The auto-colectivo : A cultural history of the shared taxi in Buenos Aires (1928–33)

Buenos Aires’ public transport: Mobility and politics

In the first decades of the twentieth century, Buenos Aires underwent rapid growth and processes of modernisation. The population increased from 430,000 people in the 1880s to about 2.4 million in 1930. ⁶ By 1904, large portions of the population began moving from the historical downtown to the northern and western parts of the city. This movement was supported by the expansion of the electric tramway network and by the availability of affordable loans to buy lots of land in the peripheries. The city government sustained this urban enlargement through the implementation of diverse modes of public transport: By the 1920s, the city transport network serviced c. 860 million passengers per year; and by 1930, Buenos Aires boasted a large tramway network (about 900 km), omnibuses, two underground railway lines, and five urban railway lines. At this time, tramways were the most used mode of public transport service, followed by buses and auto-colectivos, finally railways and the underground. However, beginning in 1926, the number of tramway passengers began falling steadily due to the implementation of the bus system, and later the colectivos (see Figure 1). ⁷ OPEN IN VIEWER

By the end of the1920s, most of the capital city (equivalent to c. 180 km²) had been urbanised. Thanks to the railway lines, there were also settlements beyond the political limits of the city, so that altogether, the metropolitan area had a population of over three million people. ⁸ Urban expansion implied an increase of mobility on daily basis. While the city expanded, the main activities (administrative, financial, commercial, and leisure) were still concentrated in the historical downtown near the port. A pendulum-like movement between suburbs and the centre (between the West and the East) was a typical image used to depict the daily trips of Buenos Aires passengers. ⁹ The image of ‘human bunch’ was typical to describe people hanging from buses and tramways and the image of ‘bottleneck’ for urban congestion in the central area. The former was an indication of the inability of the public transport system to cope with the growing population, while the latter pointed out a feature of the urban development: the city has a grid street layout, which expands in a fan-like shape, but its core activities remain in the old centre. In the 1920s, urban reforms (mainly the widening of streets and the opening of new avenues, or the construction of underground lines) were carried out in order to make it feasible for the increasing numbers of vehicles and people to flow more freely.

The automobile was also becoming increasingly important in the 1920s in Buenos Aires, making Argentina one of the most motorised countries worldwide. By the end of the 1920s, there were about 340,000 cars in the whole country and 46,000 in Buenos Aires. A large percentage of these cars were rental cars (including taxis). ¹⁰ As such, traffic was a major issue in the city and the problems and complaints about transport and traffic in Buenos Aires were widely covered in the press and in politicians’ and planners’ discourses. The imaginary of progress that daily mobility triggered was reinforced by an evolutionary idea about transport technologies, a confidence that they would evolve, eliminating old and slow vehicles and replacing them with faster, safer, more comfortable, and hygienic ones. The 1925 municipal urban plan, for example, said that circulation would not be ‘achieved without certain sacrifices and some kinds of vehicles must succumb to the selective law of progress’. ¹¹ In this ‘evolutionary chain’ of urban transport, the railway appeared in the nineteenth century as the first great progress, followed by the tramway and the underground in the turn of the twentieth century; finally, since the 1920s, the automobile has occupied a privileged place in this imagery. ¹²

While the railway was a powerful metaphor of national modernisation, the expansion of tramways in Buenos Aires became a symbol of metropolitan modernisation. By 1910, the municipal authorities and tramway companies ‘boasted that Buenos Aires was the streetcar capital of the world’ when the tramway network reached about 640 km. ¹³ Electrification had enabled the extension and improvement of the network covering almost all the streets of the city centre and extending to the periphery in radial lines. With the replacement of horse-drawn tramways, cleanliness and comfort became symbols of modern transport. As Councillor Vicente Rotta expressed in his study on Buenos Aires Transport in 1937, electric tramways both led urban development and signified social progress:

the primitive horse-drawn tramway adapted to the progress of mechanics and electricity, gradually improving the service in order to ‘bring closer’ the suburb, to allow economic and hygienic housing, far from large urban agglomerations and to create in each zone of the city a new town full of yearning of progress. ¹⁴

