The Cars That Made America

Overall, the series did a fairly decent job of laying out the story of the automobile in America, especially for viewers who know little about the car industry and simply want to be entertained. However, for car buffs and history fans anticipating an informed six-hour road trip through time, the series fell into the familiar traps of most docudramas: cheesy re-creations, an oversimplified and tabloid-style story line, and a host of inaccuracies. The series seems to me to have been rushed into production. Most disappointing was the failure---for reasons of either time or budget, or both---to take advantage of the treasure trove of archival film footage and sound recordings available at museums, libraries, and labor and automobile archives in the Detroit area. Whatever footage was used appears to have been pulled directly off a VHS copy of some old documentary.

The lineup of historians, biographers, and journalists added context to what was being dramatized. But in addition to these talking heads (and the amiable NASCAR drivers obviously trotted out for their "star" value), it would have been nice to hear from "witnesses" with first-hand or family knowledge of some of the personalities and events described. It's not like these people don't exist, especially in the Detroit area. With a little digging, the producers could have found retired factory workers, designers, executives, union organizers, etc., or their children and grand-children, as well as the offspring of auto pioneers. It also would have been a treat to see more of the actual Motor City (many of the sites associated with the story still exist) instead of whatever stand-ins in Texas and New York were used. The real homes of Henry and Edsel Ford are still around, for example, as are many factories and other historic sites.

I don't know if Car Week is now "a thing" on History Channel, or if a second edition of "The Cars That Made America" is planned. If there is a follow-up series, I'd like to see it concentrate on some of the many characters and cars either entirely left out of the first series or given short shrift, such as Ransom Olds, Henry Kaiser, Studebaker, Nash, Harley Earl and the Corvette, etc. And I hope they spend a few bucks on a reliable researcher in Detroit.

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.

Disappointed at the lack of technical accuracy. Being a photographer, I noticed right away that turn of the century photographers were using 50's camera's and flash bulbs. flash bulbs were not invented until 1926. You see flash bulb use throughout the episode. Cameras of the day were sheet film, box, and bellows. Only professional photographers used flash pans. Also, what about the electric cars? Henry Ford's wife only drove electric. Actors are overdressed and are guilty of over acting. Assembly line shots are a laugh.

A good series Which I enjoyed. However, the 3rd Episode was quite Chevy biased and was not kind to Ford. I am a Man of good Morals, but Lee Iacocca was quite a genius and is portrayed as a stuffy Man of Morals, while John DeLorean, a Creative man, but Someone whose ego was huge, which held him back from being great, was Made to look like an automotive genius, and His Cocaine arrest was played down.. Questionable, yep, questionable...

This mini series as much as I would love to say its a great history of cars in America falls very short. The program constantly repeats itself like most shows on the history channel if they actually played it though without all the recaps of what they actually showed you it would probably be about 2 hours of real content. As for history they don't even mention many american car makers and many others they just touch on this is mainly a story about Henry Ford much more than all the Cars that made America. There were many car manufacturer that sold many cars that are not even mentioned. If you do some searching you will find there were hundreds if not in the thousands of companies that built cars in the United States they only talk about the big three in this show Were is Packard , Studebaker, AMC ,Keiser, Nash ect... They just spend so much time rehashing stuff and going into the personel lifes of the top three automakers. I would love to see an actual history of all the manufactures and what they came up with in innovation. I found this show a waste of time for the most part some good info but could have been so much better