“During the 1960s and 1970s GM was lulled into a false sense of security by its dominance of the market. There was certainly a bottom-line mentality, but this mentality dictated that additional costs be passed […]
Peter Wilding offered a detailed comment about our our post, “The switch to smaller cars began before the first oil embargo in late-1973.” I don’t agree with everything that he says, but he makes some […]
The shift to smaller cars was happening before the first oil embargo, which stretched from October 1973 through March 174 (Wikipedia, 2023). In an October 1972 column, Popular Science Automotive Editor Jan P. Norbye walked […]
Predicting the future of the U.S. auto industry has always been fraught with peril. Popular Science’s Detroit Editor Jim Dunne got a lot of things right in his reporting during 1970, but a number of […]
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 […]
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 […]
Automotive pundit Peter DeLorenzo (2023a) likes to needle industry executives such as Ford’s Jim Farley, whom he has dubbed the “I’m a genius just ask me” CEO. Thus, I was struck by how he presented […]
(EXPANDED FROM 10/9/2020) When I think of Mercedes-Benz, the car that comes most quickly to mind is the W123. Introduced in 1976, this was the automaker’s entry-level offering up through 1982, when the smaller W201 […]
“The hubris of its executives related to consumer needs, an obsession with big cars, garish designs coming from its studios, the neglect of safety and air pollution matters, and rising prices all played into the […]
When a team of copywriters was assigned to produce the print advertising for the 1971 Ford Maverick they were told to be honest. Come up with an approach kind of like the Volkswagen Beetle’s refreshingly […]
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