Cars: the world's most altering invention

“Cars: Accelerating the Modern World” tells the 130-year history of the car and its impact on our world today for the better, and the worse. There are 15 models on show, ranging from the first production car – the Benz Patent Motorwagen 3 of 1888 – to the electric Jaguar E-Type Prince Harry and Meghan Markle drove on their wedding day, and an immaculate neon rainbow-hued lowrider. They are presented alongside some 250 items of driving paraphernalia including futuristic magazine covers, the first motoring fashions and letters, which uncover the social, political and geographical issues thrown up during motoring’s short history.

Three sections to the show look at how the car has affected our relationship with speed, driven forward mass production and consumerism, and transformed our environment. Going Fast captures the sense of optimism of the advent of the car – magazine covers depict cities transformed by the development of flying cars and individual bubble cars, and a glossy red Ford Mustang Fastback exudes the glamour of speed. But the section sedges into the next with a more sinister twist. A digital counter chillingly charting the number of road deaths this year clicked past 188,434 last week on its way to the 1.35 million worldwide average. Below the death toll sits Graham, a stodgy model designed by artist Patricia Piccinini and trauma surgeon Christian Kenfield as the only human figure capable of surviving a car crash. Developed for a road safety campaign for the Transport Accident Commission in Australia in 2016, Graham features the genetically unlikely traits of rolls of cushioning chest fat, a head supported without a neck and facial features sunken within the skull to protect from impact – a striking reminder of human fragility in the face of our fascination with speed.

Henry Ford’s development of the moving assembly line – inspired by the worker chains used in meatpacking factories – dominates Making More, a chapter on the impact of speedy production not only on the availability of cars, but on the challenging labour conditions and advances in the field of robotics mass-production has brought along its path. There are now more than one billion cars in the world, with over 12 million manufactured this year alone. Shaping Space looks at the sprawling infrastructure put in place to support them – the roads built, resources decimated and economies altered – and the advances in electric and automated vehicle design in the struggle against climate change.  The first struggle for the European car industry came with the ebb in oil supply. Enter the bubble car and the Messerschmitt KR200 cabin scooter (1959), a tiny vehicle designed by the German aircraft manufacturer to counter the surge in oil prices following the Suez Crisis of 1956. With sapce for just one passenger and a driver below the hinging bubble-like roof that lends the car its nickname, the manufacturers claimed the vehicle could achieve upwards of 80 miles to the gallon – a level of fuel efficiency still unseen in some models today. 

The Paykan, a variation on the Rootes Group's Hillman Hunter model, was the first car produced by Iran in the mid '60s and was to become its most widely driven. The show's curators describe it as "the car that was local and global", taking the shell of a British car but successfully adapting it in such a way that it became beloved by the Iranian people.  The car was so popular that a song commissioned for an advert commemorating the model's anniversay became a national birthday song, and even featured on bank notes. But in 2005, as the Paykan was recognised as a heavy polluter – burning around a gallon of petrol to every 12 miles –, its manufacturer Iran Khodro was forced to end production. 

Fittingly, the exhibition concludes on the optimistic note with which it begins, presenting a flying car concept to capture the imagination of the 21st century. With its electric engine and autonomous controls, the Pop.Up Next by Italdesign, Airbus and Audi steps towards a safer and less polluted future. The concept, which was presented at the Geneva Motor Show in 2018, comprises two parts – a car and drone with an interchangable seating pod. Designed to be operated as a smartphone-bookable service, it also backs away from an emphasis on car ownership of the 20th century, as cities look to exclude cars as we know them from their centres. 

“The V&A’s mission is to champion the power of design to change the world, and no other design object has impacted the world more than the automobile,” says curator Brendan Cormier. “This exhibition is about the power of design to effect change, and the unintended consequences that have contributed to our current environmental situation.”