Romney’s Recollections of His Dad Mask Different Styles

Mitt Romney mentioned in an opinion piece for a Michigan newspaper last week that he learned to love “chrome and fins and roaring motors” while growing up in Detroit. His father might have disagreed with such sentiment.

George Romney, a onetime chairman of the now defunct American Motors Corp., was a pioneer of small, fuel-efficient cars, most notably the Rambler. He even kept a plaque in his office from the Cleveland Auto Dealers Association that read: “To George Romney, critic, lecturer, anthropologist, white hunter of the American dinosaur.” To the elder Romney, the gas-guzzling, chrome-laden automobiles of his era were doomed just like the prehistoric beasts.