(UPDATED FROM 8/15/2014) Imagine that you run Volkswagen’s American operations in 1959. Detroit has finally woken up to the public’s growing interest in small cars. Studebaker and American Motors are already seeing dramatic sales increases after introducing compact […]
Back in the early-60s men mainly wrote ad copy. So when Joan Maisel landed a job at a major ad agency in New York City, she got stuck doing secretarial work even though she was […]
“Chevrolet marketers wanted to preserve ‘sportiness’ and ‘performance’ as masculine activities, but at the same time realized that women appreciated a good-handling car as much as their male counterparts. So, Chevrolet repurposed the performance attributes […]
(EXPANDED FROM 10/11/2021) The death of Lee Iacocca in 2019 brought forth much praise for one of the American auto industry’s most visible leaders. Generally lacking from the obituaries was an acknowledgement that Iacocca’s success […]
Pete DeBest thought he had it made. He followed his dad into the car business by landing a gig at Pontiac’s ad agency as a copy writer. Things went great at first. For example, one […]
(EXPANDED FROM 1/24/2022) The LTD was one of Ford’s biggest successes in the 1970s because it attacked General Motors’ hierarchy of brands in multiple ways. After failing to beat the popular Impala at its own […]
That was the question Frank Aberdene kept on asking his colleagues. The way he remembers it, the ad campaign for the 1978 Lincoln Versailles was the toughest one he had ever worked on. The problem […]
(UPDATED FROM 2/19/2021) Histories written by practicing automotive journalists are usually engaging reads with lots of behind-the-scenes anecdotes. However, they can also be analytically superficial and grounded more in access than accountability journalism. In other […]
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