That’s a Cherokee Briarwood. So it’s neither of those things.

I think it’s relative to the cylinder count.

Well, consider the 1970 AMC Rebel. A car that exemplifies the transition from mid-60s squareness to the early-70s fuselage trend. AMC redesigned everything aft of the front doors to fit their square cars into the trend. Notice the flattened rear wheel arch, but with a flare to match the flare of the front wheels on…

Yeah, GM also moved away from fiberglass body panels at the same time because the panel gaps they required to accommodate expansion in hot weather left them looking terrible when contracted in cold weather. And they’d used fiberglass front fenders, in particular, on LOTS of models in the ‘90s.

OK, the Camaro and Bonneville you posted have fiberglass fenders. They don’t need the structural support in the same way that metal fenders do. The ‘68 Pontiac you show has a strengthening crease lower down that continues the crease along the door skins.

I actually am sad. GM had a real opportunity to give this car some appeal. Instead, they saddled it with a mediocre 1.6T rather than the 2.0T and failed to improve on its criticized 2012 buttonfest interior. No car that costs $35k to start should have that 1.6T.

With Jeeps, even if they’re bad, they’re good*.

The Jeep FJ Fleetvan was the ugliest. Brooks Stevens did the FC models and I think they look great.

Ah ha! Thanks for the correction.

So Land Rover is going back to a straight-6 after its first try with the configuration in the LR2/Freelander. It’ll be the first time since 1997 for Jaguar. I’m guessing the new six will only be mounted longitudinally this time.

I’m not arguing that point. Chrysler did the same with Valiant until 1962.

Compacts were overlooked when the launch research that gave us the initial 1958 models was done. Work began on the Falcon in the run-up to the ‘58 Edsel launch.

And Mercury had JUST established itself in about 1949. Then, 8 years later, Ford repositions it by cutting the cheap Custom models and adding the Turnpike Cruiser and Park Lane. So Ford also messed with Mercury’s barely minted image, which nearly killed it, too. Ford pulled Mercury back downmarket after Edsel died,…

A tastefully modded Edsel Roundup is nice to look at, for sure.

Some. But GM and Chrysler brands overlapped then, too. The trouble is, Ford launched Edsel into Mercury’s segment and had the additional burden of trying to reposition Mercury higher up the ladder, giving them their own bodies for the first time and ever more luxurious top models like the Turnpike Cruiser and Park Lane…

It’s a much cleaner design, for sure.

They overlooked compacts in their original research, which started in the late ‘40s. Compacts weren’t a thing then. Even as late as 1957, only one marque, Nash, had found any success with compacts and they were barely surviving at that point. European cars were becoming more popular but everything besides VW was so…

I think the shared Ford and Mercury bodies were baked into the program all along. Ford had studied GM’s B/C/D bodies and discovered they were almost identical to one another except at the far ends, so GM was getting 50% market share selling just one basic chassis with 3 slightly different bodyshells. Ford’s “Whiz…

It was only offered as an option in 1958.

Why would they be shifting an auto mid-turn? Also, the hub stayed stationary.