
Auto Biography
A Classic Car, an Outlaw Motorhead, and 57 Years of the American Dream
Earl Swift(Author)
Collins (Publisher)
Published on 17. March 2015
Book
Paperback/Softback
384 pages
978-0-06-228268-2 (ISBN)
Description
A brilliant blend of Shop Class as Soulcraft and The Orchid Thief, Earl Swift's wise, funny, and captivating Auto Biography follows an outlaw auto dealer as he struggles to save a rusted '57 Chevy--a car that has already passed through twelve pairs of hands before his--while financial ruin, government bureaucrats and the FBI close in on him.
Slumped among hundreds of other decrepit hulks on a treeless, windswept moor in eastern North Carolina, the Chevy evokes none of the Jet Age mystique that made it the most beloved car to ever roll off an assembly line. It's open to the rain. Birds nest in its seats. Officials of the surrounding county consider it junk.
To Tommy Arney, it's anything but: It's a fossil of the twentieth-century American experience, of a place and a people utterly devoted to the automobile and changed by it in myriad ways. It's a piece of history--especially so because its flaking skin conceals a rare asset: a complete provenance, stretching back more than fifty years.
So, hassled by a growing assortment of challengers, the Chevy's thirteenth owner--an orphan, grade-school dropout and rounder, a felon arrested seventy-odd times, and a man who's been written off as a ruin himself--embarks on a mission to save the car and preserve long record of human experience it carries in its steel and upholstery.
Written for both gearheads and Sunday drivers, Auto Biography charts the shifting nature of the American Dream and our strange and abiding relationship with the automobile, through an iconic classic and an improbable, unforgettable hero.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 133 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
483 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-06-228268-2 (9780062282682)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
03/2024
Mariner Books
€19.25
Available for download
Person
EARL SWIFT is the author of the New York Times bestseller Chesapeake Requiem, which was named to ten best-of-the-year lists. His most recent book, Hell Put to Shame, was a finalist for the Edgar Award (Best Fact Crime) and the Virginia Literary Award. A former reporter for The Virginian-Pilot and a contributor to Outside and other publications, he lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains west of Charlottesville.