From the mid-1890s to the present day, cars have been fetishized as animal in US automotive culture. This began with automotive periodical Horseless Age, which, in positing the car as a substitute for the horse, decried the material limitations of the “outdated” animal whilst at the same time seeking to coopt its symbolic value. In the first US road trip novels of the 1910s automobiles are described figuratively as animals, simultaneously evoking the horse while symbolically killing it. Examining the intertwined material and symbolic relations between humans, animals, and machines at the dawn of the motor age elucidates the necropolitical position of animals in automotive culture – of the horse in horsepower.

从 1890 年代中期到现在，汽车在美国汽车文化中一直被视为动物。这始于汽车杂志《无马时代》，该杂志将汽车定位为马的替代品，谴责“过时”动物的物质限制，同时寻求利用其象征价值。在 1910 年代的第一部美国公路旅行小说中，汽车被形象地描述为动物，同时唤起了马，同时象征性地杀死了它。在汽车时代初期，审视人类、动物和机器之间相互交织的物质和象征关系，阐明了动物在汽车文化中的死灵政治地位——马力中的马。