From Depression to Recession, Have Automakers Learned Nothing from History?

At the prestigious Greenwich Concours d'Elegance are signs that car companies continue to put the wrong foot forward.

June 11, 2009 at 10:44AM by Jim Motavalli | comment

Classic car events have taken on a slightly elegiac tone, as the big, easy money that sustains the hobby has gotten harder to find. At the Greenwich Concours in Connecticut last weekend, there seemed more than a little irony in all the wealthy car owners dressed in Depression-era outfits.

It's fascinating that the suicidal strategy pursued by prestige carmakers such as Packard, Pierce Arrow and Duesenberg in the late 1920s and early '30s — leading with big luxury cars powered by V-12 and V-16 engines — mirrors the reliance on gas-guzzler SUVs that's gotten Detroit into its current pickle.

Here's a particularly elaborate Greenwich Concours period piece, with some commentary about what it all means. Norman B. Hathaway and his wife Lorraine Janus Hathaway (the friendly "flapper" interviewed) own a 1928 Rolls-Royce Phantom I Springfield Newmarket:

comment

tags: greenwich Concours d'Elegance, history, recession, depression, car companies, car shows

Jim Motavalli

Jim Motavalli is a senior writer at E/The Environmental Magazine, a regular contributor to the New York Times and author most recently of Naked in the Woods: Joseph Knowles and the Legacy of Frontier Fakery.
read full bio.

see all posts by this author