When Irv Rybicki was interviewed by Dave Crippen (1985) about his design career at General Motors, he told a story about how the 1971 Cadillac Eldorado supposedly got opera windows. The Monte Carlo was initially […]
(EXPANDED FROM 6/30/2023) Did Ford make the right move by pulling the plug on a U.S.-built subcompact slated to be introduced in the fall of 1962? The car, initially called the Cardinal but later renamed […]
(EXPANDED FROM 4/22/2022) The 1963-64 Studebaker Avanti has been described by historian Patrick Foster as “one of the most beautiful automobiles ever to grace the road” (2008, p. 138). Even so, the premium-priced sporty coupe […]
(EXPANDED FROM 12/29/2023) This is another Indie Auto story that has received a fair amount of blowback. For example, one presumably former reader alleged that I was a “Chevy fanboy” because I called the 1968-70 […]
(UPDATED FROM 3/23/2023) A Century of Automotive Style was first published in 1996, so it is a fairly old auto history book. Nevertheless, I would rank it as important enough to be updated. I say […]
(UPDATED FROM 10/4/2014) Collectible Automobile’s interviews can be a valuable means of documenting automotive history, but they can also lead us astray due to inaccuracies. For one thing, the memories of key participants can fade […]
Ford’s aggressive efforts to retake the top-selling crown from Chevrolet reached a crescendo in the 1957 model year, when it out-produced its rival by more than 170,000 units. Ford’s main advantage was a new body […]
In a recent story about the 1962 Plymouth and Dodge, Bill McGuire (2024) of Mac’s Motor City Garage stated that the downsized cars were based upon a stretched version of the compact Plymouth Valiant and […]
Curbside Classic commentator Steve (2018) has argued that Nash-Kelvinator should have combined with Studebaker rather than Hudson for an interesting set of reasons. He effectively follows the advice of Aaron Severson (2024), who recently suggested that […]
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 […]
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