Ate Up With Motor provides in-depth history and commentary on interesting cars and the people behind them. We primarily focus on older cars, but we may occasionally talk about newer models if they're interesting enough. (Click here for more on what we consider interesting.)

The site is NOT:

Our goal in each article is to explore where each car came from, who designed it, why it was designed the way it was, how well if worked (or why it didn't), whether it succeeded or failed, and what lessons we can take from it.

Back in 1977, stock car driver Darrell Waltrip said of his Chevrolet Monte Carlo, "Bertha," that it was "jes' all ate up with motor." After writing about cars and automotive history in various forums for several years, we needed a name, and we thought it was catchy.

The information for each essay is drawn from a variety of books, periodicals, and online sources, most of which are specified in the "Notes on Sources" section of each article. In addition to the article-specific sources, some general information, such as technical specifications and list prices, comes from the Auto Editors of Consumer Guide, Encyclopedia of American Cars: Over 65 Years of Automotive History (Lincolnwood, IL: Publications International, 1996) and Mike Covello, Standard Catalog of Imported Cars 1946-2002 (Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2001; Second Edition). Some production figures come from either those sources or the Productioncars.com Book of Automobile Production and Sales Figures, 1945-2005.

Our historical exchange rate data originally came from Harold Marcuse, "Historical Dollar-to-Marks Currency Conversion Page" (19 August 2005, UC Santa Barbara, http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/projects/currency.htm) and Werner Antweiler, "PACIFIC Exchange Rate service, Foreign Currency Units per 1 British Pound, 1948-2007" (2007, University of British Columbia, http://fx.sauder.ubc.ca). We subsequently discovered Lawrence H. Officer's "Exchange Rates Between the United States Dollar and Forty-one Currencies" (2009, MeasuringWorth, http://www.measuringworth.org/exchangeglobal/). Our estimates of the present equivalency of historical amounts are based on the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator, http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl. Please note that in calculating historical exchange rates or inflation-adjusted values, we typically round off and/or approximate the figures. Our goal is not to present an involved treatise on the history foreign exchange rates or the calculation of the value of money, simply to provide a point of comparison for the modern reader.

We make an effort to be as accurate as we can in these articles. If you note an error, let us know and we'll look into it. If you make a correction, we may ask for your sources -- and we may or may not incorporate suggestions we can't verify, or that are solely matters of personal opinion. A fair amount of conventional wisdom on automotive history is based on PR spin, assumption, rumor, prejudice, or wishful thinking. Just because something is written down doesn't make it true.

Most of the photos here are of cars we've seen and photographed in the Los Angeles area. They aren't our cars, and in most cases, we can't tell you who the owners are or how to contact them. Others are public domain or Creative Commons images, or used with the permission of the photographer or copyright holder.

Unless otherwise specified, the photos are © Aaron Severson.

People sometimes ask we're so interested in cars. This is not necessarily a neutral question -- we have a fair number of friends who disapprove of cars on political or environmental grounds, or who just consider automotive stuff a little déclassé.

A lot of gearheads have an intense, emotional relationship with a particular type or genre of cars, the same kind sports fans have with their favorite teams. We do not. Some enthusiasts are collectors, restorers, or amateur hot rodders. We are not. Many are driven by nostalgia, and the desire to capture (or recapture) the things they loved when they were 16. We are not. While there are cars we might like to own one day, the list is smaller than you might think, and it's not high on our list of priorities.

To us, cars are primarily a fascinating sociological phenomenon. The auto business is an industry that spans industries -- intersecting everything from manufacturing and design to finance and high technology -- and it serves as a bellwether of the larger social, economic, and political trends of the time. Cars occupy a unique social position. They're driven by fashion and novelty like consumer products, but manufactured and purchased like durable goods, and they carry heavy connotations of class and status. You can tell a great deal about someone by the car they drive, and even more by the cars to which they aspire. For the same reasons, you can tell a great deal about an era by its cars: its fads and obsessions, its anxieties and its dreams. Cars are clay in which the forces that shape our history leave their fingerprints very clearly.

We're not here to justify or defend the existence of the automobile. The rise of the auto industry has had profound social and environmental consequences, some of which (such as the use of tetraethyl lead in gasoline) are difficult to defend. As we've written here before, interest does not necessarily connote approval. We do believe, however, that it's important to remember that nothing happens in a vacuum, and blindly disapproving of something without considering its context -- or why and how it came to exist -- is a perilous endeavor. Whether or not you approve of them, cars are an enormously significant social, historical, and economic phenomenon, worthy of study.

We have no sacred cows, nor any prejudices based on make or nationality. (We do have a strong prejudice against trucks and SUVs, so you're unlikely to see articles about the latest Jeep or Land Rover.)

Unless otherwise noted, all content is written by (and copyright) Aaron Severson.

No. We write these articles ourselves. We are not affiliated with any automaker or automotive business. In the rare event that we receive any payments or in-kind gifts for the creation of any content (for instance, if we receive a free copy of a book to review), we will so indicate in the applicable article.

You may feel free to post links to these articles. We would appreciate it, however, if you could let us know, either in a comment or via e-mail -- we're always curious to know who's reading the site.

However, you may not do any of the following without our explicit written permission:

If you're interested in reprinting any of our articles or photos, you can contact us via e-mail at aseverson (at) ateupwithmotor (dot) com, or by using the contact form. We're always happy to discuss it -- but please ask first!

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