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Design excesses
Editor's Note
Reader insists that 1971-73 Mercury Cougars were ‘awesome’
Our story, “1967-73 Mercury Cougar: A classic goes to hell,” apparently took the smile off the face of (former?) reader SL. He flatly declared, “The 1971-73 Cougars are awesome cars. All this talk about them […]
Quotes
Motor Life had mixed reactions to 1955 Plymouth’s wrap-around windshield
“Because the wrap-around windshield has proven so popular Plymouth felt it necessary to incorporate this idea. Unfortunately, theirs just doesn’t look like a wrap-around from the outside. They’ve been extremely subtle about it — which […]
Fake Design
1961-63 Lincoln Continental was not as iconic as often described
(EXPANDED FROM 10/6/2021) The 1961-63 Lincoln has been lauded as one of the most iconic car designs of the postwar era. It’s true that the exceptionally clean styling of the so-called “Kennedy Continentals” represented a […]
Design Notes
Mercedes-Benz W123: Back when form really did follow function
(EXPANDED FROM 10/9/2020) When I think of Mercedes-Benz, the car that comes most quickly to mind is the W123. Introduced in 1976, this was the automaker’s entry-level offering up through 1982, when the smaller W201 […]
Design Notes
Was the 1951 Ford the end of the sensibly-sized ‘standard’ American car?
Reasonable people can debate when the Big Three automakers stopped building sensibly-sized cars during the postwar period. For example, one might point to the 1956 Ford because it was only slightly larger than its postwar […]
Media Analysis
Five questions about Aaron Severson’s take on American Motors
Ate Up With Motor’s Aaron Severson (2023) stopped by Curbside Classic last week to post an epic series of comments about American Motors. The thing that most struck me about his 11 comments — which […]
Design Notes
Mercury took station wagons to the outer limits in 1957-60
A “Story Ideas Bank” request asked for more coverage of station wagons, so let’s take a step in that direction with a brief look at the 1957-60 Mercury. The Ford Motor Company invested heavily in […]
Media Analysis
How accurate were Popular Mechanics’ predictions about 1980s cars?
For its September 1975 issue, Popular Mechanics’ Detroit Editor Robert Lund asked executives from each of the Big Four U.S. automakers to predict what cars would be like in the decade ahead. Lund started off […]
Design Notes
The 1949 Kaiser-Frazer’s new body styles showed the limits to innovation
Kaiser-Frazer deserves credit for experimenting with offbeat ideas. Unfortunately, most of them didn’t work very well. This is why the fledgling automaker is a useful case study of how trying to be “innovative” can backfire […]