The cars you drove, and the men who built them.
Long-form stories from Detroit's great years, told by a Brit who spent his childhood wishing he lived there. One episode a week.
Watch on YouTube See the episodesEpisodes
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DeLorean: the man who invented the muscle car
Before the stainless-steel car, John DeLorean built the 1964 Pontiac GTO against General Motors' own rules. The Daytona test, the ringer engine, and the fourteenth floor.
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Ford's biggest mistake: the Edsel
How Ford lost a quarter of a billion dollars on one car, and the designer who carried the blame for the rest of his life.
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Studebaker: 114 years, from wagons to the Avanti
A company older than the automobile itself, and how South Bend lost it in one week in December 1963.
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Carroll Shelby: the chicken farmer who beat Ferrari
The Cobra, the GT40, and Le Mans 1966.
About
I'm Charlie. I grew up in England, four thousand miles from Detroit, looking at pictures of Cadillacs, Chevelles and GTOs and wishing I lived there. Motor City Stories is where I tell the stories of those cars and the men who built them, to the people who were actually there.
Every episode is written and narrated by me, built on books, period articles and court records. The archive film is real. Some scenes are illustrated with AI-assisted painted animation, and no real faces are ever generated. Sources are listed under every video.
New episodes Saturdays, 6pm Eastern.
Where the footage comes from
- Prelinger Archives, including the Jam Handy films made in Detroit for GM and Ford, 1930s to 1960s
- US National Archives, Ford Motor Company collection, 1903 to 1954
- Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company and FSA/OWI photographs
- Wikimedia Commons contributors, credited in each video
If you were there
If you drove one of these cars, or your dad did, or the kid down the street had one, I'd like to hear it. Those memories are the one thing I can't get from the archives, and the best ones end up in the episodes. Leave it in the comments under any episode.
Tell me what you remember