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Auto culture
Photo Essay
Still motion: A haunting encounter with a 1940s Chevy truck
(EXPANDED FROM 11/20/2020) The National Park Service is renovating the Kestner homestead near Lake Quinault. However, one item is being left to nature’s whims — a circa 1941-46 Chevrolet panel truck once used in a […]
Ad Nauseam
DeBest ad for the 1981 Pontiac Trans Am that was never printed
Pete DeBest thought he had it made. He followed his dad into the car business by landing a gig at Pontiac’s ad agency as a copy writer. Things went great at first. For example, one […]
Links
Jalopnik gets better — but for how long?
(EXPANDED FROM 9/18/2020) A few years ago I starting reading Jalopnik again after a long lapse because its content appeared to have improved. However, I still don’t check out the website daily because there’s too […]
Quotes
The unexpected consequences of post-World War II mobility
“Mobility is as much about freedom and new vistas as it is about capitalism or the free market, and the young were taking up the former while the elder worried about the latter. Mobility in […]
Random Shots
An automotive time machine with an open door
Since I began visiting Lake Quinault in the mid-1980s, I have noticed this 1953 Chevrolet sitting in a garage. The garage’s door has always been open and the Chevy has not appeared to have been […]
Quotes
Postwar U.S. auto industry was ‘largely complacent’ until forced to change
“The hubris of its executives related to consumer needs, an obsession with big cars, garish designs coming from its studios, the neglect of safety and air pollution matters, and rising prices all played into the […]
Editor's Note
On the death of a child and car buffery
Curbside Classic Publisher Paul Niedermeyer (2023) announced that one of his sons lost a “decade-long struggle with severe addiction yesterday.” Most auto buff websites would likely have not brought up such a painful topic unrelated […]
Quotes
One reason why a car enthusiast is ‘falling out of love with driving’
“I despair, too, at the increasingly fortress mentality that many drivers seem to have. The depressing rise of SUVs is probably responsible for this. Drivers feel safe and cocooned from the world around them, and […]
Media Analysis
Popular Mechanics published amusingly wrong predictions about 1968 cars
The June 1967 issue of Popular Mechanics may have been published only a few months prior to the beginning of the 1968 model year for U.S. cars, but it had a few amusingly wrong predictions. […]