(EXPANDED FROM 7/15/2022) I can’t usually tell in advance whether an article will hit a nerve. As a case in point, I didn’t think this one about the 1954 Packard Clipper would generate much notice. […]
Lately I have been listening to an interview David Crippen did with Richard Teague in 1985. This was a few years after Teague retired from leading the design staff of American Motors (Wikipedia, 2025). The […]
(EXPANDED FROM 5/4/2022) One of my stylistic pet peeves is the 1963-65 Plymouth Valiant’s front fenders, which had weird, hairpin-shaped character lines. They undercut what in many respects was one of the cleaner compact designs […]
Lynn Townsend led a remarkably quick turnaround of the Chrysler Corporation, but he started to lose altitude in the late-60s. One might debate what were key turning points, but I would suggest that the 1967-68 […]
(EXPANDED FROM 3/3/203) The 1956 Mercury represented the end — at least for the next four years — of Edsel Ford’s original conception of the brand. Since it was introduced 1939, Mercury had been positioned […]
(EXPANDED FROM 8/3/2023) The rise of the four-door subcompact generated a robust debate at Indie Auto a few years ago (go here), so I did a data dive to bring some facts to the table. […]
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 […]
(EXPANDED FROM 11/1/2021) Old Car Brochures has an unusual marketing piece from Packard. “Story of a Living Legend and the world in which it grows” showcased the automaker’s history as well as its last-ditched effort to […]
William Mitchell was vice president of design at General Motors from December 1958 through July 1977 (Wikipedia, 2025). I have previously raised the question of whether he stayed in his position too long (go here). […]
The May 1966 issue of Motor Trend included an unusually long article about the woes of American Motors. The piece was written by Editor Donald Mac Donald, so presumably it displayed the magazine’s most sophisticated […]
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