The shift to smaller cars was happening before the first oil embargo, which stretched from October 1973 through March 174 (Wikipedia, 2023). In an October 1972 column, Popular Science Automotive Editor Jan P. Norbye walked […]
A recent Hemmings column by Patrick Foster (2023) argues that American Motors’ biggest mistake was not buying Willys Motors — the maker of Jeep sport-utility vehicles — way back in the early-60s. Indeed, he went […]
“Chevrolet marketers wanted to preserve ‘sportiness’ and ‘performance’ as masculine activities, but at the same time realized that women appreciated a good-handling car as much as their male counterparts. So, Chevrolet repurposed the performance attributes […]
(EXPANDED FROM 7/7/2021) A few years ago Stéphane Dumas quite rightly noted that another alternative to the 1964 Rambler Tarpon concept car was the XR-400. This was a 2+2 convertible proposed to American Motors in […]
MH dropped a note to Indie Auto about the 1961 Dodge, perhaps in response to our article, “Chrysler’s collapse in premium-priced field was a bigger deal than Edsel’s.” Not much is written about the 1961 […]
A key way that American Motors was able to afford fielding both a compact and mid-sized platform in the mid-1960s was by sharing an unusual number of body parts. However, as Car Life noted below, […]
“Before 1955 the compact cars, which had then included Rambler, Hudson Jet, and Volkswagen, were not outstanding sales successes. Their suggested list prices, and their actual retail prices, were comparatively high in relation to those […]
“The small cars that Detroit had produced, [Hal Sperlich] believed, had been bad ones, reluctant efforts at best. If anything the companies had brought out inferior, unappealing small cars to prove their own thesis that […]
(EXPANDED FROM 3/1/2020) Once upon a time a Truth About Cars commentator lauded the simplicity of the then-new Jeep Renegade. “Well, I for one am yearning for a simpler time, and this vehicle suggests that,” […]
Ole stopped by to respond to the post, “Gordon Buehrig on Ford’s attitude about small cars circa 1960.” It wasn’t until the early-1960s that the entire European auto industry produced more cars than Chevrolet or […]
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