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Quotes
Patrick Foster: International failed to grow with truck market
“(T)he truck market was going to break out of its previous boundaries and begin a historic climb in which it would eventually surpass automobiles in total sales. In time trucks would become the biggest and […]
Fake Design
1969-71 Chrysler: An Exner idea fumbled again
(EXPANDED 8/3/2022) The 1969-71 Chrysler was an unfortunate example of a promising design that went sideways because of a few bad decisions. The Chrysler was exceptionally clean and purposeful for an American premium-priced car of […]
Quotes
Peter DeLorenzo: 2021 Jeep Wagoneer has nothing to do with ‘heritage’
“While the Jeep press material for the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer seems to scream ‘heritage’ and ‘Premium American Icon’ every other sentence, these bloated Jeeps have about as much in common with their forebears as, […]
Quotes
Automotive News: Late-50s one of the best eras for U.S. car design
“But it was after he joined Chrysler in 1949 that (Virgil) Exner made his most lasting impression, with Chrysler’s ‘Forward Look.’ Exner couldn’t change Chrysler’s upright, dowdy cars fast enough. Featuring bodacious, streamlined bodies and tail fins, the ‘Forward Look’ […]
Current Events
How would you save the Chrysler brand?
Jalopnik recently took a walk on the clickbaity side by asking readers how they would save Chrysler: The brand. The post by Rory Carroll (2021) elicited the usual range of responses, from earnestly mundane to […]
Links
On the origins of the 1974 Riviera and 2021 Grand Wagoneer
Wayne Kady comments about the bustleback Buick: The April 2021 issue of Collectible Automobile has a letter from retired General Motors’ designer Wayne Kady. He described how GM’s head designer William Mitchell ordered him to […]
Quotes
Bill Vlasic: A 2007 figure that summed up Detroit’s fall
“It was only a statistic, a number in an industry that churned out reams of facts and figures. But when Toyota announced on April 24 that it had sold 2.35 million automobiles around the world […]
Auto Paedia
Economies of scale: Finding the balance between too small and too big
The failure of individual automakers is invariably grounded in an inability to maintain adequate economies of scale. However, debates about what is the ideal shape of the American auto industry are heavily informed by competing […]
Auto Paedia
Halo cars are popular but not always a good idea
Halo cars tend to quite popular — even wetness inducing — among auto enthusiasts. That’s because the mission of halo cars is mostly to generate a positive buzz about a brand rather than high sales. So […]