Wednesday 24 June 2026
Aaron Robinson /

Whither the American Automobile

What makes a car ‘ours.’
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Illustration by Noah Hickey. (Photos via Bill Pugliano/Getty Images; Bryan Mitchell/Getty Images; PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

Our current national obsession with what it means to be an American has inevitably spun off a side conversation about what it means to be an American car. After all, we are the nation that married the automobile till death do us part. We have paved an estimated 61,000 square miles of roads and parking lots, a share of our continental landmass greater than the state of Georgia.

Aaron Robinson has been on the auto beat for more than 30 years as reporter and editor for various trade and consumer publications, including a 17-year stint at Car and Driver. He is currently editor-at-large for Hagerty magazine, which simply means they don’t know where he is most of the time.

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