Moreover, the Anglo-Argentine Tramway Company (hereafter ATTC), which controlled 80 per cent of the public service, was an easy target for growing nationalist sentiments and Anglophobia, representing, along with the rail companies, the hegemony of British capital in the Argentinean economy. Particularly during the 1920s, AATC faced the resistance of the Buenos Aires city council, ruled by the Socialist party and other nationalistic political forces. The city council rejected AATC’s intention to raise the fare price – which was 10 Argentinian Peso cents (equivalent about to 1 US dollar today) for tramways, buses, and the underground – as a condition to complete the underground network. In 1909, AATC obtained the municipal concession to build three underground lines, and in 1913 it inaugurated the first one, but the conflicts with the city council impeded any other implementation. ¹⁶

Novelty: colectivo as a spontaneous and smart solution

On Monday, 24 September 1928, a large column of cars waited outside the last underground station of the Line A, Primera Junta, at the western district Caballito. The drivers had improvised handwritten signs in the window indicating destination and fare costs, and offered the trips shouting loudly. The target was the passengers who returned to their homes using the underground but still need to complete their trip with other means. Actually, a public service was already offered via tramway; however, since 1926, due to management problems, the underground passengers had to stop and connect with tramways or omnibuses to continue their journey. The colectivo provided a faster and more comfortable alternative: During peak hours, cars left Primera Junta station every minute, and during off-peak hours, every 4 minutes. The service was a success, for both passengers and drivers, as reported by the press and confirmed by the sudden proliferation of the service in a few weeks in other areas of the city. This happened even if most of the public ignored that this public transport service would start on 24 September, although it was announced by the socialist newspaper La Vanguardia the day before: ‘a group of taxi drivers visited our editorial office last night’, wrote the newspaper, to inform us that ‘tomorrow’ a new service of ‘taxi-obus’ numbering 150 ‘big American cars (Buick, Studebaker etc.)’ would be inaugurated. ¹⁷

The novelty of the idea was evidenced by the lack of name or the multiple names that were given by the press. It was called auto-colectivo, taxi-obus, taxi-bus. In Buenos Aires city council records, it appeared as a ‘rental automobile for collective transport’. Excited by the novelty, the newspaper Crítica tried to find a name that described not only its usage but its speed (comparing it with a revolver), or the fact that it was an economical service (comparing it with a purse: taxi-monedero). The latter was a label similar to jitney service in the United States during the 1910s, since both names refer to coins needed for a journey. ¹⁸ Taxi-colectivo and auto-colectivo were, nonetheless, the most common names, as both refer to the public use of the car. This name disappeared around 1933, as the minibus replaced the car and only the term colectivo remained.

The public praised the auto-colectivo above all for its originality (it was seen as a local invention), pragmatism (there were no debates, plans, or policies), and for its innovation (as a smart solution for the failing public transport and congestion). The tramway and omnibus companies, however, viewed the colectivo as unfair competition – spontaneity was synonymous with illegality. The press, particularly popular newspapers such as Crítica and El Mundo, the socialist La Vanguardia, and magazines, expressed enthusiasm for the novelty. It is true that similar services did already exist in other cities such as Lima, Rio de Janeiro, and in the USA; nonetheless, the auto-colectivo was perceived as an original local invention. ¹⁹ This idea was reinforced by later narratives influenced by nationalistic ideologies, which found in the colectivo a local opponent against the British tramways. ²⁰

Primary sources and the existing literature reveal controversial questions surrounding the origin of the colectivo. The history of the colectivo has been written mostly by amateur historians, and academic research from urban and economic history have studied the colectivo as a case study in transport and urban growth or the history and conflicts between private capital and the State. Non-academic historians, nonetheless, offer very good information about the evolution of the colectivo, yet some narratives have tried to assign the invention to an individual (the pioneer), framing the service as a one-man idea. When the colectivo first appeared, the press described a group of taxi drivers/owners as the ‘leaders’. Some names, such as Manuel Pazos, were repeated in different newspapers as the founders and investors. However, the most common story seems influenced by the identity narrative of the Colectivo Federation which launched its periodical, El Auto Colectivo, in 1933. There, the name of Sandalio Fernández appears as the first chauffeur who launched the service and who knew about the auto-colectivo in Rio de Janeiro. In this narrative, the local origin and cleverness (astucia) of these taxi drivers is emphasised. ²¹ On the other hand, anarchist historians have also tried to demonstrate the anarchist origin of the colectivo. Part of the chauffeurs’ union was anarchist, and it was claimed that the idea was given by the editor of the anarchist periodical La Protesta, Diego Abad de Santillán, to a member of the workers’ union. ²² This version is biased, however, as it is based on Abad de Santillán’s memoir. Year 1928 issues of the anarchist periodical reveal no evidence to sustain the claim of anarchist origin of the colectivo; even more, the service is mentioned as a surprise in such periodicals. According to another historian, Ulises García, the origin was a consequence of a long-lasting informal discussion among stakeholders: a Studebaker car dealer named Mr Flint, for example, reported that in 1928, taxi drivers had discussed the idea in his shop. ²³

