THE MIDDLE LANE

Predictions the motorcar will cease to exist in 100 years? Absolute rubbish

- Sam Philip

In 1924, exactly 100 years ago, a newspaper called the Folsom Telegraph made a bold prediction: that horses would cease to exist within a century. By 2024, it forecast, the world would be horse-free.

The cause of this Great Horse Extinction? The humble motor car. “If horses would decrease in the same ratio as in the last 10 or 20 years,” prophesised the paper, “it might be easy to tell when the last horse would give up his stall to an automobile.”

It was far from alone in foreseeing a gloomy future for the horse. The Twenties was the true dawn of the automobile age, the car emerging as a machine to transform the lives of millions, not just the monied few.

As enlightened citizens of 2024 – and with 2023 thankfully not ending in the Folsom Telegraph