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Consumer issues
Media Analysis
Why hasn’t Consumer Guide Automotive fixed a discredited anti-Nader rant?
(EXPANDED FROM 11/1/2019) One way auto history websites can squeeze more profits from their content is to endlessly repost stories. That’s not a bad thing if the information is accurate, but it strikes me as […]
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Current Events
Do auto loans push ‘conspicuous consumption’ to dangerous levels?
A while back Jalopnik solicited reader stories about really bad automotive loan deals. If you haven’t yet read the story and its comment thread, they are worth a quick look — if you can stomach […]
Fake Design
1965-69 Chevrolet Corvair: What if it had a front-engined companion?
(UPDATED ON 10/14/22) The second-generation Chevrolet Corvair was one of the best cars General Motors has ever built. Its styling was exceptionally clean for the mid-60s, which were dominated by fussy gingerbread designs. Meanwhile, the […]
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 […]
Random Shots
See, bumpers aren’t needed anymore
More proof that humans have evolved to a higher level of consciousness. Parking dings are a thing of the past. Bumpers? They’s so 20th Century. Share your reactions to this post with a comment below […]
Readings
High and Mighty: SUVs — The World’s Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got that Way
Although written by a former Detroit bureau chief of The New York Times, this book uses high-octane rhetoric to challenge the value of sport utility vehicles when they were just beginning to reach the peak of […]
Readings
Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America and How We Can Take it Back
This is an older book but stands out as one of the most prominent critiques of the U.S.’s automotive-dominated transportation system. Jane Holtz Kay argued that the car had become to financially, socially and environmentally costly to the […]
Readings
Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the American Automobile
The American auto industry may not want to admit this, but Unsafe at Any Speed is arguably the single most influential automotive book of the last 70 years. As discussed at Curbside Classic (Niedermeyer, 2012), Ralph Nader […]