(UPDATED FROM 3/30/2023) Newly declassified intelligence documents show how a crash program by American automakers to switch to eggcrate grilles for their 1972-73 models thwarted a space alien invasion. The strategy worked so well that […]
I checked out David Crippen’s (1989) oral history of Virgil Exner Jr. to see if he offered any useful factual details about two lingering historical debates — why the Studebaker Lark as well as the […]
(EXPANDED FROM 3/3/2023) The 1956 Mercury represented the end — at least for the next four years — of Edsel Ford’s original conception of the brand. Since it was introduced 1939, Mercury had been positioned […]
(EXPANDED FROM 11/1/2021) A 1956 Packard booklet hints at how its head James Nance got too big for his britches. A marketing piece titled, “Story of a Living Legend and the world in which it […]
Only rarely will Automotive News publish a historical piece. One such occasion was when it ran a feature about former Chrysler design head Virgil Exner. The thing I find most striking about this article is […]
The May 1966 issue of Motor Trend included an unusually long article about the woes of American Motors. The piece was written by Editor Donald Mac Donald, so presumably it displayed the magazine’s most sophisticated […]
(EXPANDED FROM 3/31/2023) Compacts and personal coupes generated an outsized amount of media attention during the 1960s, but the most important emerging market segment turned out to be mid-sized cars. Sales rose steadily to the […]
Top General Motors’ designers William Mitchell and Chuck Jordan showed glimmers of adaptiveness in an interview with Motor Trend (1971) magazine. However, the luxury of hindsight allows us to see some of the blinders that […]
(EXPANDED FROM 1/15/2021) The 1953 Hudson Hornet’s styling strikes me as being peak “step down.” As a case in point, this was the last year for the rounded rear end. It looked dated compared to […]
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