I'll assume "works in winter" implies a preference (but not mandate) for AWD, esp. since you made do with an S197 earlier.
Not exactly a coupe, but a used RS7 has that sleek glove-fit, coupe-vibe. And quiet, powerful, winter-friendly, etc. Here in the NYC suburbs, nice ones run in the mid-to-high 60's. But once you're out of Manhattan's blast radius, they seem to skirt around $60k.
For new coupe, maybe some version of an M240i? It might be the closest thing to a "platonic ideal" coupe RN.
I spent a little time recently in a new S650 GT (feels weird to write that... "S650 GT" seems like yet another cynical "AMG-lite" from MB) and... I didn't hate it! Every contemporary Mustang fits me funny, but then again, I'm built stocky like Henry Rollins. I can see how the long-limbed like it.
Don't know anything about pickups, except that my wife has wanted a Maverick since Day 1.
While I'm definitely - not - pushing this, the numbers might make sense if you find something German you like for around $55k and just budget another $5k for an extended factory warranty.
When I was looking at prior generation C43's and E43's, the MB factory extended was around $4k for another 5-6 years and equivalent mileage. Or even better, if you find a car that already has it bundled in from the prior owner or dealer.
They have been on my list for a while, I actullly just drove one yesterday. The one I drove was 2009, the dash stuff was definitely dated, but the car was solid, powerful, tomb silent and all of the seating options are really well designed. Love the actual tailgate. Suspension was comfortable but a bit mushy, you can definitely feel the 5300lbs when you corner. Would probably lift the front an inch and firm it up a touch. Will probably buy one myself soon, need to try the Lexus to see if I like it better.
Check out the Land Rover Defender 90. It's a 2 door which makes it a bit unique in the market of mom's taxi suv stuff. It has a 518 horse v8. Plenty of leg room. Starts at 55k, but that's sticker. Goes great in the snow. The stubby wheelbase makes it a piece of cake to park, like your RAV-4, but it's built with what amount to 3/4 ton parts. Lots of posh fun til the warranty ends.
But considering you might be looking for something else in a few years, probably, the Big D could be great fun for the next four. As long as it's under warranty "wheeeeeeeeeeee!"
A restomod Bronco would be way better in most measurable respects I care about.
The modern Bronco is super roomy, fwiw, and can come with a stick shift.
I put 20k miles on a 2023 two-door with the 6 Speed and factory 35s. The only reason I wouldn't particularly recommend one is that Ford forgot how to make vehicles that don't crumble to bits. It was built like absolute dog shit. Fun truck though. Beyond brilliant off-road.
Might I suggest, as I always do, the S550 Ecoboost Convertible? It may not be quiet, but I am sure with heated seats it won't be any worse in the winter than than the 1978 Monte Carlos our forefathers drove.
Pickup... take your pick? Any of the higher trimmed domestics with a V8 would be fine, just depends on your personal style. Rams ride the best, Chevy/GMCs have a 6.2 the best (I don't think they're competitve at all otherwise), and F-150s are the one product Ford cares enough about to actually attempt what they consider to be QC with. My choice would be an F150 King Ranch with a 5.0.
For coupes, the choices are slimmer. E450s are good. I just realized they are knocking on the door of my own price range and I've become enamored with them. Very pretty looking, very luxurious. Not particularly sporty though, if that's your bag. Chally GT is fine. It will not blow you away, and -- I know this isn't fair of me -- but idk that I could buy one with a V6. Just doesn't sound or feel right.
Other larger options: BMW 8 series, Audi S7 (four doors, but whatever. Looks amazing)
Other nominal options: Audi S5, BMW M440i X-Drive. I am the one person on the planet who the giant nostril look on the new-gen 4 Series has grown on, especially in a darker color.
If you're fine with just RWD, then yeah a Mustang brand new can be had at invoice. Big money on the hood of them last I checked.
