Drive-By Musings
Would anything have ‘saved’ American Motors?
RF stopped by to respond to our story, “Pat Foster barks up wrong tree by lauding an AMC Gremlin GT with a 360 V8.” Well, sort of. He seemed to be more interested in answering […]
Business strategies
Current Events
EVs need a George Romney to champion them in the next few years
With the Republicans likely to slash support for electric vehicles at every turn (Ferry, 2025), automakers will need to work much harder to market their wares in the next few years. What would be particularly […]
Multimedia
Classic film shows human side of Studebaker’s end
(UPDATED FROM 6/20/2022) Documentary films contribute to automotive history in a different way than words on a page (either paper or electronic). In general, film can capture much better the human elements of a situation, […]
Data Dive
Packard kept a bigger foothold in the luxury-car field than commonly assumed
Our discussion in the comment thread about the 1956 Packard Executive story all but inevitably brought up one of the most common criticisms of the automaker’s management — that it did not do enough in […]
Current Events
Laurence Iliff’s Automotive News story on EV truck sales lacks nuance and balance
Automotive News recently asked why electric-powered trucks have sold in much smaller numbers than initial hype promised. Reporter Laurence Iliff (2025) offered some background before concluding that high prices and inadequate range have limited EV […]
Readings
Peter Grist views car designer Virgil Exner through rose-tinted glasses
(EXPANDED FROM 12/6/2022) Peter Grist stated that he tried to make this authorized biography of car designer Virgil Exner “as unbiased as possible” (p. 5). Even so, Visioneer has a family scrapbook quality, replete with childhood photos and […]
Drive-By Musings
1970 Mercury Montego had a last-of-the-wine quality
In a number of respects the 1970 Mercury Montego exuded a last-of-the-wine vibe. For one thing, it was the final reskinning of the mid-sized platform that the Ford Motor Company introduced in 1962. Let’s just […]
History
Did the 1956 Packard Executive represent a strategic shift?
(EXPANDED FROM 2/1/2022) Back in 2021 Patrick Foster suggested that a 1956 1/2 Packard model called the Executive could have “saved” the brand if it had been introduced a year or so earlier. In contrast, […]
Current Events
Is JVL right that ‘Trump killed Tesla’ as a viable automaker?
Last week political commentator Jonathan V. Last (2025d) declared that Elon Musk’s close association with President Trump has “killed Tesla.” That was happy news to Last, who had previously argued that a good way to […]
Media Analysis
Do car ads need to talk down to people in order to be engaging?
One of the laziest kinds of clickbait in the auto history media are posts of old advertisements, commercials and various types of marketing videos. All too often the text that accompanies the ads could be […]