I have to say it was "kind of OK" as I like archival footage of production lines etc, but when they did the scene of Edsel Ford introducing HIS new Model A in late 1927, they showed a very over-restored Very late 1931 model. Its apples and oranges in Hollywood but I flipped over to "Searching for Schickelgrubers Gold". ws
Dear V-8 Buick fans with an interest in history, I finally dug into this series last night and was extremely pleased! In general the programming on the History Channel has been in decline, but this series is a hark back to some of their best work. It has a reasonable balance between archive footage, reenactments, and interviews. The quality of the material is as far as I can tell extremely good. If you missed it, it is supposed to be rebroadcast later this week or you can watch it online. There are links to the episodes from the URL listed on my first posting. Cheers, Edouard
I thought it was a little comical when John De Lorean was driving a 63 Wildcat while touting the "GTO" to Lee Iacocca. Otherwise it was rather interesting for the most part.
63 lesabre 4door . Nice looking car . They really couldn't find at least a 64 LeMans ? Pretty good though . Watched alot of the last two segments . Yeah some of story line back n forth timelines made it seem kinda hodgepodge . Should have had a good car guy helping out in the edit room .
Over all, I thought it was Good. Yes, they had the usual things like the Later Model A, & using the 55-6 Mercury as a "Chevy "Hot Rod", etc., but overall, it was interesting and tossed out a lot of Factual & Interesting info. The info was a "Generality" and they did that well. As for the Nit Picking details, I can ignore those. Most People Today couldn't tell a 63 LeSabre from a 64 GTO, (& probably don't care) if they aren't into the Hobby & watched for entertainment, as well as an education. JR
Frankly, I'd give the series a grade of about a C, it was entertaining, but some of the shots were almost comical - one of the Dodge brothers working on a Quadrajet has been mentioned previously. A shot of the T assembly line showed a factory that wasn't even Ford, A scene depicting the hydraulic vs mechanical brake argument showed a diagram of the "cable operated wheel brakes"of the Model T. The model T never had cable-operated wheel brakes - in fact it never had any wheel brakes except for a parking brake. They tried to pass off a gooked-up Mercury as a Chevy, and a full-sized Buick as a Pontiac. It made it sound as if Chrysler invented the OHV V8, and never mentioned the Olds and Cadillac valve-in-head V8s of 1949. The series mentioned the beginning of the horsepower race, but didn't mention what specifically started it - surprising when the executive producer is a racer. It described a Ford flathead V8 and then showed the Ford flathead 6 in the frame. The series left out much, but I will admit that the history of the American automobile industry is far too large to depict in three two-hour episodes, IMHO it added little to the general body of knowledge of automotive history . I'll go take off my grinch hat now.
. . . watched the first episode last night - found it entertaining, and informative, but it's got a few loose ends, and is more of a generalization, with some missing parts ? A lot of the scenes are often repeated and not period correct, but it does cover the American automobile industry, and the major players who made it's history. "Worth watching if you want to fill in the blanks?"
Lots of holes in the story, lots of embellishments and inaccuracies, as expected. But, I'm sure it got some non-car people to watch a show about cars, and that's a good thing.
Dear Tom, Del, JR, John, Rivman, Keith, Lucas and V-8 Buick historians, Sadly I think this is about as good as documentaries get anymore. Certainly this is entertainment, not simply a factual presentation of history. There is clearly a lot of exaggerated drama because viewers need to be stimulated these days - that is something that should worry all of us. Also, there is a lot of simplification and tossing together incorrect stuff in order to - save money. Josh Billings has a great saying about television: "Television is a medium, because it is neither rare nor well done." Cheers, Edouard
This is not much different than most of the WWII documentaries. I like military history, especially WWII history, so I watch a lot of documentaries. They get a lot of things wrong. They will show original footage of a German 88 destroying a Russian T-34 tank on the eastern front while they are talking about how easy an 88 could knock out an American Sherman tank. Or they show original footage of Marines while talking about Army soldiers or vice versa, etc. And their re-enactments are even worse... But only someone who studies military history would notice most of this stuff. The average viewer has no clue...
Dear Gerry, Mike, and V-8 Buick historians, Overall, it appears that broad brush-strokes of the story are on the mark. You can't ask for more than that. If you are really interested in all the details, you've got to do the research. Yes indeed, probably because they are made by the same studios! I don't think we should be too harsh though. The goal is to give the viewer an overall impression of what is going on. The experts will recognize that the footage is inappropriate, but even so, you can understand what is the feeling they were hoping to convey. The other viewers were put in the correct mind-set - that's all the documentary can hope for. Cheers, Edouard
Although the sighted errors seemed glaring in the moment, the information being conveyed overrode them. I got past the Q-Jet, and the Buick masquerading as a GTO, instead focusing on the narrative. I did learn several things about American automotive history, and ultimately, I believe that was the intent of the producer/director. They may have taken what some may consider indecent liberties with the visuals, but the information stayed true to known history.
Dear Joe and V-8 Buick historians, I'm viewing this series in 1 hour chucks because we have a DVR. I've just reached the end of World War II when Henry Ford Jr. takes over the company. However, I'm already starting to lose my enthusiasm because what has been omitted seems inappropriate. The program talks about the race between GM and Chrysler to develop the first streamlined cars. However, only the Chrysler car is ever described and ultimately the point of that section was to describe how Sloan used a smear campaign to undermine Chrysler. We never find out how the move to streamline cars effected the industry. The series also seems preoccupied with Henry Ford and his evil doings. That certainly raised the drama level, but once more isn't about cars, but is about how industries operated between the late 1800s and World War II. During this time there were many innovations for automobiles but they get scant mention. The title claims to be "The cars that made America", but clearly it should have been called the "The man who built the cars that made America." It is, as I feared, this is an automobile take on the History Channels earlier series: "The men who built America". Okay it is still entertaining and provides lots of information that I didn't know, but I had hoped for something different and more focused on the cars themselves instead of the personalities that I think have been inflated beyond their larger than life realities. Oh well, Edouard
Dear V-8 Buick historians, Bummer dude, I made the mistake of checking out William Durant on Wikipedia and it shows that the History Channel documentary has been a little "too economical with the truth." The documentary states that Durant filed for personal bankruptcy shortly after his second ouster from GM and died shortly there after. Well, here is the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Durant It states the both ousters were caused when Durant became over-extended on credit and the last time he was kicked out was 1920. He would not file for bankruptcy until 1936 and lived until 1947!! So what else is wrong in this documentary? I fear - lots! (Oh well)^2 . . . . . . Edouard
I have forgotten already - Did the series tell the whole story of the $5 day at Ford's, or did it simply say that there was such a thing?
Dear John and V-8 Buick historians, According to this Forbes article the documentary is correct on Ford's reason for the wage increase: https://www.forbes.com/sites/timwor...ay-wages-its-not-what-you-think/#382b3570766d Forbes and the documentary agree it was to retain his workers who were turning over soon after being trained. The pay raise kept more of them working at Ford. Cheers, Edouard
Edouard, I tried to look at the Forbes article, but got all kinds of messages about adblock and what I had to do to view the article. No joy! What I had in mind was that Ford's famous $5 per day pay wasn't really real; Ford actually guaranteed $1 per day - the rest were incentives. The incentives were not per person, but for everyone on the line as a group. Although incentives were paid, the employees rarely earned $5 per day. The real reason for the $5 for eight hours was that this way, Henry could work three equal-length shifts. The pace of work was killing, and employee turnover was astronomical.
