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History
It’s a big deal that Ford and GM knew about climate change in 1960s
(UPDATED FROM 6/6/2020) The news that Ford and General Motors knew about climate change in the 1960s raises a number of big questions. For example, might this revelation open both automakers to lawsuits similar to […]
Letters to the Editor
Market fragmentation drove GM actions more than antitrust fears
Geeber’s comment on our antitrust story significantly adds to the discussion so I’m elevating it to the front page as a letter to the editor: GM had been pushing to centralize more functions at the […]
Auto Paedia
Antitrust regulations: Lack of enforcement fueled U.S. industry’s decline
(UPDATED FROM 1/1/2019) Antitrust regulations in the United States were created in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Their goal was to support free competition in an era of increasingly large corporations — some of whom […]
Media Analysis
Older Ford Mustangs got too big but not the newer ones?
(EXPANDED FROM 5/11/2020) Automobile magazine is dead but its Facebook page continues to recycle old articles. Yesterday the one million followers of this page were blessed with a reposted history of the Ford Mustang. Aaron […]
Quotes
Is the 2000 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am uglier than a Mitsuoka Orochi?
“I think this is a problem akin to ‘what’s the worst movie?’ Like, yes Plan 9 or Manos are both utterly incompetent pieces of filmmaking that fail at every level, but they were also independent releases […]
History
Saab 99/900: The box that crushed a carmaker
(UPDATED FROM 6/26/2020) The Saab 99/900 proved to be the box that crushed the tiny Swedish carmaker. I grant you that this platform was hardly an immediate failure. Even so, the design of the 99 […]
Design Notes
What’s the most excessive American car design of all time?
(UPDATED FROM 5/1/2020) American automakers have always had a penchant for extravagant designs that can look overwrought compared to imports. Of course, this has been changing of late as foreign automakers — particularly the Japanese […]
Auto Paedia
‘Lower! Longer! Wider!’ fixation of US automakers left opening for imports
(EXPANDED 10/24/2022) “Lower, longer, wider” was the domestic automakers’ dominant design approach until they were forced to downsize their fleet in the late-1970s due to federal fuel-economy standards. Since that time automakers have at least […]
Quotes
Bill Porter: Why as a Pontiac designer he competed most against Chevy
“(The AMC Javelin and AMX) were very handsome cars. They look great on the road. They were fine, and they still look today. They’ve held up very well. But I was in Pontiac at that […]