For pickups, consider a Tacoma (drove a 2005 TRD sport 6MT for 11 years, gave it to dad who drives it daily with indifferent maintenance, durable, was available with a six speed which wasn't a bad driver, and pretty cheap to live with) or a later model Ram (on year 7 of my current 2500 6.4 gas power wagon, this year went in for $1500 worth of maintenance-it's first major one-including all drives and transfer cases, and it's hungry for tires and gas, but got it for a steal and it's been relentlessly reliable and actually pretty pleasant to get around in for something as big as a single-wide trailer). Also, it has a big honking V8 in the nose and a winch which is very useful--not sure how I did without one. Neither of these is cheap, but my personal experience with both for fairly long terms (both bought new) has been exceptional. As a counterpoint, had a Lexus RC-F (5.0 V8, 460+HP, lots of tech and oh so unusual) that was a delight for the 3 or 4 years I kept it, and apparently you can't give them away now. Lexus quality and, despite Jack and DG's experience, I actually got to like the touchpad thingy and could operate it nicely without looking away from driving. Very fast, good (not great) mileage, wonderful paint. Mine was a 2016, pretty sure they stayed pretty much the same until they were killed off recently. Look for the track pack, which eliminates the sunroof in favor of a carbon roof (meh) and a torque vectoring differential (yissss) which does magical stuff in tight mountain curves. The stupid radar cruise control and automatic braking safety stuff can be quickly and definitively circumvented without any permanent mods. The infrared paint is insane in the sun.
No problems with the ram, actually can't tell if it deactivates cylinders, although mileage improves non-trivially using cruise control for long interstate slogs (I routinely see mid 14s for this sort of driving, and that's with 35 inch MS tires). Cons: The transmission has begun to downshift more abruptly from 3 to 2 when slowing to a stop (although it may have always done this and now that I've noticed it, just can't unnoticed it, it's pretty subtle, and this is at 115K miles), the passenger side foot space is weirdly small for such a massive vehicle (the engine in modern trucks is somewhere between 80's pickup truck and 80's van, so there is more floor hump over there), although the wife doesn't seem to mind. Pros: about 50 cubbies. There was, at least for a while, a mega cab with a reclining back seat, as well. I see them from time to time, and it's a pretty impressive cab.
It's almost nanny-free, and will allow you to drive around with the door open and your seatbelt off if you can ignore the plaintive dinging that never stops (the old Tacoma would give up after about 2 minutes and just let you behave like you didn't owe Darwin nothin'); in contrast, the wife's 2018 Durango will put itself in park if you do such irresponsible shit (which you would like to do to open and close a gate, for example). The ram is a column shift, and I think it's harder to intervene when it's an old-fashioned mechanical linkage. My gas PW (not really rated very highly for towing) will happily tow a 24 foot travel trailer, a yamaha ski boat (3500 lbs without trailer) or a 4000 pound tractor on an 18 foot hauler. The regular 2500s are supposedly much better at this. You can't get the 6.4L in the 1500, I don't think, and that's a shame, it's a great motor, and while it maybe doesn't have the character of GMs 6.2, it's not without soul.
I have been thinking a lot about taking my late father’s archive (40ish years of automotive writing and thousands of photos from various press trips and auto shows along the way) and doing…*something* with it, even if it’s just commentary on old articles that might have some present-day context or interest
Eric, I would comment but I am stilll using XP on one of the home computers. My attitude is if it still works leave it alone. Now if I could just remember the password for my computer that has 2000 so I could get to some old files….
I would certainly up my sub here if there were a few writers doing some content. Maybe something along the lines of telling the unvarnished Truth, perhaps about Cars.
Sherman, Peter seems to have a wealth of knowledge about the auto industry and its power players. The fact that he sometimes writes about how Bill Mitchell who lived down the street would leave one off prototypes for his father to test drive, I find amazing.
Plus he created the 1979 Firebird TA print advertising of just the car turned at an angle with no text, just the car.
I enjoy his stories about back in the day. After awhile, I realized that this is a guy who is still living in his brother's shadow. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it explains why he constantly tries to make himself appear to be some sort of power player.
In 50 years, a nontrivial amount of people will still talk about Tony Delorenzo's racing career. Nobody is going to remember his brother who made a (second?) career of writing one rant per week and making a fool of himself in front of John McElroy.
well its a centrifugal that increases power to almost 200 so not much of it down low and if you wanted more low end you could just bolt on a roots blower instead
I did a little digging. One article said that the factory version of the SC package sold *ten* units. HKS and Jackson Racing (I assume a relabel) sell their own, still.
Yeah you'd think a roots would perform better, but space, packaging, etc. A full swap would probably be even money compared to those kits, if you could get it to talk to the rest of the car.
