Automotive history and journalism are a bit like baseball in the sense that numbers are integral to the conversation. Even so, most media outlets — particularly web based — tend to avoid charts, graphs and tables. Perhaps that’s because readers supposedly want racy “car porn” instead.
As discussed further on the Introduction page, Indie Auto isn’t concerned with page hits so can afford to be more wonky than is typical for automotive websites.
As a case in point, above is a line graph that compares U.S. sales of American Motors and Volkswagen from 1955 to 1980. These numbers raise interesting questions, such as why did VW become vastly more popular than AMC in the late-60s and early-70s?
At the bottom of posts with charts you’ll find a Notes section that lists where I got the data from and any caveats worth knowing. For example, the standard sources of prices, specifications and production data may sometimes publish divergent numbers, perhaps due to errors. I don’t point them out to be critical but to improve historical and journalistic accuracy.
In the process of inputting and calculating data I may add my own errors; let me know if you detect any.
The point of drawing upon data isn’t to take the fun out of being an armchair historian or journalist. We can all continue to have our opinions, energetically argued. But how about if we did a better job of coming to agreement on relevant facts?
NOTES:
Production figures for American Motors cars are from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006, 2010), Gunnell (2002) and Wikipedia (2020). Sales figures for Volkswagen are from Gunnell (2004).
This is not a completely apples-to-apples comparison because AMC figures represent model-year production whereas Volkswagen’s are calendar-year sales. In addition, AMC data was mixed and matched from four different sources because of inconsistencies and obvious errors.
For example, Wikipedia’s AMC figures suffer from the same problem as Over 100 Years: The American Auto — they inexplicably switch from model year to calendar year in 1964 (auto editors of Consumer Guide, 2010).
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
- ——–; 2010. Over 100 Years: The American Auto. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
- Flammang, James M. and Ron Kowalke; 1999. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1976-1999. Third Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- ——–; 2004. Standard Catalog of Volkswagen, 1946-2004. KP Books, Iola, WI.
- Wikipedia; 2020. “U.S. Automobile Production Figures.” Accessed April 7, 2021.