[DoreenMichele]

From the first piece:

The oft-printed statement that early automobiles were ‘playthings of the rich’ until Henry Ford’s super-cheap Model T started rolling off the assembly line in October 1908, is easily proven by scanning the makes of high-priced chariots and their wealthy owners who participated in the Amsterdam Evening Recorder’s Saturday, July 10, 1909 “Sociability Run” from Amsterdam to Lake Luzerne.

Everything I've ever seen indicates cars were considered to be "toys" for the rich when they first came out. Roads were not really designed for them. They were insanely expensive. They were not generally considered to be serious new tech that would eventually compete as transportation.

That changed when Henry Ford made cars affordable for the masses.

Old laws often said things like "You must have someone walk in front of your car ringing a bell so you don't spook the horses." This implicitly tells you that early cars were also extremely slow and horses were the form of serious transportation that the culture revolved around.

[dredmorbius]

Even more so when post-WWII cheap petrol made cars affordable, and suburban living made them essential.

Half of all households (based on ~4 persons per household) didn't own an automobile until between 1945-1950. Ownership didn't cross the 10% threshold until the 1930s.

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2cy898/durin...