Wheels (novel)


Wheels is a novel by Arthur Hailey, concerning the automobile industry and the day-to-day pressures involved in its operation.
The plot lines follow many of the topical issues of the day, including race relations, corporate politics, and business ethics. The auto company of the novel is a little-disguised Ford Motor Company and some of the characters are recognizable to company insiders.
One notable scene is a direct lift from Leo Tolstoy's great novel Anna Karenina. In the Tolstoy novel, the female protagonist's affair became public knowledge due to her emotional reaction to an accident at a horse race in which her lover was a rider. In the Hailey novel, the accident takes place during an Indy car style race, but its significance in the plot is the same.

On television

The novel was made into a TV miniseries in 1978 starring Rock Hudson, Lee Remick, Blair Brown, Ralph Bellamy, Anthony Franciosa, John Beck, Scott Brady, Tim O'Connor, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, Jessica Walter, Lisa Eilbacher, James Carroll Jordan, Howard McGillin, Marj Dusay, Fred Williamson, and Harold Sylvester. The car presented in Hailey's novel, the Orion, was called the Hawk in the mini series.