(UPDATED FROM 6/26/2020) The Saab 99/900 proved to be the box that crushed the tiny Swedish carmaker. I grant you that this platform was hardly an immediate failure. Even so, the design of the 99 […]
My essay about Lee Iacocca elicited some interesting pushback, so I would like to offer some follow-up thoughts. Some commentators have pushed back against my criticisms of Iacocca by pointing to things he did well. […]
(UPDATED FROM 5/1/2020) American automakers have always had a penchant for extravagant designs that can look overwrought compared to imports. Of course, this has been changing of late as foreign automakers — particularly the Japanese […]
(EXPANDED 10/24/2022) “Lower, longer, wider” was the domestic automakers’ dominant design approach until they were forced to downsize their fleet in the late-1970s due to federal fuel-economy standards. Since that time automakers have at least […]
(EXPANDED FROM 7/17/2020) One of the hazards of any kind of writing is that you can get too close to your subjects. In anthropology this has been called “going native.” Because we are human, we […]
Curbside Classic commentator Chris Cieslak (2021) noted that American Motors toyed with the idea of hiring John Z. DeLorean after he left General Motors. I haven’t read enough to write intelligently about why a potential […]
(EXPANDED ON 8/25/2022) Collectible Automobile has offered an unusually critical take on the 1978-80 Pontiac Grand Prix. A subhead summed up its case by stating, “There was no getting around the need for cars to […]
“Levine prolifically wined and dined the trade press, but he also took what he considered any disrespect for the brand personally. (And if he didn’t take it personally, he certainly acted as if he did.) […]
(UPDATED 9/23/2022) The easiest way to sum up the spectacular failure of the DeLorean Motor Company is to say that its founder was exceptionally unlucky. I am hard pressed to think of a worse time […]
“The US auto industry has been perhaps the best example of a sector falling into a rut and doling out progress at the minimum possible rate for at least 30 years. It’s criminal IMO that […]
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