Issue No. 01 · Autumn / Winter 2026
THE DRIVE ISSUE
WHY WE STILL DRIVE
THE MACHINES THAT MOVE US
DESIGN BEYOND HORSEPOWER
ICONS, OUTLAWS & ORIGINALS
ROADS WORTH GETTING LOST ON
THE FUTURE OF CAR CULTURE
From the editor
Welcome to THE DRIVE ISSUE.
There is a moment every car person knows.
The door closes. The outside world becomes quieter. Your hands find the wheel. The engine wakes up—or perhaps, these days, the dashboard simply comes alive. For a few seconds, before the road begins, it is just you and the machine.
That feeling is where Cars & Culture begins.
This magazine was created around a simple belief: a car has never been just a way to get somewhere.
Cars are design. Engineering. Fashion. Architecture. Music. Photography. Competition. Rebellion. Nostalgia. Status. Freedom. Sometimes obsession. They tell us something about the era that created them and, perhaps more interestingly, something about the people who choose to drive them.
That is the territory we want to explore.
You will find remarkable machines in these pages, of course. But Cars & Culture is not interested in reducing them to horsepower figures, acceleration times, or auction results. There are plenty of places for that.
We are interested in the stories around the machines.
The designers who drew them. The engineers who made impossible ideas work. The collectors preserving them. The builders reinventing them. The photographers turning sheet metal into art. The roads that make us wake before sunrise. And the people for whom driving remains something worth caring about.
Our first issue is called The Drive Issue.
Because drive is more than movement.
It is curiosity. Ambition. Escape. Passion. The desire to create something different, to take the longer road, to preserve something beautiful—or simply to turn the key and see where the day takes you.
The automobile is changing. So is the culture surrounding it. That makes this an especially interesting moment to begin.
Welcome to Issue 001.
Welcome to Cars & Culture.
See you on the road.
Contents
Features
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01
Benz Patent-Motorwagen · 1886
ICONS · THE BEGINNING THE CAR BEFORE CAR CULTURE
Before the supercar, the racetrack, the road trip and the very idea of being a car enthusiast, there was the Benz Patent-Motorwagen. But the story of the first automobile is about more than an invention—it is about the machine that helped create a new kind of freedom, a new relationship with technology and, eventually, an entire culture around the car.
Words by Grispin Bauknecht
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02
Ford Model T · 1908–1927
ICONS · THE AUTOMOBILE FOR EVERYONE THE CAR THAT PUT THE WORLD ON WHEELS
The Benz Patent-Motorwagen introduced the automobile to the world. The Ford Model T put it into the hands of ordinary people. More than 15 million examples would eventually be built, transforming the way people worked, traveled and experienced freedom. But its greatest legacy wasn’t simply mass production. It was helping turn the automobile from an extraordinary invention into an everyday possession—and laying the foundations for the car culture we know today.
Words by Grispin Bauknecht
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03
Bugatti Type 35 · 1924
ICONS · THE ART OF SPEED WHEN DRIVING BECAME A SPORT
By the 1920s, the automobile had already transformed transportation. But on the dangerous roads and racing circuits of Europe, something extraordinary was happening. Cars were becoming objects of competition, beauty and obsession. With its unmistakable blue bodywork, elegant proportions and extraordinary racing record, the Bugatti Type 35 became one of the defining machines of this new era—when speed became spectacle and the racing driver became a hero.
Words by Grispin Bauknecht
