Drive-By Musings
Would anything have ‘saved’ American Motors?
RF stopped by to respond to our story, “Pat Foster barks up wrong tree by lauding an AMC Gremlin GT with a 360 V8.” Well, sort of. He seemed to be more interested in answering […]
Patrick R. Foster
Fake Design
Brooks Stevens’s 1965 Studebaker Lark concept: Almost a baby Continental
(EXPANDED FROM 12/10/2021) Brooks Stevens apparently was convinced that he could come up with a new-generation Studebaker Lark design that would top the work of Raymond Loewy’s team, which was then working on an Avanti-inspired […]
History
Did the 1956 Packard Executive represent a strategic shift?
(EXPANDED FROM 2/1/2022) Back in 2021 Patrick Foster suggested that a 1956 1/2 Packard model called the Executive could have “saved” the brand if it had been introduced a year or so earlier. In contrast, […]
Multimedia
Joe Ligo’s third AMC episode suffers from analytical weaknesses
One downside of partnering with another automotive historian on a media project is that you inevitably have to negotiate editorial details. That can be particularly challenging if one of the partners has considerably more stature. […]
Data Dive
1963 Rambler Classic was more of a compact than an intermediate
(EXPANDED FROM 7/10/2023) Last Friday the Public Broadcasting Service aired the second of Joe Ligo’s six half-hour episodes about American Motors, which focused on how the automaker navigated the 1960s (go here). In sync with […]
Multimedia
Could Joe Ligo’s American Motors TV series expand the audience for auto history?
I first wrote about Joe Ligo’s idea of making an American Motors film in early 2020. Two years later he announced that he was retooling the project and would do a six-part series for the […]
Drive-By Musings
How might John Z. DeLorean have done as head of AMC?
(EXPANDED FROM 7/15/2021) A few years ago Curbside Classic commentator Chris Cieslak (2021) noted that American Motors toyed with the idea of hiring John Z. DeLorean after he left General Motors. This brings up an […]
Data Dive
Implosion of early-1950s compacts hints at product-proliferation dangers
The most significant postwar trend among independent automakers was a rush to compact cars. Between 1950 and 1953 four automakers came out with new entries. This would prove to be a double-edged sword. On the […]
History
Might the Rambler Tarpon have sold better than the Plymouth Barracuda?
(EXPANDED FROM 7/2/2021) Patrick Foster has questioned whether the 1964 Rambler Tarpon show car would have sold better than the Plymouth Barracuda if it had reached production. His rationale was that neither compact sporty coupe […]
Fake Design
Was the 1963-64 Studebaker Avanti a fatal mistake?
(EXPANDED FROM 4/22/2022) The 1963-64 Studebaker Avanti has been described by historian Patrick Foster as “one of the most beautiful automobiles ever to grace the road” (2008, p. 138). Even so, the premium-priced sporty coupe […]