(EXPANDED FROM 6/26/2024) 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 […]
(UPDATED FROM 8/1/2024) In 1959 imported cars captured 10 percent of the U.S. market. However, their popularity quickly subsided after the Big Three came out with an unprecedented wave of compacts beginning in 1960. The […]
(EXPANDED FROM 5/3/2024) Ponderous styling of the so-called “fuselage” Plymouths has been pointed to as the biggest reason why sales were smaller than the well-regarded platform it replaced (e.g., auto editors of Consumer Guide, 2022). Output for […]
(EXPANDED FROM 2/27/2023) Indie Auto was partly created to spark more robust debates in U.S. auto history. As a case in point, a few years go I questioned a take by Richard M. Langworth and […]
(EXPANDED FROM 3/1/2024) This article’s comment thread has had a recent uptick in discussion, so let’s add a bit more analysis. The 1954 Chevrolet’s greatest claim to fame — or, more accurately, infamy — was […]
(UPDATED FROM 12/30/2022) A few years ago we had a debate in a comment thread about the importance of scale in the U.S. auto industry (go here). I thought I would add another layer to […]
Indie Auto reader Captain My Captain recently weighed in on our story, “How might GM have better adapted its hierarchy of brands to changing times?” He offers an unusually in-depth and colorful assessment, so I […]
Michael Karesh (2026) stopped by to comment on our review of Thomas Bonsall’s book about the Edsel. I think that Karesh makes an important point about General Motors’ handling of its passenger-car brands. Thus, I […]
One of the biggest assumptions of U.S. automakers in the postwar period was that they desperately needed splashy new cars. Yet when I think about the biggest disasters of that era, they often involved expensive […]
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