History is a really neat thing to look at, especially when it comes to cars, right? We get to see the evolution of not only the mechanical end of the machines, we get to see the styling involved as well. This 1970s film called “The Changing Architecture Of The Automobile” is one of the most awesome studies in the styling and evolution of the car that we have seen. The fact that it stops in the back half of the 1970s doesn’t really bug us because we’ve seen the rest of the stuff from then until now.
What’s pretty interesting is that while this is a GM film, they do not shy away from talking about Ford, not that they really could! They do take a couple of thinly veiled swipes at him, though. One is claiming that Duryea invented mass production by making 13 identical cars in one year as opposed to Henry cranking out millions is kind of funny but other than that not much jumped out as far as being a shortchange.
There is a lot of really neat stuff here and it’s not just fluff. The film does a nice job of walking people though the changes that were made. Stuff like the fact in 1938 Pontiac brought the shifter onto the column and Olds started offering automatic transmissions.
If you like good automotive history this is a film that will keep your attention for sure! Give it a watch!