Leaving open the origin of the service, the idea of the colectivo as a smart solution for transport and traffic was stressed by socialist councillors, party press, and other newspapers. For the taxi industry and its workers, the colectivo was expressly perceived as a clever solution since, as the socialist councillor Américo Ghioldi pointed out, the taxis were no longer circulating slowly in the downtown looking for passengers and provoking congestion: quite the opposite, they were now well organised through established routes. ²⁴ The colectivo was considered an improvement over public transportation since it reduced the waiting time and was more flexible as it could stop at any corner to allow passengers to get in and out. It was also perceived as an improvement regarding comfort and sociability, adding to the service’s positive reputation.

A new experience

The way in which the colectivo was appreciated needs to be seen in the context of the daily mobility experience in Buenos Aires public transport. Tramways and omnibuses were the main modes used in the mid-1920s, while the underground line carried a small, but increasing number of passengers. The experiences of discomfort in buses and tramways as well as the feeling of unsafety (due to accidents) were recurring topics in the press (news, articles, reports, columns, cartoons, readers’ letters in newspapers and magazines), in Buenos Aires city council debates, and recognised by urban and transport experts. ²⁵ The underground was the safest mode of transport (as no fatal accidents had been registered), but it was perceived as uncomfortable, as delays in the service were frequent. ²⁶

The discomfort provoked by overcrowded vehicles was symbolised by the ‘full’ (completo) sign posted on tramway wagons. The completo sign indicated that the vehicle was full of passengers. The transport network and its fleet were indeed insufficient to meet an increasing mobility demand and a growing urban population. In this context, passengers either had to wait for the next vehicle, or hang on to doors of buses and tramways, fighting and pushing one another. The experience became violent, affecting mainly female passengers. ²⁷

The element of comfort was the most important for the success of the colectivo, as it fundamentally contrasted with the discomfort of the massive transport forms such as buses, tramways, trains, and underground. Such comfort lay mainly in the chance of travelling seated, as a passenger mentioned in 1928:

There is no comparison, one goes comfortably sitting, although the car is full, there are no more than five passengers. If one wishes, one can smoke […] Also, it must be mentioned as an advantage no longer hearing the galling ‘move along’ […] And people keep boarding although they are piled up together. ²⁸

Colectivo was also faster than other modes of transportation thanks to the versatility of the automobile and its ability to weave its way through traffic. As the newspaper Crítica commented, the car is ‘more mobile, smaller, more manual and elusive’, and as such, ‘has a big advantage over the omnibus, heavy and, thus, less urban’. ³⁰ Although speed was appreciated as an advantage of the car, at the same time, there were recurrent notes in the press about the lack of speed control in the city and the accidents produced by ‘irresponsible’ car drivers – among them taxi drivers. ‘The lack of intelligence’, said a column in a magazine, was the reason for excessive speed and car accidents. ³¹

The perception of the colectivo as safer, faster, and more comfortable than other transport modes was based not only on experience, but also stressed by the technological and cultural attributes of the automobile, the epitome of a ‘kinetic modernity’ as Giucci points out. ³² Indeed in the 1920s in Argentina an emerging car culture gained importance in the opinion not only of the public but, more importantly, also among decision makers and urban planners. As Melina Piglia has shown, Argentinian car culture was supported not only by the industry (especially by the American car industry) through advertising and commercial strategies (instalment options for automobile purchase, for example), but also through automobile clubs, which had existed since the 1910s, were managed by the elites, and promoted the use of cars through tourism, car races, and road building. ³³

