The conventional wisdom says that the original Ford Thunderbird was a direct response to Chevrolet’s launch of the Corvette. 
The Corvette was displayed at the 1953 Motorama, and immediately Ford designers pulled out their drafting pencils and went to work. But the real story is that the Ford Thunderbird was just the kind of car that many designers dream about, so when the formal call to work on a 2-seater came from management, Ford designers just reached into their desk drawers. Read more . . .
Talk about French cars in the USA and get ready for five minutes of snickering. 
In the land of the free and the home of the brave, cars with a French pedigree have a reputation just slightly south of that reserved for French postcards, but while the postcards do deliver their own precise entertainment value, the cars seem to bring their proprietors little but grief. Peugeot was the last French brand to try to survive in the caldron of the American market, but it was finally drummed out of the country with the same lack of remorse that had followed the death of Citroen’s American adventure and the disastrous tenure of Renault on these shores. Read more . . .