Road & Track complained that for 1960 the Auto Union’s two-door hardtop was given a “crude ‘American’ touch, a clumsy wrap-around” windshield (Bond, 1959). That made this body style look even more incongruous than previously. […]
The Consumer Reports 1975 Buying Guide was fairly positive about imported cars but cautioned about dealer service. The annual guide, which was published in December 1974, noted that some foreign brands had only a fraction […]
Car Life magazine argued that the 1970 AMC Hornet met two out of three of the automaker’s stated goals for the car. Engineering Editor David Bean wrote that American Motors thought that the compact and […]
One could point to a number of car designs that represented the turning point where foreign automakers began to outshine Detroit in the late-60s and early-70s. The first-generation Jaguar XJ strikes me as particularly important. […]
“During the 1960s and 1970s GM was lulled into a false sense of security by its dominance of the market. There was certainly a bottom-line mentality, but this mentality dictated that additional costs be passed […]
(EXPANDED FROM 11/1/2019) The dominant tendency of the U.S. auto industry has been to make its vehicles bigger, glitzier and more powerful. In recent decades both domestic and foreign automakers have embraced this practice. Indeed, […]
Peter Wilding offered a detailed comment about our our post, “The switch to smaller cars began before the first oil embargo in late-1973.” I don’t agree with everything that he says, but he makes some […]
(EXPANDED FROM 7/1/2021) The Jaguar XK-E was a remarkable car for a variety of reasons, but I would like to point out two qualities that have always been particularly appealing to me. For starters, the […]
“Before 1955 the compact cars, which had then included Rambler, Hudson Jet, and Volkswagen, were not outstanding sales successes. Their suggested list prices, and their actual retail prices, were comparatively high in relation to those […]
Ole stopped by to respond to the post, “Gordon Buehrig on Ford’s attitude about small cars circa 1960.” It wasn’t until the early-1960s that the entire European auto industry produced more cars than Chevrolet or […]
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