The Kandy-kolored Tangerine-flake Streamline Baby

In this, his first book and one of the landmarks of the New Journalism, Tom Wolfe managed to look at the American scene of the early 1960s afresh and to zero in on the more exotic forms of status-seeking then in vogue from New York to Los Angeles.

In the dances, bouffant hairdos, stock-car racing and rock concerts, Wolfe found a unique American energy, and the incandescent style that produced The Right Stuff and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is already in evidence. In the title essay – Wolfe’s first magazine article – he eulogizes the flamboyant ‘kustomized kars’ California teens constructed with artistic dedication. And there’s more – Phil Spector, Cassius Clay, Las Vegas, the Nanny Mafia, Why Doormen hate Volkswagens. Classic Wolfe!