BEDFORD, Pennsylvania — For the briefest of moments, a line of vintage Rolls-Royce automobiles chugged along the curving Cumberland Road. They passed over the Cumberland Run a handful of times and wound themselves down the mountains, away from Pennsylvania and toward the city of steeples, Cumberland. The sight gives the bystander a moment to imagine what it looked like in the early days of American road tripping.

These 1922 Rolls-Royce vehicles, which included the New Phantom and the Silver Ghost (some of the first cars designed expressly to be owner-driven rather than chauffeured), were not what any Americans owned. But they help you understand what men like Henry Ford knew: no matter what class you fell in, everyone wanted the freedom and adventure that automobiles provided.