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2020s
Media Analysis
Automotive News gets surprisingly negative on Tesla Cybertruck
Automotive News isn’t noted for tough-minded journalism, so I was surprised by the negative tone of a recent Tesla Cybertruck story. It started with the provocative headline: “Cyberflop? Tesla discounts Cybertruck as demand cools for […]
Current Events
What do the fires of Los Angeles have to do with the auto industry?
As I write this, the weather at SeaTac International Airport near Seattle, Washington is cold, cloudy and sporadically rainy. That’s quite different from 1,000 miles south in Los Angeles, which is battling an unprecedented series […]
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Data Dive
Why did Mitsubishi fail in the United States?
(EXPANDED FROM 2/9/2024) There was good news and bad news about Mitsubishi’s U.S. sales in 2024. The good news: Sales were up 25 percent, led by its Mirage economy cars. The bad news: This was […]
Random Shots
Unofficial road signs were better than the real ones
A few years ago residents of a Lake Quinault neighborhood posted a number of do-it-yourself, speed-limit signs. However, when I drove through this neighborhood last summer I didn’t notice any of the signs. If they […]
Editor's Note
Thank you for your support of Indie Auto in 2024
In 2024 Indie Auto’s readership more than doubled. Although we are still very much a small fry compared to the leading for-profit auto history websites, we have grown far more than I ever expected. Indie […]
Drive-By Musings
Silent night (mostly)
(UPDATED FROM 12/24/2021) At pretty much all hours of the day and night I can hear the relentless drone of automobilia in the Seattle-area suburb where I live. Thus, it’s a real treat to visit […]
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History
How often did renaming a car fail to help it sell better?
(EXPANDED FROM 6/8/2022) A few years ago Karl Ludvigsen (2022) wondered whether some cars that were renamed should not have been. For example, he noted that Ford might have benefitted by keeping the Cortina name […]