(UPDATED 10/30/2022)
Dean’s Garage draws together car designers to discuss their craft. The website has tended to focus on U.S. automakers during the post-war era. Publisher Gary Dean Smith was part of General Motors’ design staff from 1973 to 1988, so it is not surprising that much of the discussion has centered around that automaker.
The quality of writing varies but the insider’s perspective is invaluable. Dean’s Garage is also one of the best sources of renderings of proposed designs.
The comment sections can generate lively discussions by people with direct knowledge of historical events. As a case in point, a post by Bill Porter (2018) sparked a debate about working with GM’s design chief William Mitchell.
Not much focus on why Detroit fell
Dean’s Garage tends to reminisce rather than analyze the past. Most notably, discussions tiptoe around how weaknesses in U.S. car design fueled the rise of foreign automakers (go here and here for further discussion). That’s too bad. Designers could offer uniquely valuable insights about one of the biggest industrial declines of the last century.
Prominent automotive historians Jim and Cheryl Farrell post numerous stories at Dean’s Garage. Their insight is valuable, although I don’t always agree with their conclusions (go here for a discussion about the 1958 Ford’s styling).
Smith has published a book called Dean’s Garage (go here for details). As the title suggests, he has pulled together some of the best content from his website.
Beware of proselytizing and political conspiracies
Dean’s Garage also includes some religious proselytizing that I discovered by clicking on an image of a red pill located in the lower-right corner of the website. The use of red pill terminology gave me pause because it has been appropriated by a number of political movements — including so-called “men’s rights” and white nationalist groups (Wikipedia, 2022; Madison, 2021).
In the lead-up to the 2022 mid-term elections, Dean’s Garage posted on the top-right corner of its website an advertisement titled, “Vote in person on Nov. 8 — make elections honest.” The ad (since deleted) linked to Donald Trump’s Truth social media. I presume this means that Smith has bought into conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. If so, he might wish to read a report by prominent conservative lawyers, retired judges and former senators who concluded that Trump lost the election — it was not stolen (Danworth et al., 2022).
Dean’s Garage commentator Rich Dixon (2022) responded to the ad by asking, “Please keep politics off this site.” Dick Ruzzin (2022) disagreed: “I think the Vote In Person sign is a great addition to the site as there is no greater example of freedom than the free expression of art of all kinds.”
Left unanswered is whether Ruzzin thinks it is ethical to spread lies that can have real-world consequences. In a story titled, “‘A madness has taken hold’ ahead of US midterms,” reporter Dani Anguiano (2022) wrote that a “culture of misinformation has sown doubt in the US election system and subjected officials from Nevada to Michigan to harassment and threats. The FBI has received more than 1,000 reports of threats against election workers in the past year alone.”
Dean’s Garage
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RE:SOURCES
- Anguiano, Dani; 2022. “‘A madness has taken hold’ ahead of US midterms: local election officials fear for safety.” The Guardian. Posted Oct. 27.
- Danworth, John, et al.; 2022. Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election. Published July.
- Dixon, Dick; 2022. Commentator in “The Blue Job—Buzz Grisinger’s Test.” Dean’s Garage. Posted 6:27 a.m., Oct. 28.
- Madison, Caleb; 2021. “How We Swallowed Redpilled Whole.” The Atlantic. Posted Dec. 13.
- Porter, Bill; 2018. “Hiding Scale Models.” Dean’s Garage. Posted March 7.
- Ruzzin, Dick; 2022. Commentator in “The Blue Job—Buzz Grisinger’s Test.” Dean’s Garage. Posted 7:03 a.m., Oct. 30.
- Wikipedia; 2022. “Red pill and blue pill.” Page last modified March 30.
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