Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Tom McCahill


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
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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