William Mitchell was vice president of design at General Motors from December 1958 through July 1977 (Wikipedia, 2025). I have previously raised the question of whether he stayed in his position too long (go here). […]
(EXPANDED FROM 3/15/2023) The Chrysler brand during the second half of the 1960s was one of that automaker’s biggest success stories. We have discussed the design of its cars (e.g., go here and here), so […]
(EXPANDED FROM 4/24/2023) Collectible Automobile suggested a while back that the “aeroback” styling of the 1978-79 Buick Century hurt its sales (Witzenburg, 2023). However, the article didn’t compare output with previous years or other General […]
(EXPANDED FROM 12/29/2023) This is another Indie Auto story that has received a fair amount of blowback. For example, one presumably former reader alleged that I was a “Chevy fanboy” because I called the 1968-70 […]
(EXPANDED FROM 8/25/2022) One of the more curious aspects of the postwar U.S. auto industry is the way that dramatic change was often normalized by the media — as long as it went in the […]
(UPDATED FROM 11/18/2022) The original Ford Mustang was the automotive equivalent of The Beatles rock band. The U.S. auto industry had never seen anything like it — a small sporty car that proved so popular […]
(EXPANDED FROM 8/19/2022) The topic that has elicited the greatest blowback from Indie Auto readers has been my argument that the U.S. auto industry was less able to respond to a rising tide of imports […]
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 […]
(EXPANDED FROM 2/10/2022) In the early post-war period Hudson came the closest to being an American Mercedes-Benz. The new-for-1948 “step-downs” had engineering advances that most other automakers would not pick up on for years. So […]
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