The illustrated story of how America's love affair with cars, shaped its cities, its transportation systems and the ever-changing sport of racing.

Cars quickly became the rage, not just in the US but the entire industrialized world. It is estimated that in 1895 there were fewer than 400 cars in the whole of the continental US, ten years later, 1905, there were more than 400 car companies making some sort of motorized vehicle, the vast majority of which were simply awful: little more than motorized wagons running on oversized bicycle wheels.

Racing probably began as soon as...