The Devil Wagon: Cars and Familiarity
The Devil Wagon: Cars and Familiarity
Description
Jason Feifer discusses the initial public perception of cars as 'devil wagons' and how the auto industry struggled with acceptance. He emphasizes the importance of reframing innovation by illustrating how early car advertisements failed by positioning cars as replacements for beloved horses. Instead, they should have marketed cars as better versions of horses, highlighting the concept of 'the bridge of familiarity' to ease the transition to new technologies.
Transcript
"s the car was introduced people didn't call it the car they called it the Horseless Carriage and that of course is if they were being generous if they were not being generous they would call it the devil wagon because they totally um thought these things were the devil wagon and they would throw rocks at them and if you drove down the street in one of these early cars somebody would literally yell get a horse say get a horse they would get a horse at you and um and when people tell the story now of how cars became the dominant mode of transportation what they tell is the story of Henry Ford the Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing and therefore made cars cheaper and more accessible to the masses and though that is true it skips over an important point an important part of the story that I heard from a car historian um and it was something that Henry Ford was the beneficiary of goes like this so in the earlier days of the car people are calling it The Devil wagon they're throwing, rocks, at, it, and, um and, the, Auto industry is trying to understand what on Earth is wrong and they start to look at the way in which they're advertising the car and they they realize that they are advertising the car as a replacement to the horse they're saying Get rid of Dobbin Dobbin being the generic name of you know a horse like spot for a dog get rid of Dobbin and get this car or this car is so much better than your stupid horse but here's the thing people hated that they found that offensive and they should have because they loved their horse their horse was a member of the family and as far back as they knew every generation of their family had a horse and now here come these people saying I have a totally better way for you to be and your old way is stupid people hate that because people hate new"
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