(EXPANDED FROM 10/27/2021) Greenhouses have not typically changed as frequently as other parts of the American automobile’s external styling, but they go a long way toward summing up the dominant design approach of a given […]
(EXPANDED FROM 11/1/2018) “Grosse Pointe myopians” is a pejorative term that automotive journalist Brock Yates (2018) gave to the management class of domestic automakers in a groundbreaking essay published in the April 1968 issue of […]
(UPDATED FROM 8/21/2020) Peter DeLorenzo (2018) has argued that brand management “is now the Number 1 priority in this business.” The reason is that a “democratization of technology and luxury” has leveled the playing field. […]
(EXPANDED FROM 11/1/2019) The dominant tendency of the U.S. auto industry has been to make its vehicles bigger, glitzier and more powerful. In recent decades both domestic and foreign automakers have embraced this practice. Indeed, […]
(EXPANDED FROM 9/18/2020) “Detroit Mind” is the label Brock Yates gave to the worldview of U.S. automakers from the 1950s into the 1980s. This was epitomized by a focus on cars that were “too large, […]
(UPDATED FROM 1/1/2019) Antitrust regulations in the United States were created in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Their goal was to support free competition in an era of increasingly large corporations — some of whom […]
(EXPANDED 10/24/2022) “Lower, longer, wider” was the domestic automakers’ dominant design approach until they were forced to downsize their fleet in the late-1970s due to federal fuel-economy standards. Since that time automakers have at least […]
(UPATED 3/9/2023) A few years ago Lotus Rebel (2021) drew upon our AMC Pacer story to suggest alternative approaches for that car’s design in a comment at Ate Up With Motor. That website’s publisher, Aaron […]
The failure of individual automakers is invariably grounded in an inability to maintain adequate economies of scale. However, debates about what is the ideal shape of the American auto industry are heavily informed by competing […]
Halo cars tend to quite popular — even wetness inducing — among auto enthusiasts. That’s because the mission of halo cars is mostly to generate a positive buzz about a brand rather than high sales. So […]
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