Over at Driven to Write, jm2 (2025) recently offered a spirited defense of the first-generation Cadillac Seville. He called it a “shining star” that would “become a benchmark and gain the significance of an icon […]
Question-of-the-day features tend to be vapid, so I usually ignore them. However, I must admit to getting drawn into a Jalopnik query about what are the ugliest cars on the market today (Bellwood, 2025). The […]
(UPDATED FROM 9/23/2022) The easiest way to sum up the spectacular failure of the DeLorean Motor Company is to say that its founder was exceptionally unlucky. I am hard pressed to think of a worse […]
(EXPANDED FROM 5/26/2021) Automotive blinders, also known as auto peepers, are the narrowing of windows between the C- and D-pillars of vehicles. This design feature blocks a driver’s rearward vision, which assists in human population […]
(EXPANDED FROM 3/5/2021) In the comments we’ve recently talked about Chris Bangle, so I thought I would expand a story I had written a few years ago about one of the most controversial designs that […]
This BMW reminded me of how rarely automobiles in the United States display customized paint schemes. The only time I can remember when this has been a mass-market phenomenon was during the surfer van boomlet […]
(UPDATED FROM 2/19/2021) Histories written by practicing automotive journalists are usually engaging reads with lots of behind-the-scenes anecdotes. However, they can also be analytically superficial and grounded more in access than accountability journalism. In other […]
“It’s enormous. The (original] Mini was the best-packaged car of all time(; the BMW Mini) is an example of how not to do it. The interior space is not much bigger than the old Mini, […]
(UPDATED FROM 6/26/2020) The Saab 99/900 proved to be the box that crushed the tiny Swedish carmaker. I grant you that this platform was hardly an immediate failure. Even so, the design of the 99 […]
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