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1950s
Media Analysis
Road & Track once predicted a Karmann Ghia-based VW sedan
The Volkswagen Beetle was a hot commodity in 1959, but it was unknown how the car would hold up against the Big Three’s armada of new compacts in 1960. This led Road & Track magazine […]
Letters to the Editor
Buick, Olds and Cadillac hurt the independents in the early-50s
Geeber offers valuable additional layers of analysis to our story, “Was the ‘Ford blitz’ to blame for the collapse of independent automakers?” Thus, I’m elevating this comment to the front page. While the focus has […]
Letters to the Editor
Acceleration is an easy measure of automotive progress
Geeber weighed in with a lengthy comment that I think deserves to be elevated to the front page. His missive was in response to the story, “How come a car that goes 0-60 in 9.7 […]
History
Did the 1956 Packard Executive represent a strategic shift?
(EXPANDED FROM 12/18/2020) The 1956 Packard Executive has received a recent boomlet of attention by automotive historians. In a Hemmings Classic Car column, Patrick Foster (2021) suggested that this model could have “saved Packard” if […]
Quotes
John Najjar on how the 1958 Lincoln and Continental were designed
“Our mission with Ben Mills [division general manager] and Will Scott [division plant planner] was to develop a 1958 Lincoln. Then, in that era, bigger is better, longer is better, wider is better, shock the […]
History
Would GM have done better in the 1960s and 1970s under Alfred Sloan?
In our discussion about market segmentation, DECG50 asked an insightful question: Would General Motors have been more disciplined if Alfred Sloan still headed the automaker in the 1960s? “From what I understand, Sloan viewed GM […]
Quotes
Virgil Exner Jr. on his father’s approach to tailfins
“He liked the cleanliness of the idea. He liked the aerodynamics of the idea, and in his mind they were genuinely aerodynamic. Later on, Chrysler proved that in wind tunnel tests. They ran cross-wind tests […]
Readings
Thomas Bonsall’s Studebaker book is useful but flawed
(EXPANDED FROM 11/13/2020) Thomas E. Bonsall wrote one of the better Studebaker histories, but it suffers from flaws that undercut the book’s usefulness. More Than They Promised, which was published in 2000, is a refreshing […]
Letters to the Editor
Market fragmentation drove GM actions more than antitrust fears
Geeber’s comment on our antitrust story significantly adds to the discussion so I’m elevating it to the front page as a letter to the editor: GM had been pushing to centralize more functions at the […]