Speeding along the highway in America’s coolest cars
In 1973, four years before he disappeared down the Star Wars rabbit hole, George Lucas directed the film American Graffiti, eulogising his days as a teenage car fanatic in Modesto, California; parking at drive-ins, hot-rodding and cruising for dates. This vanished world was only a decade away —‘Where were you in 62?’ said the publicity — the equivalent of someone today getting dewy-eyed about 2007. Yet the clashes and strife of the late 1960s in mainland America and the deepening quagmire of the Vietnam War had already made those days look like an age of lost innocence. The film was an international hit, but in October that year Opec’s oil embargo quadrupled the price per barrel, putting any number of nails in the coffin of cheap motoring and jacked-up jalopies. Gary S.
