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HomeDrive-By Musings

Drive-By Musings

1973 Dodge Dart
Drive-By Musings

Chrysler’s Lynn Townsend in 1973: Even a compact is too small

November 1, 2024 Steve 18

CEO Lynn Townsend hinted at why the Chrysler Corporation arguably neglected its aging line of compacts in the first half of the 1970s. Townsend told Forbes in 1973, “The subcompacts are just too small. The […]

2024 Mazda Miata
Drive-By Musings

If you dislike recent styling trends does that mean you only like old cars?

September 7, 2024 Steve 10

Jim stopped by to respond to our story, “Styling comparison: C8 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray versus the original.” He wrote: “I think it would be nice to know which modern sports cars, if any, you do […]

Drive-By Musings

Why U.S. auto history focuses so little on the business side of manufacturing

August 12, 2024 Steve 5

Aaron Severson (2024) recently suggested that auto history counterfactuals almost always focus on design, engineering and product-planning choices rather than what he considers “far more decisive and dominant factors,” which he argues are “capital investment […]

Drive-By Musings

Would you believe that there was once a car in this picture?

June 5, 2024 Steve 0

A fairly popular type of auto history post includes photos of street scenes from the past. Readers tend to focus on naming the cars. It’s good, clean fun if you have nothing better to do. […]

Olympia traffic at dusk
Drive-By Musings

Robert Atkinson Jr. suffers from the insularity that he complains about

April 16, 2024 Steve 1

Curbside Classic tends to avoid political debates in the comment threads for good reason. As a case in point, a reposting of Brock Yates’ “Grosse Pointe Myopians” essay drew Robert Atkinson Jr. (2024) to share […]

Robert McNamara upside down
Drive-By Musings

Should the Automotive Hall of Fame present accurate information about its inductees?

January 17, 2024 Steve 2

The Automotive Hall of Fame has a fancy website, a big building and lots of very important people on its board of directors. Yet its explanation for why Robert S. McNamara was inducted has surprisingly […]

Drive-By Musings

What do you think American automobiles will be like in 2043?

December 8, 2023 Steve 10

A while back I asked Indie Auto readers, “If you could have foreseen the future in high school, would today’s cars surprise you?” George Denzinger subsequently suggested in our “Story Ideas Bank” that we prognosticate […]

2019 BMW i8 roadster
Drive-By Musings

If you could have foreseen the future in high school, would today’s cars surprise you?

November 1, 2023 Steve 12

This is a question that may be most interesting to older Indie Auto readers. What brings it up for me is a fictional story in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, which is a humor magazine. Alex Baze […]

Automotive History Preservation Society website
Drive-By Musings

Automotive History Preservation Society’s new website isn’t always better

April 28, 2023 Steve 2

When I was updating a story today I noticed that the Automotive History Preservation Society has changed its URL. The organization’s website can now be found at autohistorypreservationsociety.org. Indie Auto links when possible to its […]

1963 Lincoln Continental B-pillar
Drive-By Musings

Shall we debate what is a ‘four-door pillared hardtop?’

August 17, 2022 Steve 10

Today Indie Auto received a comment that critiqued how we have distinguished between different types of four-door body styles. I had referred to the 1961 Lincoln Continental as a four-door hardtop sedan, but Bostwick9 insisted […]

Posts pagination

« 1 2 3 4 5 »
  • 1967 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme
    Was the 1966 Olds Cutlass Supreme the first mid-sized brougham model?
    March 5, 2026 21
  • 1976 Plymouth Volare 2-door coupe
    Splashy new cars often were the biggest disasters during the postwar period
    March 3, 2026 1
  • Reader questions Chrysler’s future as it passes 100th anniversary
    March 2, 2026 12
  • 1968 Chevrolet C10 pickup
    Was the 1967-68 Chevrolet C10 the ‘first modern pickup’?
    February 27, 2026 7
  • 1941 Studebaker Commander 2-door coupe
    1941 Studebaker Commander: Ending its big cars on a high note
    February 26, 2026 11
  • 1961 De Soto
    Video histories of DeSoto and American Motors aren’t as good as books
    February 24, 2026 3
  • 1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk front with hood open
    Four lingering questions about Aaron Severson’s take on the 1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk
    February 20, 2026 6
  • Thank yous, power outages and format changes
    October 31, 2025 0
  • 1956 Buick hood scoop
    Readers brainstorm ideas for future Indie Auto stories
    October 14, 2022 134
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