
Design excesses


Toyota, please bring back the original Scion xB
When Indie Auto opened up its comment threads, I failed to “enable” that function on a few older stories. That included, “How Toyota ruined the Scion xB.” So LR used our contact form to offer a response to the article: You’re […]


Art Railton: 1960 compacts prove ‘vitality’ of U.S. automakers
“Proud, that’s what the industry is — proud of itself. And with reason. It proved its vitality, its flexibility. It proved that it responds to public demand, after all. Sure, there was a period of […]




Keith Bradsher: ‘Extreme users’ in auto media have driven SUV design
“Even some auto executives and engineers complain that media comparisons of off-road driving capabilities have put pressure on them to design ever taller vehicles with ever more expensive four-wheel-drive systems that almost nobody needs. In […]

Vance Packard: The quality of cars declined in 1950s
“In late 1958, Printers’ Ink conceded that ‘there is a widespread feeling that ‘they don’t make cars the way they used to’ — either mechanically or from the point of view of interior decor.’ And […]

The good and bad of William Mitchell’s 1977 Pontiac Phantom
Dean’s Garage has a great discussion about William Mitchell’s swan song, the 1977 Pontiac Phantom (Smith, 2020). I must admit feeling rather ambivalent about this concept car. Although it strikes me as one of the […]