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HomeGeneral Motors

General Motors

1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon Brougham 4-door sedan
Data Dive

How badly did the ‘aeroback’ hurt GM’s 1978-79 mid-sized sales?

January 23, 2025 Steve 7

(EXPANDED FROM 4/24/2023) Collectible Automobile suggested a while back that the “aeroback” styling of the 1978-79 Buick Century hurt its sales (Witzenburg, 2023). However, the article didn’t compare output with previous years or other General […]

1982 DeLorean
History

1981-82 DeLorean illustrates Detroit’s failure to understand the rise of imports

January 20, 2025 Steve 21

(UPDATED FROM 9/23/2022) The easiest way to sum up the spectacular failure of the DeLorean Motor Company is to say that its founder was exceptionally unlucky. I am hard pressed to think of a worse […]

1968 Dodge Charger
History

1968-70 Dodge Charger: Who should get credit?

January 14, 2025 Steve 10

(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 […]

1979 Pontiac Grand Prix
Data Dive

What’s Collectible Automobile’s beef with the 1978-80 Pontiac Grand Prix?

January 3, 2025 Steve 16

(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 […]

1964 Chevrolet Corvette
Literature

1953-73 Chevrolet Corvette ads gingerly showed changing gender roles

December 30, 2024 Steve 9

(EXPANDED FROM 6/10/2022) One of the more common types of clickbait on auto history websites is to post an old-car ad and throw in a few paragraphs of background. Cranking out lots of short, breezy […]

Satire

Auto blinders (or peepers): How they improve the human condition

December 19, 2024 Steve 5

(EXPANDED FROM 5/26/2021) Automotive blinders, also known as auto peepers, are the narrowing of windows between the C- and D-pillars of vehicles. This design feature blocks a driver’s rearward vision, which assists in human population […]

Oldsmobile's ads were more innovative than the cars
Media Analysis

Did Oldsmobile revolutionize the car industry?

December 17, 2024 Steve 21

(EXPANDED FROM 10/31/2022) The automotive media tends to treat orphaned American brands with extra enthusiastic pom-pom waving. An example of the genre is Mark J. McCourt’s (2020) Hemmings article about Oldsmobile. He breathlessly insisted that […]

2006 Ford Five Hundred
History

How often did renaming a car fail to help it sell better?

December 16, 2024 Steve 21

(EXPANDED FROM 6/8/2022) A few years ago Karl Ludvigsen (2022) wondered whether some cars that were renamed should not have been. For example, he noted that Ford might have benefitted by keeping the Cortina name […]

1967 Cadillac convertible
History

What if GM and Ford were broken up in the 1960s?

December 11, 2024 Steve 24

(EXPANDED FROM 8/19/2022) The topic that has elicited the greatest blowback from Indie Auto readers has been my argument that the U.S. auto industry was less able to respond to a rising tide of imports […]

1960 Lincoln Premiere 4-door hardtop
Data Dive

In 1960 Lincoln moved upmarket despite struggling sales

December 10, 2024 Steve 14

(EXPANDED FROM 8/9/2022) A few years ago Corey Lewis (2022) wrote that the 1960 Lincoln’s entry-level model was “rebranded as simply ‘Lincoln,’ to compete with the new base model Chrysler New Yorker (1960-1962) and Series […]

Posts pagination

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  • 1962 Ford Galaxie 500
    Did the 1960-64 big Ford sell so poorly because of cannibalization?
    October 16, 2026 36
  • 1969 Ford Thunderbird 4-door Landau
    Was 1969 the beginning of the end for the Ford Thunderbird four-door Landau?
    October 14, 2026 7
  • Is Jaguar smart to run away from its design heritage?
    October 8, 2026 21
  • AMC Pacer clay model
    Why does Joe Ligo’s PBS series sanewash AMC’s mid-70s recklessness?
    October 6, 2026 20
  • 2026 Ram pickups
    A pyrrhic regulatory rollback and how poorly the 1978 Matador coupe sold
    October 2, 2026 12
  • 1962 Chrysler 300
    Did the 1962-65 Chrysler 300 ‘dilute’ the letter series?
    September 29, 2026 11
  • 1968 Ford Mustang
    Three rules led to a stultifying level of conformity in 1960s U.S. car design
    September 24, 2026 12
  • Internet problems reminded me of U.S. automakers in the 1970s
    May 2, 2026 1
  • 1956 Buick hood scoop
    Readers brainstorm ideas for future Indie Auto stories
    October 14, 2022 146
Society of Automotive Historian award to Indie Auto

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