The 1971-72 Dodge Demon is a weird historical anomaly in that it showed the Chrysler Corp. at both its best and worst. Giving the compact A-body an entry-level sporty coupe turned out to be the […]
(EXPANDED FROM 6/26/2023) The June 1968 issue of Road Test magazine took its rival, Motor Trend, to task for anointing the Pontiac GTO as Car of the Year. Columnist Byron Bloch argued that the award […]
(EXPANDED FROM 3/15/2023) The Chrysler brand during the second half of the 1960s was one of that automaker’s biggest success stories. We have discussed the design of its cars (e.g., go here and here), so […]
(EXPANDED FROM 12/29/2023) This is another Indie Auto story that has received a fair amount of blowback. For example, one presumably former reader alleged that I was a “Chevy fanboy” because I called the 1968-70 […]
(EXPANDED FROM 2/19/2021) This story has seen a burst of renewed interest, so I have updated and expanded it — partly in response to reader comments. However, the punchline remains the same: that Virgil Exner’s […]
(EXPANDED FROM 8/25/2022) One of the more curious aspects of the postwar U.S. auto industry is the way that dramatic change was often normalized by the media — as long as it went in the […]
(EXPANDED FROM 5/14/2021) A few years ago CJ and Geeber commented that the 1975 Dodge Charger would have worked better if it had been given the more distinctive design of the 1978 Magnum XE. That’s […]
(EXPANDED FROM 1/7/2022) When writing about the 1953-54 Plymouth, I wondered whether there could have been a compromise between the practicality of Chrysler head K. T. Keller and the trendiness of his successor, Tex Colbert. Let’s apply that question to […]
(EXPANDED FROM 5/16/2023) In response to the interesting conversation in the comment thread about Chrysler’s early-70s compacts, I thought it could be useful to expand on a data dive I did a while back on […]
In a recent story about the 1962 Plymouth and Dodge, Bill McGuire (2024) of Mac’s Motor City Garage stated that the downsized cars were based upon a stretched version of the compact Plymouth Valiant and […]
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