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Design
Design Notes
1941 Studebaker Commander: Ending its big cars on a high note
(EXPANDED FROM 10/1/2024) The 1941 Studebaker Commander is noteworthy partly because of its lovely art deco styling, but also because it represents close to the last of the automaker’s big premium-priced cars. In 1939 Studebaker […]
Letters to the Editor
Reader lauds Virgil Exner and says Ralph Nader ‘destroyed style forever’
CW stopped by to respond to our story, “1959 Cadillac epitomized what was wrong with U.S. car styling.” Yes I get all this but it was [Virgil] Exner the visionary who put style in cars […]
History
1970 Mercury ‘El Gato’ Cougar raises intriguing questions
(EXPANDED FROM 1/23/2024) Bill McGuire’s (2021b) story about the Mercury El Gato got me thinking about Ford’s conflicted design direction in the early-70s. The concept car hinted at what the 1969-70 Cougar might have looked […]
Multimedia
Jay Leno hypes the Slate Truck and the Hubcap Club criticizes the 1958 Packard
Let’s take a back-to-back look at two videos: a Jay Leno’s Garage episode about the forthcoming Slate Truck and a Hubcap Club take on the controversial 1958 Packard. While Leno enthusiastically hyped the forthcoming electric […]
Design Notes
The 11 worst single-year redesigns of postwar American cars
(EXPANDED FROM 7/14/2023) I grant you that top-whatever rankings can be clickbaity, but I decided to do this story for a specific reason. In the postwar years Detroit tended to assume that rapid-fire restylings were […]
History
1963-66 Dodge Dart was arguably as important as the Ford Mustang
(EXPANDED FROM 10/26/2023) One of the most underrated cars of the 1960s was the 1963-66 Dodge Dart. This “family” compact anticipated the size of the contemporary family sedan during a time when the American auto […]
Links
In 1959 Road & Track predicted front-wheel-drive big cars within a few years
(EXPANDED FROM 12/19/2023) The November 1959 issue of Road & Track made bold predictions about what would come next after a wave of new compact cars. “Detroit Beat” writer Don Mac Donald stated that “Detroit, […]
Fake Design
Did the 1958 Edsel look good — especially compared to GM’s cars?
A recent study found that more than 20 percent of videos recommended to new YouTube viewers were low-quality content made from artificial intelligence (Down, 2025). This aligns with my anecdotal sense that there has been […]
Design Notes
The 1961 Buick was a pivot point for GM’s troubled brand
(EXPANDED FROM 12/23/2022) The 1961 Buick represented a pivot point for General Motors’ troubled premium-priced brand. The car’s styling lurched from the swaggering flamboyance of the 1950s to the utilitarian conservatism of the 1962-64 models. […]