Our Sponsors
1970s
Fake Design
The 1938-40 Graham didn’t just fail because of ‘sharknose’ styling
(EXPANDED FROM 1/15/2021) The 1938-40 Graham is a popular topic in the auto history media because of the car’s infamous “sharknose” styling. What gets little, if any, attention is that even if the design had […]
Media Analysis
Accounts of Brooks Stevens’s Studebaker Sceptre and siblings can vary
Dean’s Garage has reposted a Hemmings story about a number of proposed Studebakers designed by Brooks Stevens. Daniel Strohl (2023) primarily focused on the Sceptre, a replacement for the ancient Hawk. I find the photographs […]
Links
Brazilian Volkswagens show automaker’s struggle for a post-Beetle look
Paul Niedermeyer’s (2023) recently reposted story about Volkwagens of Brazil offers a helpful addendum to our Scirocco discussion. The automaker’s Brazilian arm went the farthest in giving the Beetle chassis a variety of more modern […]
Quotes
Why General Motors should have been broken in two
“I think if DOJ had cleaved GM into two companies (i.e., Chevrolet and GM), we would today have a more vibrant, competitive American automotive industry. Today, we have two domestic players in an industry that […]
Quotes
Alex Taylor III on why GM’s product cycles lengthened in the 1970s
“GM’s product development cycles in the 1960s, which had been among the shortest, were becoming among the longest in the industry, according to GM’s own in-house history. More content dictated by federal regulations was part […]
Readings
Matt DeLorenzo’s book, ‘Dodge: 100 Years,’ is a highly polished something
(EXPANDED FROM 4/10/2020) If Dodge: 100 Years represents the future of automotive history, then we’re in real trouble. What we have here is a lavish display of mindless car porn and marketing babble. That’s an […]
Quotes
Halberstam: Big Three’s ‘shared monopoly’ held back innovation for years
“The Big Three in the auto industry stood virtually alone, possessors of what was in effect a shared monopoly, for the price of entry was too great for any start-up company. In an environment like […]
Letters to the Editor
Reader offers additional reasons for ‘lower, longer and wider’ trend
Our “Auto Paedia” article about Detroit’s tendency to make its cars “lower, longer and wider” during the post-war period continues to generate an interesting discussion in the comment thread. One comment I would like to […]
Quotes
Bill Mitchell on how he wielded power like Harley Earl at GM
“Oh, he was powerful. God, I admired [him]. He just knocked the tar out of anybody. He’d get it fixed. If he couldn’t, he’d call New York and say, ‘Fix these…[.]’ Then, I inherited some […]