An Old Dog Returns To His Old Tricks
The story of TheTruthAboutCars will make for a fascinating book some day. It has it all: sex, violence, ego, backroom dealings, threats, cowardice, and more. With that said, it's the characters behind TTAC that make it interesting. Most of the car blogs are either some undifferentiated group of default-liberal hipsters-for-hire or a crocodilian coterie of cynical codgers. TTAC's had the most diverse group of idiots you could possibly imagine. Some of them arrived with a bang and turned out to be useless, others are just using the site to attract the attention of someone who will put them on the buffet-and-business-travel plan.
Then there's Steve Lang.
From the start, Steve's content was decidedly different from the rest of the stuff you'll find on the site. As a career trawler through the dregs of society and automobilia, selling junk to idiots on a buy-here-pay-here basis, repossessing Sundances from impoverished mothers and marking everything up 200% of its auction value, Lang sees a side of the car business most of us never will. His stories have often offended people and they're rarely comfortable to read, but they're valuable in the way that nothing you ever read on Autoblog could possibly be.
Naturally, after a while Steve looked around and saw that it was more profitable, and far easier, to take press cars, slap out reviews, and go on five-star hotel junkets. So that's what he did. His decision to partially abandon his unique niche did him no favors, in my not-so-humble opinion. A series of personality conflicts and a final, high-profile middle finger to the TTAC management sealed his fate at our little blog.
There was much speculation and rumor about where Mr. Lang would go next, but I'm pleased to note that Steve's returning to his strengths with the newest Hammer Time at Paul Niedermeyer's Curbside Classic site. He's taken the time to really examine and understand the current and future state of subprime auto credit. If you want to know how cars are bought and sold beneath the poverty line, you need to read this. If you want to know where the next bank crisis is brewing, you need to read this. It's worth checking out. So go do it, okay?