alt-hist: a world without cars

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by ericthered

An excellent point. Tractors don't act like cars. Cars are about comfort, speed, user-friendliness, status, and paved roads. Tractors are about power, towing weird attachments, and muddy fields. They serious lack the speed to actually get from place to place, require more maintenance and know how, and generally aren't a way of displaying wealth.

I'm with you on all of it but the last point. When farming machinery is starting to replace animal- and human-drawn devices, having a tractor is indeed a status symbol. And even afterward, if you live in a farm region, the sort of tractor you have can indeed be a signal to your neighbors as well as a useful implement, and displays of newer, better ones at a county fair or the like will draw quite a bit of attention. (Yes, I lived in Kansas for almost 10 years, does it show?)