Since the invention of the automobile man has been in love with his car.  For many of us our car represents a big part of who we are.  We look for cars that express or personalities.  We even use them to attract the opposite sex.  If you ask any teenage boy what he wants more than anything, with very few exceptions he will say a car.  Not just any old car, but a bright, shiny, and fast one.  Owning your first car is a right of passage and as we age we still keep that love for our cars in our hearts.  If you drive around any neighborhood in the spring or summer you will find hundreds of people out washing their car.

Washing, waxing, and detailing our cars is almost an obsession.  The automobile accessory market is booming and all auto parts stores have a section of the store devoted to keeping the appearance of our car perfect.  Millions of dollars every year are spent keeping our cars looking great.
Many car washes today are not the same as they were even 10 years ago.  Some you can even drive through, slide your credit card, and emerge out of the other side looking shiny and bright. 

The car is such a part of our daily lives that to not have one is unthinkable to most of us.  We do everything from our cars.  If we are hungry we go through the drive through.  If we need money we drive up to our local ATM machine and get cash.  If we need directions all we have to do is ask our GPS systems to tell us where we are and how we get to where we are going.
The advances in the automobile, computer, and credit card technologies have all helped to make our lives easier and more mobile.  Many independent business people do their work from their car.  Everything they need is at their fingertips.  Plug in their laptop and they are in a truly mobile office.

The history of the automobile has always defined the generation it is associated with.  What started as a novelty evolved in to a definition of wealth and then in to being cool.  Today the car has come to represent business and leisure in a way that was never imagined by the first car manufacturers.  So, keep that car shiny and new and you will truly be living the American dream.