The Cars that Made America - on the History Channel

50C8DAN

After trying to catch this docudrama on the History Channel for several years I finally got a chance Sunday.  I sat through the whole thing (6 hrs) and although it was entertaining and got a few bits of history I did not know, it had some serious holes and highlighted areas that were well overdone. What I found disappointing is that this really only covered the Big Three! There was only one very passing mention of one independent, Studebaker by Henry Ford II when they were working on the post war Ford designs. HFII said he did not want his cars looking like Studebakers, and it is unclear if this was an intentional swipe at Studebaker or was related to the fact that the '49 Ford really came from Studebaker as many have known for a long time (https://www.hemmings.com/stories/art...tion-1949-ford). The significant influence from the Independents should have been noted at least as comments in various places, if I did not know the history I would think that the '49 Ford was a styling miracle by the Ford design studio. There was no mention of the Hudson stepdown or the '47 Studebaker designs, let alone the anemic flathead Ford V8 that was behind the times to Studebaker, GMs OHV V8s and even the Hudson engines which had more power and torque than anything Ford put in cars in '49 through '54, at least Chrysler got a nod for the hemi. Anyway, the show seemed to want to focus more on the goings on with Henry Ford and his family and what went on at Ford Motors over the years than anything else. If anyone has read about the history of Billy Durant and how he put GM together, losing it twice, and how DuPont controlled the company you will not find it here and it is an amazing story. Likewise more about Chrysler would have been great. The last hour made a lot to do about John Delorean, who although is credited with starting he muscle car era, was more flash that substance in the grand scheme of the auto industry. Anyway, glad I got to see it, but I believe it could have been so much better, but they only had so much time and it was as much entertainment as history.......

Old Fogey UK

The first of the muscle cars was the 1933 Terraplane Eight.

7XPacemaker

It was very in depth but lacking in several areas. I enjoyed it but was a little disappointed that it wasn't more in depth with the independent manufacturers..