The trunk or boot of an automobile or car is the vehicle's main storage, luggage, or cargo compartment. Trunk is used in North American English and Jamaican English; boot is used elsewhere in the English speaking world. Trunk is also primarily used in many non-English speaking regions, such as East Asia. In earlier usage, a boot was a built-in compartment on a horse-drawn coach, used originally as a seat for the coachman and later for storage.

The cargo compartment is most often located at the rear of the vehicle. Storage areas are normally at the other end of the vehicle to which the engine is located. Some mid-engined cars (such as the Ferrari 360) and rear-engined cars (such as the Volkswagen Beetle) have it in the front. Vehicles such as the Volkswagen Type 3, had storage compartments in the front and in the rear, above the low profile boxer engine. The mid-engined Fiat X1/9 also had two storage compartments, although the rear one was very small, but practically cuboid in shape.

In France, from 1900 onwards, Moynat trunk maker became the indisputable market leader in automobile luggage, for which the house developed a number of patented products including the limousine trunk. In 1928 came the side or lateral sliding trunk, a mechanism that foreshadowed the development of integrated trunks in vehicles from the 1930s onwards

An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor. Most definitions of the term specify that automobiles are designed to run primarily on roads, to have seating for one to eight people, to typically have four wheels, and to be constructed principally for the transport of people rather than goods.

The term motorcar has also been used in the context of electrified rail systems to denote a car which functions as a small locomotive but also provides space for passengers and baggage. These locomotive cars were often used on suburban routes by both interurban and intercity railroad systems.

There are approximately 600 million passenger cars worldwide (roughly one car per eleven people). Around the world, there were about 806 million cars and light trucks on the road in 2007; the engines of these burn over a billion cubic meters (260 billion US gallons) of petrol/gasoline and diesel fuel yearly. The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in China and India.

A boot is a type of footwear and a specific type of shoe. Most boots mainly cover the foot and the ankle and extend up the leg, sometimes as far as the knee or even the hip. Most boots have a heel that is clearly distinguishable from the rest of the sole, even if the two are made of one piece. Traditionally made of leather or rubber, modern boots are made from a variety of materials. Boots are worn both for their functionality – protecting the foot and leg from water, snow, mud or hazards or providing additional ankle support for strenuous activities – and for reasons of style and fashion. High-top athletic shoes are generally not considered boots, even though they do cover the ankle, primarily due to the absence of a distinct heel.

Early boots consisted of separate leggings, soles, and uppers worn together to provide greater ankle protection than shoes or sandals. Around 1000 B.C. these components were more permanently joined to form a single unit that covered the feet and lower leg, often up to the knee. A type of soft leather ankle boots were worn by nomads in eastern Asia, and carried to China to India and Russia around 1200 to 1500 A.D by Mongol invaders. The Inuit and Aleut natives of Alaska developed traditional winter boots of caribou skin or sealskin featuring decorative touches of seal intestine, dog hair and wolverine fur. 17th century European boots were influenced by military styles, featuring thick soles and turnover tops that were originally designed to protect horse mounted soldiers. In the 1700s, distinctive, knee-high boots worn by Hessian soldiers fighting in the American Revolutionary War influenced the development of the iconic heeled cowboy boots worn by cattlemen in the American west.