"The Cars that Made America"

I watched this History Channel series on the American auto industry. https://www.history.com/shows/the-cars-that-made-america I found the interplay between the men that are attached to the names of the brands we know so well to be really interesting, especially how they were continually jumping back and forth working for one another. Although I consider myself pretty well-versed in auto industry history, there was lots of material that was new to me My favorite part was the portrayal of the relationship between Henry Ford and his hired goon-enforcer Harry Bennett who used to target practice with his .45 in his basement office while sitting behind his desk. I do remember when Ford wanted to get rid of an engineer, he'd get Bennett to tell the engineer that there was a noise coming from the engine of one of the test cars and the engineer should ride on the running board so he could hear it better. Bennett would then drive the car out of the factory, wheel it around so the engineer flew off the running board, and head back into the factory with the gates closing behind him. The show is available on demand or you can see it on the link above. Well worth a watch.

I'll have to check this out.

Many years ago, I read a book "We never called him Henry". By Harry Bennett. Fascinating.

I missed the opening part of the first episode but watched the rest.

I enjoyed watching the series but came away very annoyed with the executives of the car companies. The only ones I felt good about and had sympathy for were the Dodge brothers.

I knew the show was going to focus on the key players that formed the big three. However, I really would have enjoyed at least a little background on the other firms and their leaders. Of course that would more than doubled the length of the series!

I much preferred the Ken Burns: "Horatio's Drive" (PBS) show.

I thought the stories were good, but the footage drove me nuts. They kept jumping back and forth through time, showing cars a decade ahead of the storyline. then there was the "hotrod Chevy" with a Ford engine. It was in fact a stock 55 Packard.

Banjo said:

I thought the stories were good, but the footage drove me nuts. They kept jumping back and forth through time, showing cars a decade ahead of the storyline. then there was the "hotrod Chevy" with a Ford engine. It was in fact a stock 55 Packard.

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Same here. Seemed like guys with "famous names" were telling stories piece by piece, and editors were adding bits of films, without matching the two or thinking about the overall effect.

A 1955 Packard described as a hotrod Chevy with a Ford engine. What the heck?

Funny how the version of history we learned in high school differs so much from what we learn as adults. Not surprisingly, a lot of the people we looked up to as founding corporate America were hard driving, egotistical, suing each other, lying, cheating s.o.b.s. I wonder if Steve Jobs will be treated the same in the future school books where his many great achievements will be featured without reference to some of the negative aspects of his character.

And yeah, that Packard was unbelievably bad and gives rise to question the historical accuracy of the rest of the show.

HealeyRick said:

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... gives rise to question the historical accuracy of the rest of the show.

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A wise course of action these days.

When history is presented under the title "Secrets of the Dead", with spooky music and ghostly figures walking through moldy wet caves ... history is quickly turning into 99% entertainment. Even science shows use special effects to catch the eye, not tell the story.

See Neil Postman, "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business", 1985.

OK - slithering back under my rock now.

TM

NutmegCT said:

history is quickly turning into 99% entertainment.
TM

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If you stop and think about it, history has almost always been mostly entertainment. Stories around the fire, living history groups... noone would listen if it was boring. How much history did you learn from school as opposed to listening to old codgers spin a story, or going to events?
that said, I agree with your comments.
I gotta say, there does seem to be a bit of a revolution going on about true history as opposed to the whitewashed version we usually get. Check out the show "Adam ruins everything" he does some good debunking at times.
But they have found that showing the true story sometimes holds some shock value, and they often tend to take that too far.
Interesting how in the cars show, they "missed" Fords admiration of Hitler. They really only said he was reluctant to build machines for military use in WWII.

Banjo said:

then there was the "hotrod Chevy" with a Ford engine. It was in fact a stock 55 Packard.

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Not being familiar with the correct history, can you clarify your statement above? Are you saying that what really happened is they put a 55 Packard engine in a Chevy or that they put a Ford engine in a 55 Packard?

On the show, they had a scene where one GM exec was trying to convince another GM exec that they needed to build cars that were faster, and had more horsepower to appeal the kids of the early 50s. his method was to show the other exec a "Hotrod" custom Chevy that someone had put a Ford engine in. trying to prove that this is what the kids want. more power!. but the "Hotrod Chevy" was actually a stock Packard, with sunburned clearcoat paint to top it off! It was a minor thing, and all on the guys doing the video footage, not the storytellers. but it still bugged me.

OK. So are you saying the events described were correct, that a GM exec put a Ford engine in a Chevy? However, in the documentary, the car and engine shown were a stock Packard? If that understanding is correct, I see less to complain about.

People like me are not likely to glance at that car and know it was a Packard and that the engine was stock. Regardless, the message got through. Unless the film crew were lucky enough to find someone who owned a Chevy powered by a Ford of the correct year (and was willing to lease it), it probably was not within the film crew's budget to build such a car for such a short scene.