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Search Results for buick
Design Notes
1958 Buick: A toothy-grinning failure
The 1958 Buick represented the swan song of head stylist Harley Earl’s drive to turn General Motors cars into chrome-ladden rolling sculpture. The public massively rejected the Buick’s toothy look; production fell to less than a third of […]
History
Was GM’s approach to 1970s car design superior to Mercedes-Benz’s?
For its September 1973 issue, Motor Trend published a pro/con feature asking whether “romantic” styling was dead. In other words, did new considerations such as safety and pollution laws as well as more emphasis on […]
Links
Motor Trend dares to complain that 1974 personal coupes had grown too big
Motor Trend magazine’s 1974 road test of seven personal coupes may have been rather vapid in many respects, but it did offer one useful critique. Writer Jim Brokaw complained that the largest models — the […]
Data Dive
1971-74 Dodge Charger: Making the most of a questionable idea
(EXPANDED FROM 5/16/2023) In response to the interesting conversation in the comment thread about Chrysler’s early-70s compacts, I thought it could be useful to expand on a data dive I did a while back on […]
Letters to the Editor
Reader chimes in about the 1957 Rambler Rebel
Indie Auto reader FF stopped by to respond to our story, “1957 Rambler Rebel was so close yet so far from legendary.” The idea that the Rebel was more expensive or costly in relation to […]
Data Dive
Why didn’t the Oldsmobile Starfire do better in a booming personal coupe field?
When I came across a 1966 Oldsmobile Starfire at this year’s LeMay annual car show, it got me wondering why such a nicely styled car failed to catch on in one of the 1960’s hottest […]
Gallery
Was 1969 the beginning of the end for the Ford Thunderbird four-door Landau?
When I decided to write about the 1969 Ford Thunderbird four-door Landau, I suspected that Indie Auto readers would find my resulting article controversial. That’s because this body style has sustained a fair amount of […]
History
Lincoln-Zephyr was a first step in Ford surpassing Chrysler
(EXPANDED FROM 4/11/2022) The 1936-42 Lincoln-Zephyr is a more important car than is commonly assumed. Not only did it offer notably advanced styling and engineering, but it also represented the Ford Motor Company’s first meaningful […]
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Motor Trend asked former car designers to offer frank views on the 1961 models
Motor Trend had an intriguing article in its December 1960 issue: former designers supposedly gave their “frank opinions of what is right and wrong with all of the 1961 cars” (1960, p. 29). Let’s walk […]