“Cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals,” wrote Roland Barthes in his 1957 essay collection Mythologies. “I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.” A magical object, indeed. A flying carpet on wheels, a train without a track, a horseless carriage. Glamorous, dangerous, practical, and damaging to life on earth, the four-wheeled cathedral is taken for a multi-media spin by MoMA. The exhibition also includes nine cars. —L.J.