The year was 1985. A year earlier, Bob Lutz had returned to Dearborn from a hugely successful stint at Ford of Europe where, among other things, he had shepherded the creation of the Ford Sierra….
Browsing Category American Cars
Cream of the Crop: 1953 Cadillac Coupe de Ville
If you wanted to say you’d “arrived” in 1953, there were few better ways to get that point across than a Coupe de Ville. In the immediate postwar years Cadillac solidified its dominant position as…
The Cadillac of Minivans: Oldsmobile Silhouette
GM’s first attempt at minivans, the long-lived 1985 Chevy Astro/GMC Safari, were more “van” than “mini.” This wasn’t so surprising since they were designed in a hurry and therefore based mostly on off-the-shelf truck components….
The Magic Number: Lincoln Continental Mark III
It was one of Lee Iacocca’s greatest successes. It was exactly what its target audience wanted, it was extremely profitable, and it created the template for an era of unprecedented sales success for Lincoln. Introduced…
1994: The Ram Revolution
The “miniature big rig” shape of Ram pickups is familiar today, but in 1993 it was genuinely radical. At that year’s Detroit Auto Show, Dodge’s first totally new big pickup in 21 years dropped slowly…
1960: Chevy’s Last Big Sedan Delivery
It says “Bel Air” on it, but those badges were added later. Sedan deliveries became common as hot rods in the 1960s, but they were plain and basic work vehicles first – and definitely not…
Cadillac’s Companion: 1939 LaSalle
Recollections of the LaSalle were, for many years, as hazy with nostalgia as the Edward A. Wilson paintings that were used to advertise the Cadillac companions from 1927-33. Born of the boom times of the…
Disco Nights: 1979 Coupe DeVille D’Marchand
“Regional” and “Seasonal” special models were once a Detroit staple, particularly from the 1950s into the 1970s with models as obscure as the fifties Dodge Coronet “Texan” (Texas only) to AMC’s Rebel “Mariner” (Pacific Northwest),…
Prosperity to Peril: 1929 Packard 6-33
Prosperity was definitely not shared by all Americans in the decade that roared – but on the whole the 1920s were, in the U.S.A. at least, a consumer-spending bonanza driven by new technologies and newly-flush…
Square to Flair: 1966 Ford Thunderbird
“Sports car” fans were furious when Ford added two rear seats to the Thunderbird in 1958 – but they were the only ones who disliked it. Ford GM Lewis Crusoe had seen the original T-bird…
Baby Cadillac: 1932 Chevrolet Landau Phaeton
99% of the photos you see here are originals, but sometimes it’s nice to show something else – and today we’re time traveling to NYC circa 1940. Photog Stanley Mixon took this shot on Washington…
The Fancy Small Car: Nash Rambler
Later on, “Rambler” and AMC would become synonymous with “economy,” and it’s true that the original Nash Rambler was economical, but it was much more of a small premium Nash than a bare-bones economy car…