(EXPANDED FROM 10/31/2022) The automotive media tends to treat orphaned American brands with extra enthusiastic pom-pom waving. An example of the genre is Mark J. McCourt’s (2020) Hemmings article about Oldsmobile. He breathlessly insisted that […]
(EXPANDED FROM 5/14/2021) A few years ago CJ and Geeber commented that the 1975 Dodge Charger would have worked better if it had been given the more distinctive design of the 1978 Magnum XE. That’s […]
An Indie Auto reader recently inquired as to when the Ford Motor Company began to “phone in” the Mercury brand. Also asked: Why did Ford do this and was it ultimately a sound decision? Since […]
(EXPANDED FROM 6/17/2022) Compact cars represented a dramatic change for U.S. automakers when they were introduced in the early-1960s. After spending the previous decade making its “standard-sized” cars bigger, glitzier and more powerful, Detroit responded […]
We’ve had an interesting discussion in a comment thread about Ford Motor Company styling in the 1970s (go here), so I wanted bring some additional information and ideas to the table. This will be a […]
(UPDATED FROM 8/21/2020) Peter DeLorenzo (2018) has argued that brand management “is now the Number 1 priority in this business.” The reason is that a “democratization of technology and luxury” has leveled the playing field. […]
Geeber’s comment on our antitrust story significantly adds to the discussion so I’m elevating it to the front page as a letter to the editor: GM had been pushing to centralize more functions at the […]
The failure of individual automakers is invariably grounded in an inability to maintain adequate economies of scale. However, debates about what is the ideal shape of the American auto industry are heavily informed by competing […]
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