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History
George Romney made eight big mistakes at AMC
George Romney may have been one of the U.S. auto industry’s best post-war leaders, but he made eight big mistakes while leading AMC from 1954-62. Some of his bad moves were costly enough to almost […]
Quotes
Should Richard Teague have walked away from American Motors?
“I went to American Motors as assistant director of styling in September 1959. I saw the ’60 Rambler, and I almost walked out the front door. It looked like it was chiseled out of marble […]
Quotes
Peter DeLorenzo: Stop 84-month auto financing
“I would like to see the end of usurious financing in the auto industry. I know, good luck with that. Every time this business faces a crisis, the auto manufacturers somehow deem that the return of […]
Readings
Studebaker: The Life and Death of an American Corporation
This is one of the better scholarly books about an auto company. Donald T. Critchlow achieves the rare feat of crafting a narrative that is engaging, analytically sophisticated and challenges industry groupthink in key respects. […]
Design Notes
Audi R8 : More beast than sports car
(EXPANDED 12/14/2022) An Audi R8 in the wild is an eye-opening event. Everything about the car is over-amped, from the child-eating grille to the showy display of V10 power just beneath the rear window. The […]
Current Events
What died when the VW Beetle ended production?
Paul A. Eistenstein’s (2019) story about the end of production for the Volkswagen Beetle makes an odd editorial decision. He treats the Beetle as a unified product line that stretches all the way back to […]
Bird Chatter
Quotes
Loewy offered weird idea for small Studebaker
“Raymond Loewy, who along with his industrial design firm, had been involved with Studebaker since the 1930s, was enlisted to help with designing the new small Studebaker. In the oral history interview Churchill confirmed that […]
Quotes
From horseless carriages to robots?
“The future is manufacturing robots similar to the Ford courier robot. . . . I’d bet within a few decades robots in the home will be common. Imagine if you had to make a decision […]