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Shop Profile: Top Auto Center

Like a clueless lumberjack who couldn’t see the forest for the trees, it took me longer than it should have to figure out the secret to Top Auto Center’s success. It was hiding in plain sight and sound in the overflowing lot of cars and trucks awaiting service, sale...

Are you servicing your car’s oil correctly?

What are the top two causes of premature engine wear and engine component failure? The first is lack of maintenance, specifically going too long between oil changes. Whether you’re taking care of the family grocery hauler or you do this kind of work for a living, it...

No bead seating tank? No problem!

If you’re a tech of a certain age, you’ll remember a time when a bead seating air tank was a somewhat exotic tool. Today, seating low-pro tires that have sidewalls resembling rubber bands is the norm and use of tools beyond the bead seater on the tire machine is the...

What are rear fog lights, and when should you use them?

If you’re a vehicle owner or auto repair professional in the United States, odds are that you haven’t seen (or even used) rear fog lights on a vehicle. The vast majority of vehicles sold in the US do not include them, and in some cases, the feature is disabled or the...

“Hot Rod Magazine: 75 Years” book review

For some reason, my grade school library had a subscription to “Hot Rod” magazine. My suspicion has always been that it was one of the few magazine subscriptions for boys my age that was acceptable to have in the school library. Nevertheless, I spent a lot of time in...

Shop Profile: DeLorean Midwest

As a Gen Xer, I have a soft spot for the “Back to the Future” movies and, of course, the DMC DeLorean used in those movies. Then I learned of DeLorean Midwest, a shop based outside Chicago that specializes in—you guessed it—DeLoreans. Watch this video profile of...

Watch this video on the four stages of grief for mechanics

You’ve likely heard of the psychological model called the five stages of grief. It’s used to describe the various emotions people might experience when dealing with a significant loss, and the the five stages of grief are commonly defined as denial, anger, bargaining,...

The first step I now take in vehicle diagnostics

The following four vehicles (which certainly are varied) all came to me for repair and I did not identify the root of their problems immediately. And that’s because I was staying stuck in my ways and not adapting to changing vehicles. Let’s examine. Situation One: A...

The Shop Press Automotive Paragon series: a recap

by | Aug 15, 2024

If you read Shop Press regularly you’ve noticed we’ve been running a series for the past couple of years. It’s called “Automotive Paragons,” and it’s a series where we look at automotive entrepreneurs, designers, and engineers who were exceptional, ahead of their time, or otherwise had a major impact on the way cars were later sold, fabricated, or constructed. Here’s a recap of paragons we’ve featured to date.

Raymond Loewy

Raymond Loewy

Raymond Loewy was not just an automotive designer, but also a graphic and industrial designer. Loewy designed cars for Studebaker, Lincoln, and the Hupp Motor Car Company, as well as the interior of the Boeing 307, the Sears Coldspot refrigerator, the Sunbeam electric toaster, and logos for Shell, Nabisco, Exxon, and USPS. For his contributions to the look of early- to mid-20th century America, he’s arguably the Frank Lloyd Wright of the automotive and industrial world. In this piece, I take a look at all the disciplines in which he excelled.

Brooks Stevens

Brooks Stevens

Brooks Stevens was also an automotive, graphic, and industrial designer and a contemporary and rival of Raymond Loewy. He’s most known for popularizing the term “planned obsolescence,” but in this piece I argue that he didn’t mean it as an excuse for building crummy cars. Rather, he meant that new cars should be so attractive that customers want to buy them, even if their current car is still functional. I also talk about his work and how it reinforced his definition of the controversial term “planned obsolescence.”

Preston Tucker

Preston Tucker

Preston Tucker planned to manufacture a car called the Tucker 48 that featured many engineering and safety features that were later adopted by other car manufacturers. However, he was also accused of fraud and was the target of an SEC trial that bankrupted his company and led to only 50 complete Tucker 48s being produced. In this piece, I contend that he was a visionary, not a villain as the SEC and contemporary media attempted to portray him.

Frederic Ball

Frederic J. Ball

For this piece, I spoke to my friend Jack Ball about his great-grandfather, Frederic J. Ball, and his invention of the first American-built car that had a reverse gear. Although Frederic Ball’s impact on the automotive world wasn’t as profound as the others on the list, his story is still an important piece of lost automotive history. Originally designed for boats, Ball applied his reverse gear to his Ball Tonneau Touring Car. I detail this history of this invention, as well as his legal fights with Ford and Buick. It’s a fascinating, dramatic, and somewhat tragic story.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading the Automotive Paragons pieces as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them. Stay tuned to Shop Press for more stories in this series!

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