Quotes
Brock Yates: What to do about climate change
“I call forth the SUV as our savior. Want to warm things up? Easy. If fossil fuels are the culprit, burning more of them will keep Old Man Winter at bay. Thus, we must immediately […]
Ford Motor Co.
Current Events
2015 Mustang: Faux pony car goes generic
With the 2015 redesign of the Mustang, Ford had the potential to reassert its leadership in what I have referred to as the faux pony car field. Instead, Ford took the cheap and easy way […]
Drive-By Musings
Mulally book review sparks debate
Edward Snitkoff (2015) has written a lengthy review of the book, American Icon: Alan Mulally And The Fight To Save Ford Motor Company (Hoffman, 2012), for Curbside Classic. Snitkoff’s review focuses on summarizing the book […]
Media Analysis
2015 Mustang: How obesity is justified
Except for relatively rare moments of downsizing, the dominant tendency in the American auto industry is toward bigger, glitzier and more powerful vehicles. Each time a car adds poundage, the automaker — usually with the […]
Readings
American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company
Bryce Hoffman, a Detroit News auto industry reporter, offers a sympathetic perspective about how Ford navigated through the Great Recession. Hoffman was given a great deal of access to company leaders and internal documents. In return, […]
Readings
The Complete Book of Mustang: Every Model Since 1964 1/2
This is an oversized soft-cover book that covers the Ford Mustang’s history through the 2011 model year. The Complete Book places an emphasis on large, mostly color pictures accompanied by product specifications. However, author Mike Mueller […]
Readings
The Lincoln Story: The Postwar Years
To a degree this is an extension of The Lincoln Motorcar: Sixty Years of Excellence (1981), but with a restructured narrative and less emphasis on photographs. The time span covered is 1946 to 2000. As with most other automotive histories […]
Readings
‘The Reckoning’ still ranks as one of the all-time-best auto history books
(EXPANDED ON 8/11/2022) I would rank David Halberstam’s The Reckoning as one of the top automotive histories of the last 50 years. The book was published in 1986 but still provides one of the most […]
Readings
The Lincoln Motorcar: Sixty Years of Excellence
Of Thomas E. Bonsall’s two Lincoln books, this one has a more boosterish tone than The Lincoln Story (2004). However, Sixty Years still includes robust critiques of Ford management. This is an accessible but thorough history with […]
Readings
Ford: Decline and Rebirth 1933-1962
This is the final of a three-volume corporate history that runs more than 500 pages of dense text and few photographs. The authors were arguably at their best in presenting in vivid colors the deterioration […]