I begin with a photograph (Figure 2.1) that evokes the focus and sentiment of this chapter, namely the distinctive yet largely overlooked aspect of driving that I have termed searching.

In contrast to the chapters which follow in which my concern is with the complex exchange of perception, thought and feeling that characterises the practice of driving, this chapter recognises the signal role of the car in providing access to places that would be largely inaccessible by other means on account of their remoteness and/or distance from home. For while, as will be discussed further in the conclusion, ‘searching’ is the aspect of driving that comes closest to the benefits of cycling (Pooley et al. 2005; Horton et al. 2007; Pooley 2010; Bennett forthcoming), what the early motoring literature reminds us repeatedly is that it was the ability of the car to bring distances in excess of 100 miles within the realm of a ‘day trip’ (Jeremiah 2007: 73–4) that transformed personal mobility so fundamentally at the beginning of the twentieth century. Further, and in contrast to cycling, motor vehicles were welcomed as a means of travel and exploration that older and less fit individuals could also enjoy (not to mention, of course, ‘ladies’ (see Murphy 1908 quoted below)).

Yet if the conceptual focus of this chapter differs from the others in that it investigates driving as a means rather than as an end in itself, this is not to suggest that the means is irrelevant. Although for some of the authors surveyed the ‘real’ search for a place, person or fragment of history begins when they step out of the vehicle that has taken them there, for others the quest and the discovery are inseparable from their means of transportation. Picking up on the trope introduced in Chapter 1, there are, indeed, many instances where the car in question may be likened to a probe or prosthesis which the drivers use to investigate the landscape that moves steadily towards them.