In January 1886, Karl Benz patented his Motorwagen, the world's first practical automobile, and during that same year he proved that it worked. From Germany, the motor car spread to France, Britain, around Europe and, in the early 1890s, to America. Born in a time of great technological innovation, the car opened up new horizons; and it began to change the world. It did so partly because it reached so many people, thanks largely to the vision of Henry Ford who gave America the Model T, a seminal creation which influenced the growth of a new social order, moving the car away from being a rich man's toy to the working man's tool and the family man's runabout. "Cars: The Early Years" offers an original view of the first 75 years of the motor car, from Benz's first, through two world wars, prosperity, depression, resistance and acceptance to the end of the 1950s. From the start the motor car was captured in pictures; much of its progress has been uniquely chronicled by the...