Tom
McCahill fue un crítico de automóviles en revistas como Mechanix Illustrated, Popular
Science, y Reader's Digest. Sus artículos criticaron los
accesorios, la mecánica, y las estrategias de ventas, y fue amigo de los
grandes de las corporaciones, creando también enemigos poderosos. En vocabulario:
goons, in lieu. Y un video de un test
drive a un Edsel de 1958
Thomas Jay McCahill III (1907–1975) was an automotive journalist, born the
grandson of a wealthy attorney in Larchmont, New York. McCahill graduated from Yale University with a degree in fine arts.
He is credited with, amongst other things, the creation of the "0 to
60" acceleration measurement now universally accepted in automotive
testing. He became a salesman for Marmon
and in the mid-1930s operated dealerships in Manhattan and Palm Springs,
featuring Rolls Royce, Jaguar and other high-line luxury cars. The depression
and his father's alcoholism wiped out his family's fortune.
After graduating
from Yale, McCahill managed and later
owned Murray's Garage in New York City. During the war he wrote articles on a
variety of subjects for magazines such as Popular
Science, Reader's
Digest and Mechanix Illustrated
Magazine ("M.I."). Hitting on the idea that an auto-starved
post-wartime public might be interested in articles on new cars, he sold
the concept to M.I. in February 1946, first reporting on his own 1946 Ford. His
opinions were fearless and this endeared him to some in the automotive world
but created enemies too. Ever the sportsman—at six foot two and 250 pounds—he
once fought off goons hired by (as
was believed at the time) General Motors. It is alleged that he sent two to
hospital and the third running.
McCahill was a
personal friend of Walter P. Chrysler and appreciated the handling and
performance characteristics of Chrysler Corporation cars in the late 1950s and
1960s, which included many advanced engineering features such as front torsion-bar
suspensions (combined with rear multi-leaf springs) for flatter cornering,
powerful V8 engine options across the board and positive-shifting three-speed
TorqueFlite automatic transmissions. In a 1959 road test of the Plymouth Sport
Fury, he claimed that the torsion bar suspensions were the finest in America.
Few European sedans, said McCahill,
could match the handling performance of the Plymouth.
On the other
hand, many of McCahill's opinions
about vehicles were far less favourable. For example, he reported in a 1949
road test that the new Dodge, with its semi-automatic transmission, was a
"dog". He considered early 1950s Chevrolets mundane and
utilitarian.
McCahill reported in detail on every car imported to the U.S. during the early
1950s, all the while ridiculing the U.S. automakers for their excesses,
including soft suspensions and poor handling qualities. An example is provided
by one of the first road tests of the 1958 Edsel in the September 1957 issue of
M.I.: McCahill criticized the
standard suspension as being too "horsey-back" and strongly
recommended that Edsel buyers "pony up" a few extra bucks for the
optional, heavy-duty (i.e. export) suspension package, which included heavier
springs and shocks.
In the 600 road
tests he performed and reported on, his favorite cars were the 1953 Bentley
Continental and the 1957-62 Imperial, each model year of which he owned as
his personal vehicles. In 1950 he purchased a new Ford and proceeded to acquire
the assistance of Andy Granatelli in "hopping it up" by switching to
high-performance heads and manifolding. He then tested the car extensively and
noticed a 90-mile an hour cruising speed. The car became known as the
"M.I. Ford" as it was frequently featured in the Magazine. He
purchased a new 1952 Cadillac Series 62 sedan which he eventually raced in
NASCAR speed week events. He also purchased new and reported on the '54 Jeep
CJ3A, stating that while his Lincoln was the finest road car available at the
time, in the end, the Jeep was the best idea that mankind had ever made.
McCahill purchased the first Ford
Thunderbird built in 1954 and proceeded to race the car at Daytona Beach.
 |
| Marmon, aviso publicitario, 1914 |
In a 1958 M.I.
article McCahill accused the U.S.
Auto Industry of causing the recession and poor auto sales of 1958 by
standardizing styling and eliminating factory- or factory-sanctioned racing. He
focused on AMC's George Romney, who claimed that the Rambler handled better
than U.S. full-size makes. McCahill
performed tests to prove him wrong. He was at odds with Walter Reuther of the
U.A.W. over the issue of poor quality in U.S. cars and the fact that
European imports - at the time SAAB and Volvo in particular - were of high
quality, outstanding performers and no more costly than a good used car for
those who could not afford a new domestic car. McCahill railed against unfair trade with Canada and Europe. He
demanded that the U.S. stop accepting imports and, in lieu of war reparations, force England, Canada and France (where
one could purchase an English or German car, but no U.S. makes) to accept the
forced sale of hundreds of thousands of used U.S. cars, a plan which he claimed
would increase the sale of new vehicles by more than six million annually over
the following five years, thus significantly accelerating the U.S. economy. McCahill had become Mechanix Illustrated
public face, and the industry quickly realized that his review could make or
break a product instantly. When he tested the 1948 Oldsmobile Futuramic 98
powered by a flat-head eight-cylinder engine of prewar design, he claimed that
depressing the accelerator was like "Stepping on a wet sponge".
General Motors was incensed over his review of the '48 Olds and scores of angry
letters from the corporation, as well as from Olds dealers and owners, came
into to MI's 'office demanding his firing. However, it was widely known that McCahill's report motivated GM into
development of Oldsmobile's new overhead-valve, high-compression "Rocket
V8" engine, which made its début the following year in the 1949
"98."… At age 68, McCahill died at the Daytona Community Hospital on
May 10, 1975. Mechanix Illustrated never publicly acknowledged his death,
because his name was synonymous with it. He "amounted to the
franchise" and management never wanted to admit he was gone. For a while,
they ran a column called "McCahill
Reports", which was ghostwritten by Brender. (Suscribíte al blog
para recibir el artículo completo para compartir en el aula y aprender inglés)
Imperdible
Video de Tom McCahill reportando sobre su examen del
Edsel de 1958
Vocabulario
Goons: criminals, thugs, gangsters.
In lieu: in place of, to compensate for.
Artículos
relacionados
Fuentes
Tom McCahill,
Wikipedia
Aquí
aprendemos ingles con la historia viva de Los EEUU
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