In this context, I argue that the colectivo was more than a comfortable and fast means of transport: As the term ‘collective’ indicates, this signified a massive use of the car, a ‘democratisation’ of this modern technology, as claimed by Buenos Aires councillor Ghioldi. ³⁴ However, I point out how such a democratisation did not ask individuals to become automobile owners or drivers, but instead to experience ‘passengering’. As reported in the press by a male user, ‘we suddenly find the rental car, the taxi, which often was a luxury, now competing with the omnibus transport passengers […] enjoying the car’s comfort for very low sums’. ³⁵

If the automobile offered the comfort of travelling seated (although passengers had to travel squeezed together inside the car), sharing the seat with male strangers could be perceived as unpleasant (and morally dangerous) for women. Some weeks after the inauguration of the service, a colectivo line introduced a female-only service, to encourage women to use colectivo. ³⁶ Male reports on the use of the colectivo showed how the intimacy of the colectivo (two seats for three people each) triggered unrequested attention. As the writer and journalist Roberto Arlt stated in 1928 in his daily column: ‘Two people of a different sex that travel together in the same seat cannot see each other with the same indifference as in the omnibus. That is not possible.’ He reported that travelling with a young lady in a car was ‘something profoundly appealing’ and now, ‘with the new system of rapid transit, one has the chance of sitting beside nice girls’ and, then, ‘the courtesy of a smile and three kind words prevail’. ³⁷

Another sign of new forms of sociability was the relationship between the driver and the passengers. Some newspapers highlighted the good manners of the taxi drivers in contrast to the tramway guards and bus drivers. The newspaper El Mundo described the experience as follows: ‘The chauffeur of the taxi-bus has thoroughly studied a treatise of urbanity and courtesy: he knows he has to be different from his workmate, the omnibus driver, and heaps good manners on his clients.’ The story adds how the chauffeur opens the door while asking the passengers’ forgiveness, blushes when he receives the money as if his purpose was to transport people for free, and ‘we, passengers largely mistreated by all the locomotion systems, keep quiet and admire him. And when we get off we are at the point of thinking that the chauffeur is a Russian prince fallen on hard times.’ ³⁸

This new relationship between the driver and the passenger was made more possible in the intimate and smaller space of the car. Means of public transport are in general a mixture of private–public space, forcing a bodily proximity among strangers. ³⁹ But unlike the anonymity within the mass that one can experience in a tramway, train, or bus, inside an automobile with six people the social distance in a close bodily proximity or proxemia seemed to be more difficult to maintain. ⁴⁰

While the colectivo signified hope of improvement for the daily experience of mobility in Buenos Aires, in terms of safety, it did not escape from the quotidian tragedy of Buenos Aires traffic: accidents. After the electric tramway was implemented in 1900, for example, the number of road accidents increased sharply. ⁴¹ The omnibus was another common cause of accidents in the 1920s and in this context, it was expected that the auto-colectivo would avoid accidents thanks to the versatility of the car. Nonetheless, the driver’s lack of control over the speed of the car often resulted in the vehicle overturning or crashing into a shop window. For example, on 5 October 1928, a colectivo overturned due to a wrong manoeuvre at high speed. The driver and two passengers died. La Razón newspaper ran an article entitled ‘Speed excess caused the death of three people in an automobile of collective service’, which reported on the accident and argued for more regulations and effective penalties for car drivers. ⁴²

The perception of unsafety in the colectivo taxis was fuelled by sensationalist photojournalism, which stressed the spectacular character of such accidents with photos in the ‘crime’ section (policiales) of the newspapers or magazines. Accidents became one of the main complaints against the colectivo, eventually leading, in 1933, to regulation for compulsory accident insurance. This concern did not disappear when the colectivos started using minibuses, since the hybrid model was in fact more unstable, and it was necessary to incorporate double rear wheels to avoid overturning. ⁴³

Tramways v. colectivo

To a large extent, the appearance of the colectivos can be traced back to a conflict between the new system and the tramways. The colectivo emerged without permission from the local transportation authorities. While tramways, the underground, and omnibuses required permissions, large investment, and the involvement of several actors, the colectivo was implemented by a group of taxi drivers working cooperatively to operate a particular route. The success of the experiment not only encouraged other drivers to leave the taxi business and initiate other colectivo services but also prevented the municipality from applying a regulation that could affect the new enterprise. ⁴⁴

