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Year: 2023
Gallery
1955 1/2 Studebaker President struggles to keep up with competition
The Studebaker pictured above was a mid-year redesign intended to catch up with the Big Three, which at the beginning of the 1955 model had largely switched to so-called “dog-leg” windshields. That term refers to […]
Current Events
Automotive News fails to mention obvious ways to cut weight of EVs
Automotive News recently bemoaned how heavier electric vehicles “are causing safety and pollution problems.” The news report by Richard Truett (2023) pointed to heavy battery packs as the main “culprit” but also weight gains caused […]
Ad Nauseam
What happened when a secretary secretly wrote a Jaguar XK-E ad
Back in the early-60s men mainly wrote ad copy. So when Joan Maisel landed a job at a major ad agency in New York City, she got stuck doing secretarial work even though she was […]
Media Analysis
Car and Driver endorsing Dan Gurney for prez showed auto media’s insularity
Journalist Bruce McCall (2002) once called Detroit a “self-isolated world” that “matches that of any West Virginia hollow for insularity.” I was reminded of his quip when reading Car and Driver magazine’s endorsement of Dan […]
Design Notes
1967 Pontiac Grand Prix convertible didn’t catch on
I get most of my automotive photographs at an annual car show sponsored by the LeMay Collections in Marymount. One of my favorite cars at this year’s event, which was held last Saturday, was a […]
Current Events
Automotive News’ commentators show outrage over Dodge’s shift to EVs
Back in December of 2021 Automotive News discontinued comments on its website in favor of those on Facebook. How have things worked out so far? Not so good, if I go by the last few […]
Links
A sampling of Jim Dunne’s 1970 predictions that didn’t happen
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 […]
Data Dive
Was the decontented Ford LTD ‘essentially like an Impala’?
Curbside Classic’s Paul Niedermeyer stopped by to offer his first-ever comment at Indie Auto. He raised some interesting points, so I am making them the focus of a data dive. He took issue with our […]
History
1962-64 Plymouth: The odd case of prescience interruptus
(EXPANDED FROM 8/28/2020) The 1962-64 Plymouth is one of the most prescient U.S. cars of the 1960s. Aside from the 1953 Plymouth, the 1962 redesign represented the first serious effort by a Big Three automaker […]