Design excesses
Automotive News treats Gerald C. Meyers’ tenure at AMC with kid gloves
Automotive News’ obituary of Gerald C. Meyer treated his tenure at American Motors with kid gloves. Meyers died on June 19 at the age of 94. Presenting a largely upbeat narrative would make sense if […]
General Motors lost styling leadership in early-80s in ‘a morass of boxiness’
At the risk of disrupting an active comment thread, I would like to elevate to the front page a response by Peter Wilding to our story, “U.S. cars often suffered from weak styling continuity and […]
Reader insists that 1971-73 Mercury Cougars were ‘awesome’
Our story, “1967-73 Mercury Cougar: A classic goes to hell,” apparently took the smile off the face of (former?) reader SL. He flatly declared, “The 1971-73 Cougars are awesome cars. All this talk about them […]
Five questions about Aaron Severson’s take on American Motors
Ate Up With Motor’s Aaron Severson (2023) stopped by Curbside Classic last week to post an epic series of comments about American Motors. The thing that most struck me about his 11 comments — which […]
How accurate were Popular Mechanics’ predictions about 1980s cars?
For its September 1975 issue, Popular Mechanics’ Detroit Editor Robert Lund asked executives from each of the Big Four U.S. automakers to predict what cars would be like in the decade ahead. Lund started off […]
The 1949 Kaiser-Frazer’s new body styles showed the limits to innovation
Kaiser-Frazer deserves credit for experimenting with offbeat ideas. Unfortunately, most of them didn’t work very well. This is why the fledgling automaker is a useful case study of how trying to be “innovative” can backfire […]
Peter Wilding analyzes the 1971-78 Cadillac Eldorado’s design
Peter Wilding wrote a thoughtful comment about our 1971-78 Cadillac Eldorado story that I don’t want to get buried in the comment thread: Late to the party here. Design analysis first. As an Aussie, I […]
1971-78 Cadillac Eldorado: Collectible Automobile tells only part of the story
(EXPANDED FROM 4/30/2021) A big reason Collectible Automobile has survived longer than the late, great Automobile Quarterly may be because it is less — how you say — highbrow. For one thing, Collectible Automobile‘s presentation […]