My interest is based on pure CRX nostalgia as I've no need for such a thing.
The Autopian's design gives me headaches. Even if some of the articles are decent, I can't look at the site very long.
As for Autoblog, Press S to Spit. Imagine writing 7,000 articles for a site that was flushed without a care in the world. I'd say that they're a drain on society, but today I learned that there's a guy with a 9L Viper who is also the CEO of a virtual dog training academy. In comparison, Autoblog provides a valuable public service.
It’s fun and not to serious, like us. We must be getting something right because a few other websites have started copying our top shot style (fwiw the design is nothing to do with me, I’m just a contributor).
I wish the commenting and notification system was a tad better. In fact, as a WordPress developer, I’m thinking about reaching out and seeing if they’d like to consult on a new solution.
It had an upgrade a while back, but it is still problematic. My notifications clear completely as soon as I click on one, which really cramps my ability to insult people in a timely manner. I don't remotely understand how the internet works, but I think it's something to do with the software the site was built on, which I understand is not a blogging platform.
That particular bug is exactly what I’m talking about. The paginated comments are also goofy.
I’m almost positive The Autopian is WordPress. WordPress *is* a blogging platform; it just wasn’t necessarily designed to do all the other stuff (like comment notifications). I’m amazed and appalled at how little core functionality has been added since it first debuted in 2001. Things like built-in custom field GUIs and, yes, comment notifications. As such, site masters and developers often rely on plugins, and they’re sometimes quite badly built, or have serious security vulnerabilities.
Whichever plugin The Autopian is using, whether off-the-shelf or custom-built, just isn’t very good.
That said, you have sites like Jalopnik that have their complete own infrastructure. I don’t know what to say about Kinja, other than that it’s arguably worse than any WordPress site I’ve ever seen. It routinely crashes my browser, or fails to load comments, or won’t let me log in, or adds double images when I paste them into a comment…or (lately) redirects me to their pro-Black property “The Root” when I scroll to the bottom of a page. And some of these glitches have existed for years. It even spawned its own verb, so you’ll have commenters complaining about “getting Kinja’d.” Are their developers asleep at the keyboard?
As you sagely pointed out almost a year ago, the golden days of auto writing are over. They don't generate enough money because regurgitated press-release articles have been commoditized to the point of having zero worth to advertisers. Affiliate marketing doesn't work either, and even traditional institutions like Hearst no longer have the stronghold on the car-buying audience that they once did. Why should GM take out a full-page spread in Car & Driver to hock the Lyriq to potential buyers when it can instead spend that money on an influencer like Doug DeMuro, who will assign any number of (deserved or undeserved) superlatives to it and give it very specific attention? And even if a publication does bring in big dollars, its overhead on paying a ton of writers (either staff or contracted contributors) and putting on things like comparo tests and video reviews...wipes that away.
I made a not-insubstantial amount of money between 2017 and 2021-ish doing "overview" articles for CarGurus, but the money and work dried up pretty quickly once the pandemic began. Never mind that CarGurus probably operated its entire media division as a loss on the balance sheet (since its revenue comes from listing fees)...even CarGurus couldn't justify continuing to throw large amounts of money at that particular effort. I also was commissioned to write a few more in-depth articles, including one about the history of Saturn that I think was offensive enough (read: honest enough) to cause the editors to pull it and have someone else write it, lest they upset the Powers That Be at GM.
I think that whoever wants to be successful in the immediate future with writing, in particular, needs to provide some real value beyond just stories and news to their users. They'll need to provide a unique take, not unlike Jack does with his industry-insider stories. They will also have to run a very lean ship. I'm still trying to figure out how to do that myself. The reason I haven't launched my platform in earnest is mostly because I make a lot more money doing my normal work, which is software engineering. I'm in my prime earning years, so I can't afford to sacrifice the income now.
Excluding new car "news", not much is left to write about other than one's personal experience with a car. How many more stories do we need written about Diablos having 300ZX headlights, or Toyota cheating in WRC?
Plus most new vehicles are just not very interesting or desirable. I no longer actively seek out new car reviews. If by chance I do, I realize I’m just getting a warmed over press release, and I’d need to spend a lot of time looking at multiple reviews just to piece together what a new car *may* be like. Savage Geese would be an exception to this.
