Indie Auto

Thomas Bonsall’s Edsel book is nuanced but suffers from groupthink

by Steve in Readings 12

(EXPANDED FROM 9/27/2021) Disaster in Dearborn: The Story of the Edsel is paradoxical. On the one hand, this is a serious history book. That’s the opposite of so many of the coffee table books that populate Amazon.com. On the other hand, Thomas E. Bonsall’s conclusions about the Edsel were grounded in 1950s-style auto industry groupthink. Fortunately, he held [...]

Follow-up thoughts on the future of the Chrysler brand

March 16, 2026 4

Indie Auto reader George Denzinger submitted a follow-up letter to a previous one concerning the 100th anniversary of the Chrysler brand (go here). First, thanks to Steve for posting my letter. I wanted to address a couple of things that people [...]

Ford gets back into the mid-sized game with redesigned 1966 Fairlane

March 13, 2026 9

(EXPANDED FROM 11/15/2023) Even though Ford came out with one of the first mid-sized cars in 1962, only three years later it was pummeled by General Motors and Chrysler. In 1965 even American Motors’ mid-sized lineup outsold Ford’s [...]

Adam Wade’s top-10 ugliest ‘classic’ cars list is decidedly quirky

March 11, 2026 19

Top-10 lists are inherently subjective, but Adam Wade’s (2026) ugliest “classic” cars strikes me as being particularly quirky. On his YouTube channel called Rare Classic Cars & Automotive History, Wade focuses on American cars from 1957-90. [...]

Could Iran war show that Detroit is too dependent on gas-guzzling vehicles?

March 9, 2026 26

As I write this, Automotive News has not yet posted a full news story on how a protracted war in Iran could impact U.S. car sales. The industry’s leading trade journal has only parenthetically made reference to the conflict as [...]

Why did American Motors fire Wells Rich and Greene in 1972?

March 6, 2026 6

(EXPANDED FROM 5/14/2024) American Motors and the ad agency Wells Rich and Greene would seem to have been a match made in heaven when they started to work together in 1967. After all, both had a penchant for unorthodox [...]

Splashy new cars often were the biggest disasters during the postwar period

by Steve in Drive-By Musings 5

One of the biggest assumptions of U.S. automakers in the postwar period was that they desperately needed splashy new cars. Yet when I think about the biggest disasters of that era, they often involved expensive product launches. Here I am not just talking about immediate flops such as the 1958 Edsel, 1962 downsized Plymouth/Dodge, 1971 Buick Riviera and [...]