlaw Motorhead, and 57 Years of the American Dream

    By Earl Swift

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    Listen to the audiobook instead

    About this ebook

    A brilliant blend of Shop Class as Soulcraft and The Orchid Thief, Earl Swift's wise, funny, and captivating Auto Biography follows an outlaw auto dealer as he struggles to save a rusted '57 Chevy—a car that has already passed through twelve pairs of hands before his—while financial ruin, government bureaucrats and the FBI close in on him.

    Slumped among hundreds of other decrepit hulks on a treeless, windswept moor in eastern North Carolina, the Chevy evokes none of the Jet Age mystique that made it the most beloved car to ever roll off an assembly line. It's open to the rain. Birds nest in its seats. Officials of the surrounding county consider it junk.

    To Tommy Arney, it's anything but: It's a fossil of the twentieth-century American experience, of a place and a people utterly devoted to the automobile and changed by it in myriad ways. It's a piece of history—especially so because its flaking skin conceals a rare asset: a complete provenance, stretching back more than fifty years.

    So, hassled by a growing assortment of challengers, the Chevy's thirteenth owner—an orphan, grade-school dropout and rounder, a felon arrested seventy-odd times, and a man who's been written off as a ruin himself--embarks on a mission to save the car and preserve long record of human experience it carries in its steel and upholstery.

    Written for both gearheads and Sunday drivers, Auto Biography charts the shifting nature of the American Dream and our strange and abiding relationship with the automobile, through an iconic classic and an improbable, unforgettable hero.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 6, 2014
    ISBN9780062282675
    Author

    Earl Swift

    Earl Swift is the author of the New York Times bestseller Chesapeake Requiem, which was named to ten best-of-the-year lists. His other books include Across the Airless Wilds, Auto Biography, The Big Roads, and Where They Lay. A former reporter for the Virginian-Pilot and a contributor to Outside and other publications, he is a fellow of Virginia Humanities at the University of Virginia. He lives in the Blue Ridge mountains west of Charlottesville.

    Read more from Earl Swift

    Related to Auto Biography

    Related ebooks

    Antiques & Collectibles For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Cobra

      Jan 21, 2022

      The Cobra
      4 min read

    • Article

      2021 Lamborghini Sián

      Apr 23, 2021

      The 2021 Lamborghini Sián will catapult to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds and hit 220 mph, leaving in its wake a shock-and-awe wall of sound from its 6.5-liter naturally aspirated V-12. The Sián is long and low and extreme, with a menacing, almost alien road

      3 min read

    • Article

      Indian On Ice

      Jan 11, 2022

      Indian On Ice
      3 min read

    • Article

      Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

      Sep 13, 2021

      Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
      14 min read

    • Article

      Sexier Six!

      Jul 19, 2021

      Sexier Six!
      5 min read

    • Article

      Mclaren Mp4/2

      Sep 24, 2020

      Mclaren Mp4/2
      6 min read

    • Article

      Speed Week 2021

      Nov 5, 2021

      Speed Week 2021
      7 min read

    • Article

      What’s Your Favorite Axle?

      Nov 18, 2022

      This month’s Four Wheeler shines the lightbar on axles, and we all have opinions and recollections about the axles under the 4x4s we’ve owned or currently own. The good, the bad, and the downright ugly. The first 4x4 I owned was in the early 1980s, a

      2 min read

    • Article

      Score To Settle

      Mar 12, 2021

      Score To Settle
      3 min read

    • Article

      Moto Guzzi California

      Jan 31, 2024

      Italian motorcycles had a legendary reputation in the 1970s. They were stylish, they were fast, they were powerful. They were also hopelessly unreliable and would dissolve if exposed to the open air. Their electrical systems would fry on a whim and t

      7 min read

    • Article

      2022 Toyota Tundra

      Nov 19, 2021

      On a recent visit to Toyota’s truck plant in San Antonio, Texas, we were surprised by how many full-size Detroit-bred pickups filled the employee parking lots. It illustrated the extent to which Toyota’s own full-sizer, the 15-year-old second-gen Tun

      4 min read

    • Article

      2023 Toyota Sequoia

      Mar 25, 2022

      2023 Toyota Sequoia
      2 min read

    • Article

      2022 Ford Maverick

      Sep 24, 2021

      2022 Ford Maverick
      2 min read

    • Article

      Rez Life

      Aug 1, 2022

      Rez Life
      19 min read

    • Article

      Table Talk

      Sep 1, 2017

      Table Talk
      8 min read

    • Article

      Go Ahead – Tie Your Deer to the Car!

      Mar 21, 2023

      Some 60 years ago, cars passing through the small towns of America on the opening day of deer season formed a virtual parade of bucks tied to fenders. Once I began hunting it didn’t happen as often, but I did participate in the ritual on one occasion

      3 min read

    • Article

      Backfire

      Jan 29, 2020

      In 1958, when I graduated from Memphis State University (now University of Memphis), Rolls-Royce was advertised as the best car in the world. I wanted the best, but I was more modest — I wanted a Bentley. In the 1970s, I began searching Hemmings Moto

      7 min read

    • Article

      What’s Showing AT THE Ritz?

      Aug 14, 2020

      What’s Showing AT THE Ritz?
      8 min read

    • Article

      Detroit Vs.L.A.!

      Dec 22, 2023

      Detroit Vs.L.A.!
      10 min read

    • Article

      Your Mail

      Oct 13, 2021

      Like us on Facebook Unique Cars Magazine Thanks to Colin Francis for his appalling and funny tale of woe. Unique Cars Mailbag Locked Bag 12, Oakleigh, Victoria, 3166, or email: uniquecars@aremedia.com.au or Facebook us! 300 words max please! The lett

      3 min read

    • Article

      Cowboys And Hoonugans

      Feb 4, 2019

      Cowboys And Hoonugans
      7 min read

    • Article

      Box 8 Waipu LETTERS

      Dec 20, 2020

      Box 8 Waipu LETTERS
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Return Road

      May 10, 2019

      The Return Road
      3 min read

    • Article

      Ambition Realized

      Sep 2, 2022

      Ambition Realized
      5 min read

    • Article

      Classic American Mail

      Oct 13, 2020

      Dear Classic American, I would like to introduce myself as the crazy person driving the silver car on page 53 of the Chelsea Cruise feature. Thank you for your comment “Dunno what it is but we love it” – it is definitely a Marmite car, but I love it

      5 min read

    • Article

      Sound Your Horn

      Sep 4, 2020

      I have been a subscriber to Old Cars since the ’70s and have enjoyed every issue. The latest [story] by John Gunnell titled “ACD Reunion Circa ’78” brought back a flood of memories for me. John mentioned Melvin Clemons from West Virginia and I have a

      6 min read

    Reviews for Auto Biography

    4.5/5

    6 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Great book. Should be read by anyone thinking they might like to fix up an old car. Not really what it's about but that's what I got from it. Dreams. Reality. Money. Power. What better vehicle than a 57 Chevy?
    • 4/5
      This is a story of a '57 Chevy and all of it's owners, 12 in all. It reads like a novel and it is a story of their lives and how they restore this classic. A good read and worth reading especially if you like classic cars.