I will do personalized new car reviews for $5 a pop.
You send me what you bought and I will reply with:
"After much deliberation, you bought the best car in class. Well done"
If you haven't yet bought it:
The <insert car here> you are looking at and are going to buy regardless of whatever I say is clearly the correct choice. You are a man/woman of impeccable tastes.
I once got pulled over in my 1980 Citation on a Chicago highway back when Chicago PD radar cops still worked them. This was back when you would get out of your car and go talk to the cop so he wouldn’t have to leave his warm car on a cold Chicago night. Copper tells me I was going 85 in a 55, and I burst out laughing and said, “You have no idea how scary this car would be at 85, it would probably shake itself apart, so no officer, I can honestly say I was not going 85”. He was rather amused so he let me go.
The faulty brakes combined with 60% of its weight in front meant that Citations would swap ends in a heartbeat. The one time I did it was on a highway off ramp with a wide grassy shoulder. I was very lucky.
We talk about car journalism here, but this is really a microcosm of what’s happening in journalism, no modifier needed. If you have an audience, you strike out on your own platform (Medium, Twitter channel, YouTube, podcast, whatever). If you don’t have your own audience you make peanuts regurgitating bullshit for your masters.
The legacy media has not exactly wrapped itself in glory as it has spread approved narratives on a variety of issues for much of the recent past, narratives that have proven to be wrong, sometimes deliberately so.
Still I retain some skepticism about "citizen journalism" as it regards spreading things that aren't exactly true. Think the loudmouth guy at your favorite watering hole with his favorite conspiracy theory. However, the average shoe-leather reporter from before Watergate was probably closer to the average newspaper reader than some graduate of a J school now writing for the WaPo.
A lot of today's high profile journalists went to the same "elite" schools as many of the people that they cover. With whom do you think they identify?
When Europe was ruled by an aristocracy, there was the phenomenon of hofjuden, "Court Jews", usually financiers who helped finance the rulers' rule. Sometimes, in times of persecution, the Jewish community would use them as emissaries to try and negotiate with the local prince, baron, or duke because they had fluency in both language and social mores. Unfortunately for the communities that sent them, they often identified more with the nobility than with their own community so things didn't always work out.
Ronnie, you hit a nail on the head. The young journalist at the WashPo, Politico, The Hill, and other required reading inside the beltway for the most part are graduates of the elite schools. They network and party with the young staffers at the WH, or Congress, or the Court. So therefore they not only fall for group think but develop a contempt for the proles out side the beltway. And this does not include the A list journalists that get invited to the State Department Dining Room to meet with Secretaries or hit the dining hall at the WH while lunching with senior staff.
Court stenographers of the Deep State, not just of few of them DEI admissions to those elite schools, and DEI hires.
Seriously, I look at complete tools like Brian Stelter, Jim Acosta, and Joy Reid (If she got into Harvard - Film Studies '91 on merit, I have a 10 inch dick), and then I see the work that Jack can do and think the news business is nowhere near a meritocracy.
We live in an age where a reporter from the Washington Post ("Democracy Dies in Darkness") asks the President's spokesperson, 'How come you guys aren't trying to suppress Elon Musk's conversation with Trump?"
Kyree, ran across your story on the L322 Range Rover and throughly enjoyed it. I prefer reading to watching videos. Too bad that there is apparently no money in it.
They sure make it sound enticing. But as an old guy I now always think, “What can I get for the same money that won’t have bad repair bills?” Boring but true.
The 2007-2009 models are the kindest ones to potential owners, in terms of costs. The 4.4-liter N/A Jaguar V8 and 4.2-liter supercharged Jaguar V8 are incredibly solid, with little to go wrong on them and easy maintenance. The N/A engine on the HSE models is the easiest, due to fewer components, an easier placement of the throttle body, and the avoidance of pricier bits like the variable front dampening and specific taillight bulbs. I wouldn't hesitate to own a 2007-2009 that had been reasonably maintained.
That said, I would avoid the 2003-2005 models, as they are chock-full of BMW running gear and electronics that don't age well, and demonstrably subpar interior trimmings. Unfortunately, while the 2006 has the updated exterior and Jaguar engines, it still has the BMW-era interior, so that one is to be avoided, as well.
