On January 26, 1979, “The Dukes of Hazzard,” a television
comedy about two cousins in the rural South and their
souped-up 1969 Dodge Charger known as the General Lee,
debuted on CBS.

The show was consistently among the top-viewed television
series in the late 1970s and early 1980s (at one point, ranking
second only to Dallas, which immediately followed the show
on CBS’s Friday night schedule).

“The Dukes of Hazzard” was known for its car chases
and stunts and the General Lee

    
    
                              
ED DANAHUE

On December 3, 1979, the last Pacer rolled off the assembly
line at the American Motors Corporation (AMC) factory in
Kenosha, Wisconsin.

By 1979, however, sales had faded considerably. Today,
polls and experts agree: The Pacer was one of the worst
cars of all time.

By the end of the 1960s, AMC was the only surviving
independent automaker in the United States.

Despite (or perhaps because of) its bad reputation, the
Pacer has also earned a spot in pop-culture history.

In January 1954, Nash-Kelvinator Corporation began the
acquisition of the Hudson Motor Car Company (in what
was called a merger).

The new corporation would be called the American Motors
Corporation. An earlier corporation with the same name, co-
founded by Louis Chevrolet, had existed in Plainfield, New
Jersey, from 1916 through 1922 before merging into the
Bessemer–American Motors Corporation.

TIM MAGUIRE

On October 16, 1958, Chevrolet began to sell a car-truck hybrid
that it called the El Camino. Inspired by the Ford Ranchero,
which had already been on the market for two years, the El
Camino was a combination sedan-pickup truck built on the
Impala body, with the same “cat’s eye” taillights and dramatic
rear fins.