It’s a simpler equation than the classic chicken-or-egg question: The automobile came first, of course, but a road trip wasn’t far behind.

The open road, heavy with symbolism and full of promise, has long coursed through popular culture, with the journey at least as rewarding as the destination. In addition to the romance of the road, one goal might be distance, like the classic New York-to-Los Angeles jaunt that will add 2,782 miles to your odometer and cross a big item off your bucket list.

Way back in 1905, a merry Oldsmobile was celebrated in song. Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” wildly wandered postwar America. Slightly more recently, Willie Nelson put us “On the Road Again,” Bruce Springsteen told us we were “Born to Run” and Rihanna exhorted us to “Shut Up and Drive.”

And while Americans have popularized and maybe even perfected the road trip (picture Chicago-to-Hollywood on what’s left of Route 66; now picture it in a ’57 Corvette), its roots are global. The first automotive road trip of considerable length is said to have been, like the automobile itself, a product of Germany.