I would also mostly avoid the 2010-2012 models, as they have some very expensive engine-related trouble on account of the gen. 3 5.0-liter N/A and supercharged Jaguar V8 engines. If you can get one wherein you know the timing chains have been sorted and the coolant pipes have all been taken care of, they *can* be solid, but if not...expect $8,000 or more in engine work to get them right. And the consequences are dire, with either valve collision (for the timing chains) or overheating and warped heads (for the coolant pipes).
Yes! this is exactly right. My 2008 4.2sc has 225k miles on it now. I put 30k miles on it in the last 2-3 years without doing anything at all. Those early 1st and 2nd generation AJV8s are fantastic motors.
Some really cool details: the headers have a flange right at the very top of the downpipe so you can undo 4 bolts and pull the heads without removing the headers. The timing tools lock the engine 30 degrees after TDC rather than at TDC like a BMW etc. This means that when reinstalling the cams or doing any kind of valvetrain work all of the pistons are in mid travel and the valves cannot make contact. There is a little intermediary section of the intake manifold that houses the injectors and that the fuel rail connects to. The fuel lines have quick connects and this whole unit can be removed as one piece. The VVT units are very simple and were completely ripped off by BMW when they moved to the N52, N54 generation motors. Nothing like a vanos setup they are super easy to time.
The whole thing is pretty genius honestly. I have a 99 XJR I'm rebuilding now with the same motor and it's been painless. The supercharged models are the ones to get. Fuel economy is actually better than the NA and they make great power for towing.
07-09 and you'll be fine. The earlier BMW models may be some of the most unreliable vehicles ever, and the 10-12s had the 3rd gen AJV8s which weren't built to the same standard as the earlier engines. Both Clarkson and Metcalfe have the 3.6 TDV8 which was the diesel offered from 07-09 in Europe.
Kyree, the one of those pieces I just read was excellent (and tragic to hear of your loss of the RRS; glad you were unharmed).
In my mind this is the sort of writing that should be in what was once known as the Buff Books. I realize they no longer exist but I’m constantly doing a reverse chicken-egg analysis regarding the collapse of the buff books:
Did they fade into irrelevance because of the crap writing, biased reporting, and lousy content, or did the reduction in incoming advertising/subscription money force cuts to key staff who made good content, OR were these more like independent & simultaneous but mutually reinforcing death spiral encouragers ?
There’s obviously a lot going on there. Regardless it’s all somewhat tragic.
All of this aside, it does sound like no one, not even the great Derek Kreindler, could make an online automotive news outlet profitable.
I’d be really interested to see the books of ANY automotive news outlet these days
The strength of Jack's rental reviews has always been that it's truly "regular" cars, in real world use. Something that is somehow so incredibly hard to find in traditional/established sources. Even their long term reviews somehow never capture what the cars are like to live with as well as a long road trip of a rental.
On that note of "regular cars in the real world," I'm saddened by the demise of the 2010s era of simple cheap domestic cars, I'm thinking specifically of the Avenger/200, Journey, Grand Caravan, W-body Impala. And before that you had all the N-body, H-body etc GMs, before that you had Ford Tempos and the like. They are working/lower middle class staples that went away and were simply not replaced by anything. Pompous car reviewers slagged them, but middle America (rural, urban, you name it) snapped these things up. My wife's friend is a 2nd gen Vietnamese immigrant and her dad worked at a wire factory in Fort Wayne Indiana. He saved up and bought his two daughters that were going off to medical school a pair of 4cyl Avengers. You used to be able to buy a *new* Grand Caravan AVP for under $20k. The basic Chrysler Voyager was supposed to replace that but was quickly killed off. I had a rental V6 Journey (the butched up looking one) to drive 8hrs from Indy to Des Moines back around 2019 and I thought it was a perfectly decent car. Not best in class, but for the money they sold for, just fine, and very practical. My '16 Town&Country has been a perfect family car. A few cheap "chrysler-isms" but I'm at 112k miles going strong. I used to enjoy rental W-bodies, with the 3.6 especially, but even the older 3.5 cars with the 4spd auto were great mile burners.
“ They are working/lower middle class staples that went away and were simply not replaced by anything”
The Korean brands, Nissan, and Mitsubishi now fill that niche. Although one could argue that lightly used cars now more broadly fill serve that market.
