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Home2025February

Month: February 2025

1978 Ford Fairmont 4-door seda
Design Notes

U.S. cars often suffered from weak styling continuity and boxy shapes in 1970-80s

February 28, 2025 Steve 17

(EXPANDED FROM 1/23/2023) This post’s comment thread has received a burst of new attention, so I thought it would be worth expanding upon my original argument. I wrote this article in response to debates about […]

1986 Cadillac Seville
Links

Car designer John Manoogian II tells the inside story of his tenure at GM

February 27, 2025 Steve 0

An Indie Auto reader kindly pointed out a series of first-person accounts by John Manoogian II about his tenure as a designer at General Motors. The series, which is entitled “Never a Dull Moment,” has […]

1965 Plymouth Barracuda and Rambler Tarpon
History

Might the Rambler Tarpon have sold better than the Plymouth Barracuda?

February 26, 2025 Steve 12

(EXPANDED FROM 7/2/2021) Patrick Foster has questioned whether the 1964 Rambler Tarpon show car would have sold better than the Plymouth Barracuda if it had reached production. His rationale was that neither compact sporty coupe […]

1979 Pontiac Firebird TransAm
Drive-By Musings

What were the five most successful postwar facelifts among US cars?

February 25, 2025 Steve 9

In the “Story Ideas Bank” Stewdi offered a topic that got me thinking: What are the most successful facelifts of all time? The power was out at Indie Auto’s world headquarters for most of the […]

Current Events

Which EV startups will succeed in crossing the ‘Valley of Death’?

February 24, 2025 Steve 0

One of the biggest questions about the electric-vehicle market in the United States is how many startups will survive. This is partly because of the Trump administration’s antagonistic attitude toward EVs, but over the last […]

Parody ads about the auto industry and media
Our Sponsors

Automaker gets creative in appealing to EV-skeptical demographics

February 23, 2025 Steve 0
Skagit Valley sunrise
Random Shots

Sunrise over a country road evokes a classic 1923 Jordan ad

February 23, 2025 Steve 6

The car-buff media is so oriented toward the gear that it tends to neglect one of the biggest reasons people drive automobiles — to go somewhere interesting. We could talk about that in scholarly terms. […]

1957 Ford Skyliner
Quotes

How a ‘cockamamie’ corporate structure resulted in the 1957 Ford

February 22, 2025 Steve 11

Former Ford Motor Company executive Donald Frey explained to David Crippen (1986) why he thought that the automaker’s “cockamamie” decision-making structure led to major quality-control problems with the 1957 Ford. “As it turned out, preceding […]

Charles K. Hyde Chrysler
Readings

Charles K. Hyde wrote a useful but superficial history of the Chrysler Corp.

February 21, 2025 Steve 5

I am ambivalent about Charles K. Hyde’s book, Riding the Roller Coaster: A History of the Chrysler Corporation. The American automotive history field desperately needs more scholarly books, and Hyde is a relatively rare academic […]

1961 Dodge Polara 4-door hardtop
Data Dive

Chrysler’s collapse in premium-priced field was a bigger deal than Edsel’s

February 20, 2025 Steve 13

(EXPANDED FROM 6/23/2023) A while back Indie Auto reader Geeber asked about what happened to Chrysler Corporation’s market share in the premium-priced field after Dodge went downmarket in 1960. He was referring to a major […]

Posts pagination

1 2 … 4 »
  • 1972 Lincoln Continental Mark IV
    Is David Kiley right that Ford should replace Lincoln with a new brand?
    September 2, 2026 15
  • 1972 Buick Skylark Custom grille
    1972 Buick Skylark Custom represented the end of an era
    September 1, 2026 4
  • 1959 Ford Thunderbird
    1959 Ford Thunderbird was a gimmicky but hugely important car
    August 26, 2026 11
  • Compact cars became the neglected stepchildren of U.S. automakers
    August 21, 2026 21
  • 1980 AMC brochure cover with picture of American Center building
    AMC’s Roy D. Chapin Jr. succumbed to the illusion of bigness
    August 19, 2026 2
  • 1980 Ford Thunderbird and 1956 model
    Ford’s design talent in the 1970s wasn’t enough to halt a dramatic slide in sales
    August 14, 2026 13
  • 1973 Buick Riviera
    Why wasn’t the 1971 ‘boat-tail’ Buick Riviera shrunk to compact size?
    August 14, 2026 24
  • Internet problems reminded me of U.S. automakers in the 1970s
    May 2, 2026 1
  • 1956 Buick hood scoop
    Readers brainstorm ideas for future Indie Auto stories
    October 14, 2022 141
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