First built in the United States in the early 1920s, the speedy and luxurious powerboat that came to be known as the runabout carries the genes of the small horsedrawn carriage that was its distant European ancestor, before the latter crossed the Atlantic with the pioneers of the American West. The runabout has always been a restless explorer, a lover of freedom and the great outdoors. Its earliest manifestation, drawn by a single horse, was game for a brisk excursion in the 19th century English countryside. Later, in an epidemic of Anglomania, some French inventors of the automobile gave the name to a series of small vehicles that, though backfiring and unpredictable, nevertheless offered freedom at last from the constraints of horsedrawn transport. But while the European elite remained happy indulging in a spot of Sunday mechanics, the American pioneers in their vast roadless expanses retained their affection for the horse and cart for a long time: for going to the local shops at a gallop or visiting friends. The method of transport blended utility with pleasure. Or, as these tireless colonisers were wont to say, “running about and getting things done.” World War I would change the face of the worldthe rural as much as the industrial world, the east as much as the west. Some historians would go so far as to say that the 20th century only began in 1914. In victorious America four years after the start of World War I, the country's new prosperity was founded on three pillars: the market, the motor engine, and oil, to the point where the legend printed on the dollar might well have been changed to “In Oil We Trust”. No Fields Found.