Indie Auto

Automotive News’ Laurence Iliff puts away pom-poms for the Slate Truck

by Steve in Current Events 6

Automotive News’ coverage of product launches tends to display lots of pom-pom waving, so it was curious that a recent story about the Slate Truck was fairly negative. I think it is entirely reasonable to discuss why this fledgling electric vehicle maker faces an uphill battle to get established in a tough market. However, Laurence Iliff (2026) put his finger onto [...]

James Ward offers more nuanced take on Packard’s fall than other auto histories

July 23, 2026 36

(EXPANDED FROM 2/26/2024) James A. Ward’s Packard book, The Fall of the Packard Motor Car Company, is dwarfed by Automobile Quarterly’s epic tome edited by Beverly Rae Kimes (2002) as well as Stuart R. Blond’s (2021) [...]

The XR-400 wouldn’t have ‘saved’ AMC but it pointed in a useful direction

July 22, 2026 6

(EXPANDED FROM 7/7/2023) A while back Stéphane Dumas quite rightly noted that another alternative to the 1964 Rambler Tarpon concept car was the XR-400. This was a 2+2 convertible proposed to American Motors in 1962 [...]

The 1956 Lincoln’s styling proved to be a one-year wonder

July 17, 2026 18

(UPDATED FROM 1/6/2023) The 1956 Lincoln was one of the brand’s most-important postwar cars. Almost 54,000 cars left the factory — an all-time record not broken until 1966. The Ford Motor Company was clearly intending to make a [...]

1975 Mercedes-Benz 450 SL lacked the taut brilliance of its predecessor

by Steve in Gallery 10

(UPDATED FROM 7/17/2024) A few years ago I came across a 1975 Mercedes-Benz SL. In all honesty, I wasn’t nearly as enthused as when I photographed a previous-generation W113 model, with its iconic “pagoda” roof. The R107 models, which were built from 1971-89, had the highest production of the SLs, with output of more than 230,000 roadsters (Pattni, [...]