Royal Road Test was self-published by Ruscha through the National Excelsior Press in 1967, credited to Ed Ruscha, Mason Williams, and Patrick Blackwell. The book documents a deliberate act of destruction: on a desert highway near Las Vegas, Ruscha (driving), Williams (passenger, who threw the typewriter), and Blackwell (photographer, riding in a following vehicle) subjected a Royal typewriter to what the book, in the deadpan language of scientific reportage, calls a “road test” — throwing it out of a 1963 Buick Le Sabre traveling at approximately ninety miles per hour.
The book presents the event with mock-scientific precision. The typewriter’s specifications are given. The weather conditions, vehicle speed, and road surface are noted. The photographs document the scattered wreckage with the care of a crime scene investigation or an archaeological survey: individual keys, springs, the platen, the carriage return lever, all photographed where they fell on the desert road and surrounding sand.
The result is one of the funniest and most unsettling of Ruscha’s books. The humor comes from the gap between the absurdity of the event and the solemnity of its documentation — the book treats throwing a typewriter out of a car as if it were a scientific experiment, complete with data, evidence, and conclusions. The unsettling quality comes from the photographs of the destroyed typewriter, which are genuinely beautiful — the chrome and rubber and bakelite components, scattered in the desert sunlight, have the quality of abstract sculpture or found-object assemblage.
The book also carries symbolic resonance that Ruscha may or may not have intended. Destroying a typewriter — the tool of the writer — at high speed on an American highway can be read as a statement about the relationship between language and movement, between literary culture and car culture, between the word and the road. These readings multiply rather than resolve, which is the condition of all good art.
Collecting Royal Road Test
First edition (National Excelsior Press, 1967): Perfect-bound paperback.
Market values:
- First edition, fine: $2,000–$6,000
- Later printings: $500–$1,500