Indie Auto

Declassified 1970s documents spark debate among auto historians

by Steve in The Worst of Indie Auto 1

(UPDATED FROM 3/30/2023) Newly declassified intelligence documents show how a crash program by American automakers to switch to eggcrate grilles for their 1972-73 models thwarted a space alien invasion. The strategy worked so well that no trace of the extraterrestrials was left, according to top Pentagon officials. Until now the government has never acknowledged the threat of the invasion nor the strategy for repulsing it, which was dubbed Operation Eggcrate. “I’m glad to see a generation of great automotive leaders finally getting credit for their heroic actions,” [...]

Was Lynn Townsend’s first major failure the 1967-68 full-sized Dodge?

March 31, 2025 4

Lynn Townsend led a remarkably quick turnaround of the Chrysler Corporation, but he started to lose altitude in the late-60s. One might debate what were key turning points, but I would suggest that the 1967-68 full-sized Dodge was the [...]

The automobile has opened Lake Quinault to the world

March 30, 2025 0

Prior to the automobile, Lake Quinault was a remote area mainly populated by the Quinault tribe and a few Anglo-Americans who carved homesteads out of a dense rainforest. But once Highway 101 was extended to Washington [...]

Virgil Exner Jr.’s oral history discusses Studebaker Lark and 1962 Chryslers

by Steve in Quotes 2

I checked out David Crippen’s (1989) oral history of Virgil Exner Jr. to see if he offered any useful factual details about two lingering historical debates — why the Studebaker Lark as well as the downsized 1962 Plymouth and Dodge turned out the way that they did. Exner said that he was hired in the fall of 1957 as a designer at Studebaker-Packard and was assigned [...]

Five things to consider as you follow the news on Trump’s automotive tariffs

March 28, 2025 2

News is moving quickly on the Trump administration’s trade wars. As you drill down into the details of each plot twist, it can be helpful to keep in mind the big picture. In other words, to see both the forest and the trees. Here are five major [...]

1956 was an odd transition year for Ford’s Mercury brand

March 27, 2025 9

(EXPANDED FROM 3/3/203) The 1956 Mercury represented the end — at least for the next four years — of Edsel Ford’s original conception of the brand. Since it was introduced 1939, Mercury had been positioned toward the lower end of the [...]

Four-door subcompacts were not exotic in late-60s and early-70s

by Steve in Data Dive 23

(EXPANDED FROM 8/3/2023) The rise of the four-door subcompact generated a robust debate at Indie Auto a few years ago (go here), so I did a data dive to bring some facts to the table. Today I thought it would be a good point to update and expand on my basic argument, which was that the marketplace gravitated to four-door models much faster than Detroit [...]

The 1975-79 Cadillac Seville was a confused young sedan

March 25, 2025 14

Over at Driven to Write, jm2 (2025) recently offered a spirited defense of the first-generation Cadillac Seville. He called it a “shining star” that would “become a benchmark and gain the significance of an icon — one that would change the face [...]

Richard Langworth’s death raises questions about auto history’s future

March 19, 2025 0

Indie Auto reader Zachary Morecraft suggested in the “Story Idea Bank” that we do a piece on Richard M. Langworth, who died February 20 at the age of 83. Langworth was such a towering presence within the American auto history field [...]

1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme: Monument to a fading dream

March 17, 2025 12

(EXPANDED FROM 15/8/2023) General Motors’ 1973 mid-sized cars were a major focus of our discussion about William Mitchell’s tenure as head of design. Thus, I thought it would be a good time to expand on a previous story about the [...]

Why does knowledge advance sooo slowly in the U.S. auto history field?

by Steve in Media Analysis 0

Indie Auto has previously explored this question, but I would like to offer some updated and expanded thoughts. The basic problem is that the U.S. auto history field all too often feels like it was frozen in time somewhere back in the 1980s — and our knowledge about the past has not advanced much since then. I suspect that one reason why is that the field is too [...]