(EXPANDED FROM 12/30/2022) This story operates on two levels. The first one is how the car-buff media could be wrong in its predictions about future products. The second level looks at how slow the Chrysler […]
(EXPANDED FROM 7/15/2022) I can’t usually tell in advance whether an article will hit a nerve. As a case in point, I didn’t think this one about the 1954 Packard Clipper would generate much notice. […]
(EXPANDED FROM 10/15/2021) A lingering point of contention in the auto history media has been whether the last-generation AMC Ambassador had as much interior room as the Big Three’s full-sized cars. The short answer: Not […]
Lynn Townsend led a remarkably quick turnaround of the Chrysler Corporation, but he started to lose altitude in the late-60s. One might debate what were key turning points, but I would suggest that the 1967-68 […]
I checked out David Crippen’s (1989) oral history of Virgil Exner Jr. to see if he offered any useful factual details about two lingering historical debates — why the Studebaker Lark as well as the […]
(EXPANDED FROM 3/31/2023) Compacts and personal coupes generated an outsized amount of media attention during the 1960s, but the most important emerging market segment turned out to be mid-sized cars. Sales rose steadily to the […]
Top General Motors’ designers William Mitchell and Chuck Jordan showed glimmers of adaptiveness in an interview with Motor Trend (1971) magazine. However, the luxury of hindsight allows us to see some of the blinders that […]
(EXPANDED FROM 3/4/2022) Automotive historians, both professional and armchair, tend to beat up too much on Roy Abernethy’s leadership of American Motors. Thus, Geeber (2021) offered useful context in responding to a denunciation of Abernethy. […]
(EXPANDED FROM 3/19/2021) This story has received more reader pushback than almost any other single piece that I have published in Indie Auto. Even so, I think that it epitomizes what this blog is all […]
(EXPANDED FROM 1/7/2022) When writing about the 1953-54 Plymouth, I wondered whether there could have been a compromise between the practicality of Chrysler head K. T. Keller and the trendiness of his successor, Tex Colbert. Let’s apply that question to […]
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