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Design excesses
Media Analysis
Hotcars.com calls the 1958 Studebaker President ‘ahead of its time’
Hotcars.com writer Eugenia Akhim (2022) linked to an Indie Auto article to cite the viewpoint that the 1958 Studebaker “was one of the ugliest cars to come out of the 1950s.” That’s not exactly what […]
Media Analysis
David Burrell’s take on the downsized 1962 Dodge and Plymouth gets partway there
David Burrell of Retroautos has written one of the better overviews of the downsized 1962 Dodge and Plymouth, but he also displays some of the genre’s limitations. Unlike some other historical accounts, Burrell questioned the […]
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Design Notes
1963-66 Plymouth Valiant inched away from Virgil Exner’s styling quirks
A recent Curbside Classic article (Stern, 2022) about the Canadian 1964 Valiant reminded me of one of my stylistic pet peeves: The car’s front fender had a weird, hairpin-shaped character line. Jim Benjaminson (2020) of […]
Design Notes
1971-73 Buick Riviera: The last stand against the broughamization of Detroit
(EXPANDED FROM 3/26/2021) Whatever else one might say about the 1971-73 Buick Riviera, its styling did represent a heroic level of resistance to the brougham look then sweeping through the U.S. auto industry. Instead of […]
Auto Paedia
‘Detroit Mind’ led to collapse of U.S. automakers
(EXPANDED FROM 9/18/2020) “Detroit Mind” is the label Brock Yates gave to the worldview of U.S. automakers from the 1950s into the 1980s. This was epitomized by a focus on cars that were “too large, […]
History
Four reasons why the AMC Gremlin was a bad idea
(UPDATED FROM 4/20/2022) The AMC Gremlin may be one of the most memorable cars of the 1970s, but it was a bad idea for four often-forgotten reasons. I grant you that what I am about […]
Quotes
So what exactly is a ‘muscle car,’ anyway?
“For this writer, the Pontiac GTO not only defines the genre (it was a mid-size or intermediate body), but also the beginning and end of the Muscle Car Era; 1964-1974. Some might argue that the […]
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