YouTube videos may bring auto history to a broader range of people, but they generally still aren’t as good as books. As a case in point, let’s take a look at a video about the DeSoto and another focused on American Motors.
Just to be clear — neither of these videos strike me as being bad. For example, they don’t appear to suffer from too many basic fact errors. Even so, they illustrate what John A. Heitmann once described as a tendency to present “well-worn tales repackaged with little if any critical analysis and a reexamination of the evidence” (2020, p. 2).
Vintage Industries does DeSoto. . .
The YouTube channel called Vintage Industries (2026) recently posted a history of the DeSoto. In roughly 20 minutes the episode summarizes the life of the Chrysler Corporation’s brand from 1928 to 1961. The overall presentation is reasonably professional, with interesting archival images and a workmanly script.
For example, the episode rightly notes that the DeSoto went into decline beginning in 1958 due to a combination of quality-control issues, the collapse of the premium-priced field and product overlap with other Chrysler brands. This is a somewhat more sophisticated analysis than can be found in Dennis David’s (2006) book, It’s Delightful! It’s Delovely! It’s . . . DeSoto Automobiles.
Even so, the video has some jarring moments, such as what appear to be AI-generated images. While it is understandable that even a relatively short video can have an insatiable need for footage, inserting bogus images undercuts the historical credibility of the video.
More significantly, the narrative oversimplifies the DeSoto’s final years in some respects. For example, it makes a big deal about warranty claims due to rust issues but doesn’t acknowledge that those were hardly exclusive to the DeSoto — which shared a body with Dodge and Chrysler cars.
The video also overplayed the importance of the Chrysler board of director’s decision on Oct. 21, 1960 to end DeSoto production. The brand’s death was arguably sealed in 1959, when production fell to 46,000 units. Richard M. Langworth and Jan P. Norbye noted that “DeSoto had the dubious distinction of being one of the few makes to suffer lower sales in ’59 than in ’58” (1985, p. 174). So in 1960 the automaker essentially gave up on the brand. Its lineup was pruned from four series to two and both wagons and convertibles were dropped. Sales fell accordingly.
. . .While American Vintage Lifestyle does AMC
Also recently posted was a roughly 21-minute history on American Motors by a YouTube channel called American Vintage Lifestyle (2026). The format so closely matches that of the DeSoto video that I assume that this channel is a sibling of Vintage Industries.
The title for the American Motors episode, “How Greed Destroyed America’s Greatest Automaker,” sums up the tone of the piece. Rather than merely recite the usual litany of facts about the automaker, American Vintage Lifestyle (2026) instead makes a provocative argument. I suppose they deserve credit for having a point of view, but I find it questionable in a number of respects.
The episode quite rightly gives American Motors head George Romney his due for presciently betting on compact cars. However, it’s pretty reaching to argue that AMC was “America’s Greatest Automaker.”
The episode goes on to blame Romney’s successor, Roy Abernethy, for the automaker’s subsequent decline by trying to compete more directly with the Big Three. After criticizing the ill-fated Marlin, the video adds that “Abernethy was not done. The Javelin, the AMX, the Matador coupe: Expensive, poorly timed projects chasing markets that AMC had no business entering.”
That’s a reasonable argument — but Abernethy wasn’t responsible for most of those cars. In addition, the episode over-glorifies the tenure of his successor Roy D. Chapin Jr. — but concludes that the automaker had been “so badly damaged by the Abernethy years that even brilliant products could not fully heal the wound.”
The episode then insists that American Motors management greedily “poured millions into stock buybacks, starving funds for a new Gremlin.” Thus, the rationale for the video’s title. I would suggest that the bigger problem was that Chapin spent upwards of $100 million on the ill-fated Matador coupe and Pacer rather than on updating its compact passenger cars and Jeep lineup.
AMC historian Patrick Foster (1993, 2013) also tends to over-vilify Abernethy and over-glorify Chapin, but at least his books offer much more granular information than this video.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- American Vintage Lifestyle; 2026. “How Greed Destroyed America’s Greatest Automaker.” Posted Feb. 21.
- David, Dennis; 2006. It’s Delightful! It’s Delovely! It’s . . . DeSoto Automobiles. Iconografix, Hudson, WI.
- Foster, Patrick R.; 1993. American Motors: The Last Independent. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- ——–; 2013. American Motors Corporation: The Rise and Fall of America’s Last Independent Automaker. MBI Publishing Co., Minneapolis, MN.
- Heitmann, John A.; 2020. “Editor’s Note.” Automotive History Review (membership in Society of Automotive Historians required). Spring, No. 61, p. 2.
- Langworth, Richard M. and Jan P. Norbye; 1985. The Complete History of Chrysler Corporation 1924-1985. Publications International, Skokie, IL.
- Vintage Industries; 2026. “From 120,000 Sales to Zero: The Collapse of DeSoto.” Posted Feb. 23.
“tales repackaged with little if any critical analysis and a reexamination of the evidence” This is going to be a problem with any video documentary. You end up with 1/2 hour of talking heads and charts. Any such analysis is worthy of a book or at least an article such as you do here. However, anyone with even a cursory knowledge of DeSoto will see immediately the dealership picture is AI generated. A quick on line image search turned up several useful pictures. To put this in a documentary is inexcusable and to me the video loses all credibilith
I wondered whether my review was being too charitable, but the videos did have a higher level of substance than some of the other stuff I’ve been seeing of late on YouTube. Is this our dumbed-down future?
Yep. Farcebook is drowning in it.