(EXPANDED FROM 10/1/2021) The four-seater Thunderbird was a surprisingly pivotal car for the Ford Motor Company during the postwar period. The T-Bird showed that the No. 2 automaker could better compete against mighty General Motors if it pioneered new […]
(EXPANDED FROM 12/31/2021) The Edsel is generally pointed to as the Ford Motor Company’s biggest post-war flop, but the 1958-60 Lincoln deserves a consolation prize. This car represents the disastrous final phase of Ford’s no-holds-barred […]
Earlier this week a number of commentators discussed General Motors’ mid-sized cars (go here and here), so I thought I would add a new layer to the conversation by sketching the evolution of the Chevrolet […]
Jim Dunne, Popular Science’s Detroit editor, made a number of predictions in the first half of 1972 that didn’t pan out. For example, in the January issue he stated that for 1973 both AMC and […]
LS stopped by to respond to our article, “1970 Pontiac Firebird: Time to go on a diet.” I don’t know what the author is talking about. The 1970 Firebirds were lauded as a groundbreaking design. […]
DB stopped by to offer a response to our story, “1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme: Monument to a fading dream.” There was no downsizing which hindsight would have been the right direction. I have owned three […]
Peter DeLorenzo (2023) continues to insist that design is the “Ultimate Initial Product Differentiator” in the American automobile market. Among “mainstream” vehicles he singles out the Cadillac Lyriq for bringing “high-concept executions to the street.” […]
(EXPANDED FROM 10/22/2021) One of the most pervasive myths in US automotive history is that a V8 engine became essential to an automaker’s success in the first half of the 1950s. This narrative is summed […]
“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 […]
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