Ate Up With Motor provides in-depth histories of interesting cars and the people behind them. It 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.)

Each article will tell you:

• How that car came to be.
• Who designed it.
• Why it was designed the way it was, and the context in which it was developed.
• How well it worked (or didn't!).
• Whether it succeeded or failed commercially, and why.
• What lessons we can take from it, and why it's significant today.

HOW CAN I FIND AN ARTICLE ON MY FAVORITE CAR?

Easy! Try one of the following options:

• Browse the Manufacturers Index. If you're a Ford fan, love Chevrolets, or your heart beats only for MG, this page will show you all the articles we have on that make.
• Browse our list of Model Histories by Type. We've divided our model history articles into four categories: Compact and Economy Cars, Family Cars, Luxury and Personal Luxury Cars, and Sports and Muscle Cars.
• Use the Search box, or click on one of the tags to see more related articles.
• Take a look at the Site Map to see all the articles by category and title.

Looking for more to read? Try browsing our articles on Terms and Technologies or our Editorials, with our take on subjects like Corporate Average Fuel Economy.

WHAT THE SITE IS NOT

Ate Up With Motor is NOT:

While I use the editorial "we," except as otherwise noted, all the content on the site is written by (and copyright) Aaron Severson dba Ate Up With Motor. You can find out more about me on my LinkedIn profile, at my freelance writing site, 6200 Productions, or at AaronSeverson.com.

Ate Up With Motor is based in Los Angeles, California. Click here to review the business registration information.

ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH ANY COMPANY OR AUTO MAGAZINE?

Back in 1977, stock car driver Darrell Waltrip said that his Chevrolet Monte Carlo, "Bertha," was "jes' all ate up with motor." "Ate up with..." is a popular Southern expression, meaning "is very..." or, in this case, "has a lot of..." After writing about cars and automotive history for several years, we're certainly "ate up" with automotive knowledge, so it seemed apropos.

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.

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" (2009-2012, Measuring Worth, http://www.measuringworth.org/exchangeglobal/); Mr. Officier's figures are used with his permission. The 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 always round 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, but we do make mistakes. 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. Remember: a fair amount of conventional wisdom on automotive history is based on assumption, rumor, prejudice, or wishful thinking. Just because something is written down doesn't make it true.

Unless otherwise specified, all photos and illustrations on the site are copyright © Aaron Severson, just like the written content. Other images are either (a) in the public domain, (b) used under Creative Commons licenses, or (c) used with the specific permission of the photographer or copyright holder. If the image is NOT copyright Aaron Severson, the copyright and license information will be listed in the image caption.

These are not the author's cars, and in most cases, we can't tell you how to contact the owners.

The site logo is also designed by Aaron Severson. The fonts are Bebas Neue, by Dharma Type (© 2010 Ryoichi Tsunekawa), and eurofurence (© 2000 Tobias B. Koehler).

(Setting aside, momentarily, the editorial "we.") People sometimes ask I'm so interested in cars. This is not necessarily a neutral question -- I 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. I do not. Some enthusiasts are collectors, restorers, or amateur hot rodders. I am not. Many are driven by nostalgia, and the desire to capture (or recapture) the things they loved when they were 16. I'm not. While there are cars I might like to own one day, the list is smaller than you might think, and it's not high on my list of priorities.

To me, 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 themselves 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. In short, automotive history is a useful lens through which to examine and understand the forces that have shaped the modern world.

I'm not here to justify or rationalize 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) I find difficult to defend. As I've written here before, interest does not necessarily connote approval. I 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.

I have no sacred cows, nor any prejudices based on make or nationality. (I do have a strong prejudice against trucks and SUVs, so you're unlikely to see articles about such vehicles here.)

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.

Our reprint/reuse policy is as follows:

1. You may print a copy of any portion of the written content (or save an electronic copy to your computer's hard drive or mobile device) for your personal use only.
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3. You may post or otherwise publish external links to the Ate Up With Motor site or to any individual article on the site. However, please do not publish links directly pointing to any images or scripts on the site! (Links to the page on which those images appear are fine.)

You may NOT do any of the following without our explicit, prior written permission:

• Publish, republish, or distribute the content (either whole or in part) in any form, whether in print, on the web, or via any other medium or method, other than brief quotations with appropriate attribution. This includes publishing or otherwise distributing translations of the content into languages other than English.
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• Use or reuse any of the images on the site, other than public domain or Creative Commons images (which of course may be used under the terms of the original license). In the event that we have modified someone else's image under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, you may use Ate Up With Motor's version under the same terms as the original Creative Commons license. See the Creative Commons website for more information.

If you are interested in reprinting, excerpting, or translating any Ate Up With Motor content (e.g., for your own website or book), please send us a note using the contact form. We're always happy to discuss it -- but please ask first!

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