American Car History

I've never read such a quick recap of all the stages that the industry has passed through. This article is about the Classic Car period, but on the righthand column are articles on each of them:

Brass Car period
Antique Car period
Vintage Car period
Classic Car period
Hot Rod & Roadster period
Muscle Car period

And I guess we'd call today's the Tupperware period!
http://www.antiquecar.com/classic-car-radio.php

 

After the muscle car period, there were more....

Jalopnik.com and others have referred to the mid 70's to early 80's as the 'malaise period' - Generally American (and foreign) cars that were poorly designed, poorly built, were choked by severe smog controls, got bad gas mileage,... and a lot of them were pretty ugly, too.

(Now those of you with wagons from this period, please don't take offense. We're talking generalities here.)

 

I resemble that remark! You're right, the companies did a half-hearted attempt at placating Government, Enviromentalists, Scientists and ASIA ran the new game without incentives. But! We got good mid-size wagons that competed with Jack Benny's penny-pinching reputation!

I'd take a 1958 Hemi-powered Lebaron or Crown Imperial in a New York Minute, but I compensate that dream with all the money left over every 2 weeks of passing gas stations, in my trusty Squire.

 

I think the move to unitized bodies began what I think should be called the Tin-Can Era.

 

So all the previous ones were from the Bath Tub Steel era. We then we have the Tupperware era, today.

 

This is my favorite piece of automotive history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Nelson_Jackson
The Wiki site doesn't do the story justice. This film produced for PBS is absolutely a must see for any auto enthusiast.

 

i dub the 1980's the "fwd, squared-off too much, boring with a few-exceptions" era
and the 1990's the "too much was square in the 80's so let's make up for it by makeing everything too round" era.

 

So what would the current decade be? The bubble versus box car era? I mean every car is either really square and boxy in shape or they look like a freakin' bubble on wheels. Seriously car designers what the hell is your problem?

 

I call it the Jelly-bean era...

The big rounded mini-van replaced the wagon. You can blame Lee Iaccoca for that.