“Happy Birthday, Tin Lizzie! Let’s go!” shouts Grandpa as his one-hundred-year-old car explodes into life. The children jump aboard the vintage Model T Ford that they have helped him to restore, and a celebration road trip begins. “You gotta have wheels!” Grandpa cries. But as traffic jams build, the children begin to ask serious questions about cars and the problems that have developed: overcrowded roads, pollution, and oil-dependency.

Animated illustrations and jaunty prose combine history and a thought-provoking look at the motor-obsessed world of today. Endpapers depict the evolution of cars from the late nineteenth century to the present, and the book concludes with a brief pictorial biography of Henry Ford, followed by a spread of images illustrating problems and possible solutions.