The Joads car on the highway

Illustration of the Joads car on the highway from The Grapes of Wrath, vol.1, p.151, illustrated edition, by Thomas Hart Benton, a native of eastern Oklahoma, who was assigned to draw archetypal Oklahomans for 20th Century Fox as the studio believed that would make the casting more accurate. "The ancient overloaded Hudson creaked and grunted to the highway at Sallisaw and turned west, and the sun was blinding. But on the concrete road Al built up speed because the flattened springs were not in danger anymore."