CarPort

Sometimes the most enjoyable museums are where you least expect them. Nashville’s Lane Motor Museum, for example, hides in a former bakery in the Music City. Another of my favorites is Musée National de la Voiture et du Tourisme at Château de Compiègne, about 45 minutes north of Paris by train. The Musée is not….
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I got involved with Hudsons by accident. In the spring of 1974, a friend of a friend showed me a 1939 Hudson that needed rescuing from the woods. It was straight, but the rear window had fallen in, ruining the interior, and the engine had been sitting without spark plugs. However, the crankshaft turned and….
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Many moons ago we told you about the Vauxhall imported by GM to sell through Pontiac dealers in the recession-wracked late ’50s. As we hinted, there was a similar program at Buick, where the Olympia Rekord, from GM’s German subsidiary Adam Open AG, was sold as a captive import. If the Vauxhall was important for….
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If Detroit, the Motor City, can boast the Motown Sound, why can’t Nashville, Music City USA, have a car museum? Happily it does, and has since 2002 when Susan and Jeff Lane opened the Lane Motor Museum. Touting “Unique Cars from A to Z,” it has marques from the British ABC to German Zundapp and….
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Until 1959, Chrysler Corporation had its own version of Sloanism, a car for every purse and purpose. Plymouth, at the bottom, sold for $2,143 to $3,131, Dodge a notch higher at $2,516 to $3,439. DeSoto weighed in above Dodge and finally Chrysler, with its premium Imperial series, above that. In an unusual marketing strategy, all….
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