Year: 2020
Indie Auto wins 2020 E. P. Ingersoll Award
The Society of Automotive Historians has given the 2020 E. P. Ingersoll Award to Indie Auto. The award is named after Edward Platt Ingersoll (1861-1920), who was the editor of Horseless Age. This was the […]
Avanti book by John Hull provides a useful overview
To my mind, the Avanti’s history has two major parts: Under Studebaker and as an independent automaker. Of the Studebaker histories, Richard M. Langworth (1993) arguably offers the most detailed and analytically sophisticated narrative. The […]
Mature reflections about societal collapse on Interstate 5
The interchange between U.S. Highway 101 and Interstate 5 running north is an asphalt monument to automotive freedom. This river of highway descends from the elite cliffs of Olympia, Washington’s westside into its more plebeian […]
How Elwood Engel viewed Chrysler’s styling
“. . . Townsend first made personnel changes of urgent concern. He stole away from Ford its stylist, Elwood Engel. Looking at Chrysler interior designs shortly after his arrival, Engel yelped: ‘Ye Gods, this out […]
Is TTAC editor Tim Healey okay with irrelevant disinformation?
This week Matt Posky (2020c) led off a post about a Biden cabinet nomination with a riff about “international money-laundering allegations against the Biden family.” The Truth About Cars reporter linked to a story that […]
Henry Ford II driven ‘crazy’ by call for smaller cars
“. . . Henry was himself growing a little dizzy with everything happening around him. And the more disoriented he became, the angrier he got. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ford sat through […]
The good and bad of William Mitchell’s 1977 Pontiac Phantom
Dean’s Garage has a great discussion about William Mitchell’s swan song, the 1977 Pontiac Phantom (Smith, 2020). I must admit feeling rather ambivalent about this concept car. Although it strikes me as one of the […]