Chapter 4 examines how the uncanny status of the automobile in Edwardian England (at once a foreign novelty, and offering a return to familiar destinations cut off by the railway) lends itself to themes of revision and romance in James’s writing. In most critical readings of James’s ‘motor-story’, ‘The Velvet Glove’, the car features primarily as a clue from which to identify the tale’s ‘real-life’ heroine, Edith Wharton. This chapter argues that the role of the automobile is much more intrinsic, with regard both to the story’s self-conscious biographical encodings and to its ironic posturing as a romance. Drawing on contemporary treatments of the motor car in music-hall songs, newspapers, and the popular chauffeur romance, as well as James’s personal correspondence and travel essays, the chapter demonstrates how the car contributes to the tale’s structured series of revelations. John Berridge’s fascination with the adventures of mobile strangers also refers to specific experiences made possible by the motor car, whose ambivalent reception inflects the story’s atmosphere of ‘supreme strangeness’.