Indie Auto

Was 1969 the beginning of the end for the Ford Thunderbird four-door Landau?

by Steve in Gallery 7

(EXPANDED FROM 5/6/2024) Some have argued that the 1967-71 Thunderbird four-door Landau was a strategic error. For example, James E. Duvall (2024) wrote that the new body style played a major role in “forever” changing “what a T-Bird was supposed to be. Image positions in the mind of consumers are very fragile.” In a Dean’s Garage comment, [...]

Is Jaguar smart to run away from its design heritage?

October 8, 2026 21

Larry Printz (2026) recently declared that the new Jaguar Type 01 was on the right track because it stopped trying to update the design DNA that had made the brand so iconic. In a way he has a point. The retro styling movement has been littered [...]

Why does Joe Ligo’s PBS series sanewash AMC’s mid-70s recklessness?

October 6, 2026 20

(EXPANDED FROM 5/28/2025) The Society of Automotive Historians (2026) recently gave the 2026 E. P. Ingersoll Award to The Last Independent American Automaker. This television documentary about American Motors strikes me as an [...]

A pyrrhic regulatory rollback and how poorly the 1978 Matador coupe sold

October 2, 2026 12

The American car-buff media has struck me as rather stale lately, but one relative newcomer has offered a ray of hope. The Car Collective’s Substack is a “newsletter” (re: a website with email distribution) that is a shared venue for 11 automotive [...]

Did the 1962-65 Chrysler 300 ‘dilute’ the letter series?

September 29, 2026 7

Adam Wade (2026) presented a good overview of the 1964 Chrysler 300K in a recent video episode of his Rare Classic Cars & Automotive History channel on YouTube. However, he gave me pause by saying that the introduction of the regular [...]

Three rules led to a stultifying level of conformity in 1960s U.S. car design

September 24, 2026 12

The 1960s are often described as a golden age for U.S. car design, but they still suffered from a stultifying level of conformity. To give you a sense of what I mean, let’s take a look at the three rules Detroit largely followed with [...]

Data on imports sheds light on their dramatic gains from 1964-80

by Steve in Data Dive 5

(EXPANDED FROM 7/10/2024) One of the biggest weaknesses of the auto history field is that it doesn’t pay enough attention to the collapse of U.S. automakers in the face of a rising tide of imports. So let’s take a look at data compiled by the U.S. International Trade Commission that can give us a more granular sense of how foreign automakers began to make inroads in [...]