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HomeDrive-By Musings

Drive-By Musings

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 […]

1970.5 AMC Gremlin
Drive-By Musings

How much did postwar automakers decontent cars to keep the price down?

February 10, 2025 Steve 6

Indie Auto commentator Peter Wilding (2025) raised a good point when noting that he “never understood the idea of deliberately decontenting a car to be able to advertise a lower price, when hardly anyone actually […]

1969 Pontiac Firebird fake ad
Drive-By Musings

How typical was car snobbery in postwar high schools?

January 27, 2025 Steve 23

(EXPANDED FROM 2/6/2023) A few years ago Curbside Classic reposted a comment from a guy named Rob who had a “soul-crushing experience” driving a 1959 Rambler American to high school hangouts (Niedermeyer, 2023). In 1968 […]

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 […]

Posts pagination

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  • 1950 Nash Rambler hood ornament
    Speedreaders.info is a rare source of book reviews, but quality varies
    June 3, 2026 0
  • 1958 Lincoln
    1958-60 Lincoln: Failing to beat GM at its own game
    June 2, 2026 12
  • 1957 Nash Ambassador
    Three videos: The death of car culture, rich people’s cars and the 1957 Nash
    May 29, 2026 6
  • 1963 Mercury Marauder
    1963 Mercury Marauder: Ford tries to do a premium-priced car on the cheap
    May 27, 2026 11
  • Did 1964 Ramblers share more parts between size classes than competitors?
    May 26, 2026 1
  • 1976 Tatra T-613
    Tatra was yet another automaker that deemphasized aerodynamics by 1970s
    May 22, 2026 12
  • Patrick Foster shows how International Harvester failed to adapt
    May 13, 2026 5
  • 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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