Scandals make the world go ‘round. It’s human nature, not just to try to fudge the rules, but also to gossip about all the other people out there who could be fudging the rules. Last week, we asked you to share some of the juiciest automotive scandals you’ve heard of — and boy, did y’all deliver. Without further ado, lets get into it!
How Richard Sias, the ‘68 Charger stylist, one of the all-time best styled American cars, was screwed out of credit for his stellar creation:
Notice how Mr. Sias is NOT in the Dodge publicity photo.
William Brownlie, Sias’ boss, had it in for Sias due to how the ‘68 Charger’s clay model was designed where it did not follow his directions. Brownlie was obsessed with the fastback look—like a first gen Charger.
As a result, Sias was frozen out. Sias left Dodge soon afterwards, probably due to this clash but I’ve never found proof of what I 99% suspect happened.
Richard Hammond of Old Fart Top Gear was enthralled with the 2nd gen Charger and gushed over it when he finally got a chance to drive one for the show. (Later he bought his own ‘69.) Even he repeated the propaganda during the ep that Brownlie was the driving force behind the 2nd gen Charger—completely not true.
Sias was the genius—put credit where credit is due.
Suggested by: the1969DodgeChargerFan
That time NBC ‘proved’ GM pickups were prone to catching fire.
Which they certainly were, if you rigged them with incendiaries the way NBC did.
Suggested by: beege22
I see your NBC fiasco and raise you a consumer reports Suzuki Samurai.
Suggested by: Drg84
The entire Porsche-VW hostile takeover/merger saga that involved the state of Lower Saxony and the nation of Qatar which briefly saw VW become the most valuable company in the world, triggering financial investigations, lawsuits, and ballooning debts - revolving around the heirs to the Porsche family that started it all.
Suggested by: Pessimippopotamus
The Dale
Suggested by: SlickS30r
Two scandals involving Korean brand Ssangyong.
First, when the Koren economy burst in 1995 the government forced the country’s automakers to combine to survive. Hyundai took over Kia, and that worked out well. Daewoo, meanwhile, took over Ssangyong. That was a disaster. While Hyundai and Kia were successfully developing products on shared platforms, Daewoo stopped developing its own products and began rebranding Ssangyong vehicles as its own, and tried siphoning Ssangyong’s cash reserves. In 2001 Ssangyong execs convinced the government to dissolved it’s alliance with Daewoo. An investigation found massive fraud involving Daewoo’s chairman, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. The chairman and his wife vanished, and it is unknown if they were eve found. Daewoo Motors was subsequently spun off from the rest of the Daewoo conglomerate.
Then in 2005 Chinese automaker SAIC moved in and bought Ssangyong. Two years later, news broke that SAIC had swiped technology, IP, designs, etc., to Ssangyong’s two high-profile models, the Chairman luxury sedan and Rexton SUV and introduced them in China under the Ronwe brand, and started to let Ssangyong wither and die. The Korean government eventually forced SAIC to relinquish ownership.
Suggested by: IDM3
Robert Kearns being screwed over by ford for his invention of the intermittent windshield wipers. Flash of genius was the movie about it IIRC
Suggested by: Sal Rizzo
Find and read a copy of Steve Lynch’s book “Arrogance and Accords”. It’s quite a story of greed centering around some of American Honda’s managers in the 1980's, early 1990's
Suggested by: Doug
This is just an unfounded rumor started by my high school history teacher who was a car aficionado who grew up in the 60s...
He says that Dodge created a conceot car in 1964, dubbed the Dodge Marlin, that had a few extra inches of wheelbase as well as a few extra inches of track width, along with a low CoG. This gave the car excellent handling relative to other cars of the day, and the government outlawed it for fear that it would outrun law enforcement vehicles, particularly on curvy roads.
And now a little more realistic rumor... that the Big3 got together in the late 50s and decided to make their cars less durable, because the cars from the 1950s were very durable and the fear was that customers would no longer purchase new cars if their old ones ran forever. This ushered in finite engineering, where engineers were instructed to make the vehicle just strong enough to make it through the warranty period, but not to use any more raw materials than necessary beyond that. The supposed proof of the pudding is that all of the 1950s cars are still in use in Cuba.
As for the 100mpg carburetor that the oil companies bought out and squashed? Physics doesn’t support that urban myth.... sorry.
Suggested by: Grasscatcher2
I mean... Carlos Ghosn is an INTERNATIONAL FUGITIVE. He escaped justice by being ‘extracted’ by a specialist team by hiding in an audio case...
Ford was a bigoted bastard, but sadly that’s ‘regularly’ scandalous.
How does anyone else beat Ghosn?
Suggested by: senpai71
It’s gotta be the McNamara Buick-Pontiac scandal for me. Dude juiced GM outta HALF A BILLION IN 1992.
How this isn’t a documentary is beyond me.
Suggested by: Keith Jackson
The Motorex Skyline scandal comes to mind. But Randy Lanier smuggling weed to pay for his racecars was pretty good too.
Suggested by: Nate Churchel (Facebook)
Read the book Driven To Crime.
Suggested by: Frank Barrett
AutoPilot FSD Level 5 next year for sure
Suggested by: hayase
Can I interest you in a book on Rich Energy haha
Suggested by: King Ginger, not writing for Business Insider