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Design excesses
History
1970 Mercury ‘El Gato’ Cougar raises intriguing questions
(EXPANDED FROM 1/23/2024) Bill McGuire’s (2021b) story about the Mercury El Gato got me thinking about Ford’s conflicted design direction in the early-70s. The concept car hinted at what the 1969-70 Cougar might have looked […]
Multimedia
Jay Leno hypes the Slate Truck and the Hubcap Club criticizes the 1958 Packard
Let’s take a back-to-back look at two videos: a Jay Leno’s Garage episode about the forthcoming Slate Truck and a Hubcap Club take on the controversial 1958 Packard. While Leno enthusiastically hyped the forthcoming electric […]
Design Notes
The 11 worst single-year redesigns of postwar American cars
(EXPANDED FROM 7/14/2023) I grant you that top-whatever rankings can be clickbaity, but I decided to do this story for a specific reason. In the postwar years Detroit tended to assume that rapid-fire restylings were […]
The Best of Indie Auto
Seven mistakes that killed the AMC Pacer — and American Motors
(EXPANDED FROM 9/8/2023) The 1975-80 AMC Pacer may have been a memorable car, but it was also a key factor in American Motors’ demise as an independent automaker. What’s particularly tragic is that the Pacer’s […]
Fake Design
Did the 1958 Edsel look good — especially compared to GM’s cars?
A recent study found that more than 20 percent of videos recommended to new YouTube viewers were low-quality content made from artificial intelligence (Down, 2025). This aligns with my anecdotal sense that there has been […]
History
1970 Plymouth Barracuda should have been like an Australian Valiant Charger
(EXPANDED FROM 9/29/2023) The 1970 Plymouth Barracuda and its sibling the Dodge Challenger proved to be a costly mistake that epitomized Detroit’s slowness in responding to changing times. Indeed, the Chrysler Corporation’s early-1970s pony cars […]
Design Notes
The 1961 Buick was a pivot point for GM’s troubled brand
(EXPANDED FROM 12/23/2022) The 1961 Buick represented a pivot point for General Motors’ troubled premium-priced brand. The car’s styling lurched from the swaggering flamboyance of the 1950s to the utilitarian conservatism of the 1962-64 models. […]
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History
Mercury took station wagons to the outer limits in 1957-60
(EXPANDED FROM 4/6/2023) A “Story Ideas Bank” request by CJ asked for more coverage of station wagons, so let’s take a step in that direction with a look at the 1957-60 Mercury. The Ford Motor […]