Indie Auto

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

by Steve in Links 7

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 journalists. These 10 men and one woman possess a fair amount of stature within the field. Thus, I initially expected a bland, [...]

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

September 29, 2026 4

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 [...]

Society of Automotive Historians takes partial steps into the electronic age

September 22, 2026 3

Today is the last day that you can vote in the Society of Automotive Historians’ board-of-directors election. According to an email blast, as of this morning only 73 out of 622 members had voted (SAH, 2026). Four candidates are [...]

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

September 18, 2026 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 [...]

1974 Chrysler New Yorker was a tragedy that played out on four levels

September 16, 2026 13

The 1974 Chrysler New Yorker is one of those cars that does not reek of tragedy in obvious ways. It looks like a perfectly normal big car from the mid-1970s. There’s nothing particularly exciting about it, but there’s also [...]

In 1974 Harry Bradley anticipated the American wagon’s future

by Steve in History 10

(EXPANDED FROM 9/10/2024) A few years ago Dean’s Garage reprinted a prescient essay Harry Bradley (2022) wrote back in 1974 about the future of the American station wagon. His article made a number of important points, such as the value of wagons once again using the taller, boxier greenhouses of the early 1950s. Bradley also included a sketch of a design [...]