The Cars That Made America

The one thing that I found lacking in an otherwise very good series is the almost complete disregard for the independent carmakers. In many cases these companies and the people who ran them took the point for Automotive innovation, while the big three simply copied their innovations. Companies like Studebaker, Nash, Hudson aren't even mentioned.

This series is a nice overview of the development of the car industry and its impact on society, which is obvious from the name of the series (The Cars That Made America"). It's not a biography of any of the major players, although they certainly are there, warts and all. Nor is it a documentary on cars per se. While it does give us lots of biographic details and lots of engineering drawings, etc. the focus of the series is on how cars changed the way we live. The producers succeed admirably.

The other reviews cover it. A stone skimming over the surface. Could and should have been so much more.

I was, as a gearhead of over 50 years, hoping this would be a well done and informative series. I was extremely disappointed. The portrayals were not as accurate as one would expect from the History Channel. The narrator was lackluster in his delivery. The one thing that was like fingernails on the chalkboard was the cars shown. Whoever made the decision on what to use should never work again. A 1956 Mercury hardtop was supposed to be a Chevrolet "Hot Rod"? Many other glaring errors were made as well. If you can't strive for accuracy why bother. If they thought nobody would notice, they were wrong.

Don't let the sour grapes from the gear heads fool you. This docudrama achieves its purpose of a comprehensive overview of the auto industry's emergence and integral part of the industrial revolution in the United States. And, how it interconnected with, steel, railroads, petroleum, finance, a national highway road system, the rise of labor unions, war efforts, and all the rest, to become the greatest economic engine the world has ever seen.