I have heard the same. A co-worker who took a 2 week supplier evaluation trip saw 3 dead bodies after traffic accidents just laying there waiting for the wagon to come pick them up. And that was IN town, not crawling along impossibly narrow, slippery roads at dizzying heights with oncoming traffic.
Kind of like the genre “Reality shows” which are anything but.
I’m glad that I’m not the only person who noted factual issues with this show.
I didn’t see the first episode or two, but the one that I did watch, regarding Walter P. Chrysler & Henry Ford–among other topics–was so riddled with inaccuracies that I chose to tune to a different program, and to not watch any additional episodes.
My undergraduate major was history, and when I see history portrayed inaccurately, it irks me.
When those inaccuracies appear courtesy of a venue that calls itself The History Channel, it becomes an exercise in irresponsibility.
I was very confused by the 1955 Mercury demonstrating the Chevrolet V8. I’m sure some exist today given the popularity of Chevy crate engines in restomods. They also failed to mention that Fords OHV V8 was available in 1954 models. I think they did a good job of portraying Henry Ford as his own worst enemy.
Not on the same road. This was just that ONE road.
Maybe history isn’t Junior’s strong point.
At 5:13 in part 1, did Henry F really work on his cars in a dress shirt, vest and tie?
Yowza, which road is that?
Pretty sure Mike means THIS road…
I can’t find fatality statistics for that road.
You need stats for a road name that translates to “corpse field”? 
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Well, at 2 deaths/hr average, that road would account for more than 10% if all traffic fatalities in India…doesn’t seem possible.
The show also portrayed the 1960 Corvair as a huge sales success. They made a little less than 250,000
The Ford Falcon about 450,000
Chrysler’s Valiant 187,000
Given the relative size of the companies, I would say the Falcon and Valiant were the huge successes.
For the 1960 Daytona speed week, NASCAR decided to have a compact car race. The pre-race speculation was whether the Corvair would win with it’s superior handling, or the Volvo 444 with it’s toughness and speed. 12 Valiant’s showed up. They finished first through eleventh and thirteenth. The thirteenth place one had rolled in the infield portion of the course but still beat all the Corvairs.
NASCAR decided not to have any more compact car races.
I’ve always wondered why going to an OHV design took the auto makers so long. At the end of the Harley and the Davidsons show the emphasis was on the all new 1936 Harley OHV Knucklehead 61 cubic inch engine. It must have been sheer economics.
That was a game changer in the motorcycle world with overhead valves and a Hemi combustion chamber. Performance went through the roof compared to prior models with sidevalves or IOE setups.
May have had something to do with the availability of higher-octane gas. Not as much power advantage at a 6:1 compression ratio.
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Did not have the option to see the show, was jeffrey motors, nash Hudson sterling Stanley even mentioned?
Yup!
I was discussing the program with a friend of mine who is not much of a “car guy”, but who has vivid memories of cars from the '50s & '60s. When he noticed that the producers of the show were so careless as to use a Mercury to portray a Chevy, like me he also turned-off the show in disgust. And, like me, he was not a fan of the extremely “lame” and inaccurate dramatizations.
The road is 1500 miles long, mostly through mountains over some of the most treacherous stretches of roads found anywhere in the world. Road is very narrow, and no guard rails with some places having 3000’ drop-offs
The OHV engine concept was patented in the US in 1896 so the technology was known.
Valve in block engines seem quit a bit cheaper to build. The cost may be a big driver as the Duesenbergs had single overhead cam, overhead valves in straight 8’s in 1921 and DOHC 4-valve 8’s in the 1928 Model J’s. In the show they talked about Buick building their first engine with overhead valves but at a higher price point than the Model T.
Like a lot of technology it appears first in high end products and filters down to the mass market stuff years later.
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Possibly. People tended to dress up on a daily basis back then.