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1970s
Fake Design
What if the 1970 Lincoln Continental hadn’t slavishly copied Cadillac?
J. P. Cavanaugh’s (2024) recent ode to the 1969 Lincoln Continental got me thinking: What if the 1970 redesign returned to the more compact size of the groundbreaking 1961-63 models? What might that have looked […]
Data Dive
The 1965-73 Ford LTD may not have impacted Mercury very much
(EXPANDED FROM 1/28/2022) Indie Auto commentator Geeber recently discussed how premium-priced big cars did better than their lower-priced brethren as the 1970s progressed. His comment, which is worth reading in full (go here), spurred me […]
Satire
If you had to pick one . . . ?
The year 1970 was a particularly good one if you fancied ‘rithmetic. Take this Ford Falcon Futura Club Coupe — it saves money in so many ways. Yet you don’t have to give up spaciousness […]
Media Analysis
Collectible Automobile’s take on the decline of big cars gets partway there
Collectible Automobile’s June 2024 issue does an unusually good job of discussing why low-priced big cars took a nosedive in sales during 1970-74. However, the magazine’s article by Sam Fiorani (2024) didn’t say much about […]
Links
Car and Driver gives Roy D. Chapin royal treatment in 1970 AMC Hornet story
Car and Driver under David E. Davis gave the royal treatment to American Motors’ head Roy D. Chapin Jr. A case in point was a story about the 1970 AMC Hornet, which treated Chapin’s marketing […]
Ad Nauseam
The bogus ad Roger slipped into his drawer and forgot for a number of years
Roger Sizemore had the feeling that Chrysler was going in the wrong direction. The product planners talked excitedly about selling at least 200,000 Plymouth Barracudas and Dodge Challengers annually. Yet the all-new 1970 pony cars […]
Links
Car and Driver does better than Motor Trend in assessing 1970 Dodge Challenger
Motor Trend‘s road test of the 1970 Dodge Challenger was largely laudatory, noting that “Dodge has had a few years to observe what’s been going on in the pony car field and has incorporated many […]
Media Analysis
Pat Foster barks up wrong tree by lauding an AMC Gremlin GT with a 360 V8
Since last summer’s departure of Daniel Strohl from Hemmings, I have mainly been drawn to its website because of a Pat Foster column. He has become one of the most prominent U.S. auto history book […]
Data Dive
The 1969-73 Chrysler wasn’t a disaster, but it wasn’t a success
(EXPANDED FROM 10/21/2022) A few years ago J P Cavanaugh (2020) received pushback from some Curbside Classic commentators for calling the fuselage Chryslers a “Deadly Sin.” As a case in point, Moparlee (2020) wrote, “I […]