Between 1928 and 1930, the colectivo ran informally, and with no opposition from the authorities. Actually, while the chief of Buenos Aires traffic department was willing to ban the service, ⁴⁵ the city Mayor did not take any decision. In fact, just two months before the colectivo service opened he gave c. 1500 permissions for ‘ultra-rapid service’ transport, a vague definition, which could fit also innovative systems. Once the debate reached the city council a few weeks after the inauguration of the service, the councillors complained that they had not been informed about this permission, thus showing that there was not an official debate about the use of automobiles for public transport. ⁴⁶ However, the councillors did not take actions to stop the service. The reasons for this inaction are twofold: On the one hand, the rapid and popular acceptance of the colectivo conditioned politicians, who based their power in the electoral machinery and were aware of the poor conditions of daily mobility in the city. On the other hand, for the socialists and for members of the Unión Cívica Radical (‘Radical Civic Union’, the party which ruled the country), the colectivo represented a local enterprise that eroded the British transport monopoly.

While the topic was being debated in the city council, due to the increasing demand, the motor vehicles running as colectivo were steadily modified in order to carry more passengers. By 1930, the chassis of the cars were enlarged to add three more seats, so as to carry eight passengers in total. Because these cars were of good quality, most of them North American made, these kinds of modifications were possible. This rapid growth of the system and the increasing improvised changes to the vehicles demanded some sort of regulation. The first municipal regulation about the routes was ordered in 1930. This regulation aimed to organise the proliferation of lines without impeding the expansion of the service. In December 1932, the city council finally established through an ordinance (Resolución 4478) the material form of the motor vehicle, the norms of the service, the standard fares, and other aspects. The 1932 ordinance did not specify a particular form for vehicles, but defined the dimensions of the colectivo: the vehicle had to carry up to ten passengers plus the driver; it had to be a maximum of 5.3 m long (excluding bumpers), 2 m wide, and 2.5 m high. ⁴⁷

The combination of bottom-up modification and top-down regulation created a new kind of vehicle used for the colectivo. The automobile was replaced by a sort of minibus built over a truck chassis (mostly Chevrolet). A rounded body, made by national manufacturers who had gained expertise working for the car industry and building omnibuses, was installed over the chassis. The colectivo, although no longer a car, maintained some characteristics of it, like the shape of the windows. It is at this stage that models varied according to the manufacturer, but they were all richly decorated in popular fileteado style.

The regulations, however, did not resolve the conflict with tramways. The colectivo still covered similar routes to the tramway lines – mostly in the central city – usurping potential tramway passengers. The AATC still considered the colectivo a threat because passengers were willing to pay higher fares for the shared taxis. While the tramway fare remained at 10 Argentinian Peso cents, the colectivo cost between 10 and 40 cents, according to the distance. Paradoxically, while the Buenos Aires city council considered tramway transport accessibility a social issue, and as such instituted a ‘price freeze’ program, such a policy was not instituted for colectivo’s fares. While in the city tramways and colectivo’s routes could overlap, in the suburbs the latter – like the omnibus – tended to cover streets where tramway lines did not reach (Figure 2). In other words, the colectivos, despite the higher price, remained popular, serving working and middle-classes who lived in the suburbs. OPEN IN VIEWER

In a context of rising automobilism, AATC launched a public campaign to show the advantage of the tramway over the automobile. The campaign highlighted the historical importance of the tramway for Buenos Aires suburbanisation and commuting and contested the negative views held by councillors and the press about the tramways. For example, a 1930 advertising campaign called ‘know the truth’ in the magazine Aconcagua, showed how railway sleepers made out of Quebracho trees (typical of Argentina) assured speed and safety, and described the role of the tramway in Buenos Aires urban development. It also claimed to serve 90 per cent of the local industry’s workers. Posters and slogans were placed in tramways and in the underground, and notes were published in the press. The AATC also published reports about the traffic in Buenos Aires, supporting their arguments with ‘scientific’ studies. A 1928 pamphlet called El Problema de la Congestión del Tráfico [The Problems of Traffic Congestion], for example, was a study about congestion in many cities. The front cover of the pamphlet was emblazoned with propagandistic slogans such as ‘the solution is not to remove the tramways and replace one tramway car with two buses or thirty cars’; ‘tramways and omnibuses occupy ten per cent of the street and carry ninety per cent of passengers; private cars and taxis occupy ninety per cent of the street and carry ten per cent of passengers’. ⁴⁸

