Motor Trend magazine’s 1974 road test of seven personal coupes may have been rather vapid in many respects, but it did offer one useful critique. Writer Jim Brokaw complained that the largest models — the […]
When I came across a 1966 Oldsmobile Starfire at this year’s LeMay annual car show, it got me wondering why such a nicely styled car failed to catch on in one of the 1960’s hottest […]
General Motors has been criticized for going too far in downsizing its 1986 E-body personal coupes, which included the Buick Riviera, Oldsmobile Toronado and Cadillac Eldorado. Sales fell off a cliff, but they didn’t recover […]
David Burrell has written what may be the most detailed account of how William Mitchell vainly tried to shift the “boat-tail” 1971 Buick Riviera to a mid-sized platform. Burrell’s story in Retro Autos (2021) even […]
Rare Classic Cars & Automotive History has a video that ranks the top-10 “coolest” interiors of Big Three cars from 1955-70. Host Adam Wade’s (2024) list is worth viewing but I would like to offer […]
The 1971 Oldsmobile Toronado arguably represented the first time that General Motors executives panicked in response to weak sales from a car styled under head designer William Mitchell. Whereas the first-generation Toronado was a remarkably […]
(EXPANDED FROM 11/19/2021) In a recent story, Hagerty described Wayne Kady as “the most well-known unknown designer in the history of General Motors” (Seaman, 2024). Among the designs that the article shed light on is […]
(EXPANDED FROM 6/18/2021) In selecting the 1966 Oldmobile Toronado as its Car of the Year, Motor Trend (2005) took out its pom-poms and gushed that “never in the 14-year history of this award has the […]
(EXPANDED FROM 9/16/2022) We should start with a more impertinent question: What should — and shouldn’t — the creators of the 1968-70 Dodge Charger get credit for? Yes, this was an iconic design, but it […]
Working on the 1963-65 Buick Riviera story got me curious about the long-term trajectory of the brand’s high-end family cars. A low point was the 1958 recession, when the Roadmaster and Limited together garnered under […]
Copyright © 2022 Olympia, Earth Media, LLC | All rights reserved