AATC found a more favourable context for its campaigns in the early 1930s when the Argentinian national government rearranged the commercial relationships with Great Britain through Roca-Runciman treaty (1933). Under this agreement, Argentina had to give British transport companies preferential treatment in order to continue selling meat to Great Britain. This pact caused irritation among nationalistic groups and landowning oligarchy, although the sectors related to agriculture and ranching benefited from exportation (even though they also suffered from the tariff railway policy of British companies). ⁴⁹ The President of AATC, Duke of Atholl, initiated a lobby in London with Argentinian and British authorities between 1931 and 1933. ⁵⁰ For AATC management, this lobby was intended to deal with questions of competition of other motor vehicles, namely buses and colectivo. In terms of busses, the AATC had dealt with competition in 1920s by buying bus companies and including them in its own network, especially the lines in the peripheries, which fed the main central routes of tramways and the underground. ⁵¹ The struggle against the colectivo involved a longer political fight, however. AATC’s goal was the creation of a transport corporation, a private–public entity in charge of controlling all the modes of public transport, except railways. This was not a totally new idea. The concept had been debated in the previous decade among planners and politicians as a solution to organise and enhance the public transport system (though, naturally, for AATC the transport corporation was a tool to keep under control the colectivo business). Eventually, in 1936, the Argentina National Congress approved the formation of the Corporación de Transportes de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (Transport Corporation of Buenos Aires).

The making of the corporation did not stop the colectivo, but it did imply the end of the (horizontal) management of the colectivo by drivers’ associations as the vehicles were expropriated. Drivers resisted through strikes – the most important of which took place in September 1936 during the parliament debates – refusing the confiscation of the vehicles, and simply moving the business beyond the city borders, offering the service in other towns. Although the strike of September 1936, which received popular support, was a hallmark of colectivo drivers’ resistance, it could not prevent the expropriation. The change was momentary, because in 1940, under a new nationalistic government, the authorities privileged the motor public transport (omnibuses and colectivos) over tramways (which would be totally removed two decades later). A 1940 study of the Buenos Aires Transport Commission recognised colectivo as a mode of public transport, with a wide acceptance. In the report, the passengers’ preference for the colectivo was due to the service’s ‘fast-running vehicles’ and ‘having proved their worth in actual practice […] they have definitely earned for themselves the favour of the travelling public’. ⁵² Moreover, the opening the parkway Nueve de Julio in the central area (1936) and the ring-road General Paz (1937) offered new rapid spaces for car circulation.

Conclusions

The early years of the colectivo in Buenos Aires provide an interesting lens through which to analyse the use of cars for public transport, and particularly to view taxi sharing as a (bottom-up) technological and business innovation in urban mobility, supported by a new travel experience. The history of the colectivo clearly shows how mobility is, following Urry and Cresswell, an assemblage of movement, practices, meanings, technologies, and power. ⁵³ The latter was expressed by the economic and political conflicts between colectivo’s drivers, authorities, and tramway companies and by the way in which the colectivo history was written and interpreted as a local invention that resisted ‘imperialism’. Such power relations resulted in legislations that shaped the material form of the colectivo, eventually turning it into a hybrid vehicle, and eroded the self-organisation of colectivos cooperatives. This cooperativism is important to rethink the matter of the colectivo’s origin because it shows that it was not the creation of a single person but a social collaboration and production. In this sense, the controversies about the origin or the inventor are symptomatic of this more distributed agency.

Historians in Argentina have shown the emergence and evolution of the colectivo, and beyond the ideological interpretation about its success, the popularity of the colectivo deserved a deeper exploration which cannot be based only on the technological advantages of the car (like versatility) or the idea of convenience (like speed). It is important to understand why a mode of transport more expensive than the tramways, buses, and underground became an option for workers and professionals: this should be done avoiding explanations limited to economic or technological aspects. If mobility is a lived and meaningful experience, a cultural analysis becomes significant to understand and explain the effects of sharing an automobile for daily mobility in the first decades of the twentieth century.

Rather than social status, the experience of sharing a taxi offered a new experience of travelling based on comfort and sociability. If sharing a taxi signified the democratisation of the automobile, as claimed by some voices, what became democratic was not car ownership nor driving, but the experience of ‘passengering’, a concept used for ethnographic approaches, which might be adapted for a history of car travel. ⁵⁴ This perspective is an important contribution not only to understand the success of the colectivo, but the historiography on the city and the car, which has been mainly based on the experience of driving.