I suppose, but back in the day a small town would almost always have a local domestic dealer for service/warranty work. I'm also of the opinion that a CVT Nissan or modern H/K product simply doesn't last under "severe" use that this class of car sees. A perfect illustration of this was when I drove through rural (appalachian) VA last summer and got to see a sight that I'm sure is not uncommon: a circa '11 Optima with weeds growing around it parked next to a trailer, and next to it was a roached out but plated/driving early 90s A-body Buick Century. That's not to say the newer domestics are any different/better. GM's final sedans were chock full of turbos and CVTs. It's seemingly criminally unsexy (and perhaps impossible in terms of money/regulations) to offer a family-sized comfortable budget automobile.
I agree, the modern alternatives I listed above aren’t direct equivalents. They are cheap and reliable in the short term, but lack the durability and longevity potential from the domestic equivalents from say the 1990s.
The W-Body carried this country from the late 80s through The Great Recession. In return, they get no respect. They were honest cars for honest people.
I had a 99 Century as a work beater for two years. Sure the Polar Vortex Winter of 2012 led to the car's early demise due to rust, but outside of that it was a perfectly competent car. Roomy, good enough power, decent gas mileage, handsome design.
I guess it's the very thing that got them into big trouble in the end financially, but in the modern context of $30k subcompact crossovers I miss the days of the domestic automakers flooding the land with cheap comfortable midsize sedans that would then serve as *very* affordable (and serviceable) used cars for another decade (three decades, in the case of some that are still roaching along).
So true. The absence of the vehicles you listed in domestic manufacturers’ rosters recalls the Jack-promulgated idea that in the future Our Betters™️ will ride around in 200k electric monstrosities and the normal among us will take the bus. (Gotta say the doordashers riding $900 Chinese scooters (even on highways where they cannot hope to keep pace) might be a realistic prediction as well)
Regarding the Journey specifically, I don’t know that I’ve ever driven a worse post-2000s car. Admittedly I only drove one (with 36000 brutally hard rental miles on it) for five days for a move, but man I was not a fan. Maybe the rentals were lower spec than the ones actually sold to private owners?
Your "opposition" might have been able to stay ahead of you if he could get within about 10 feet of the racing line... Other than that, it rather reminded me of the days when I was racing a 1000cc 4-stroke Kawasaki vs 2-stroke Yamaha TZ350s. I could get them on the straight but they got me on the corners, the bastards!
As much as I like the idea of doing features on obscure topics like a tier 3 which makes parts for almost everyone, it will take me longer than Jack to finish his book
I'm reaching back decades here, but my only vague memories of Autoblog were that it was always the shitty, deeply uncool cousin to the likes of Old Jalopnik and TTAC. Bland, vanilla, and not worth my time even as a then-teenager.
"I’ve been idly wondering if perhaps I couldn’t “hire” a few people from ACF to do a daily auto-news Substack. Would you read such a thing? Would you want to write for it?"
A) I'd certainly read it. The current Auto News sites (such as they exist are largely an unreadable mess of advertisements and bad/annoying/boring writing. The Autopian as a notable exception, as flawed as the site is. The people there are not without talent, and they clearly are trying very hard. Shout out to them.
B) I am not a good enough writer, nor am I an interesting enough person to write for such a publication, but what kid didn't dream of such a thing...
I’d be interested to hear what you think the flaws are, and what you would like to see that might encourage you to become a member (I’m a contributor there).
Saying this as an overall fan of the site and a frequent reader —
There’s a homogeneity to it that can get redundant and a bit tiresome. The writing voice for many of the contributors is the same. The tone of many articles is the same. The content of many articles is roughly the same, from “I have a fleet of shit cars, and here’s why this one is shit but I love it anyway” to “this car sucks but Actually it Doesn’t.”
What would encourage me to become a member? Good question. I subscribe to exactly three publications at the moment. This one, Defector, and Mike Tanier’s substack. I only comment on this one. To pay for another, it would have to offer me something else I absolutely cannot get elsewhere. Jack is who he is, for better or worse. Defector is one of the premier repositories of internet writers at present, and Tanier has such a unique voice on the NFL that cannot not read him. The Autopian doesn’t really give anything to that degree *for me.*
I also wasn’t a fan of how you had at least one article censored after publication. I can appreciate the need/desire to stay friendly with all, but it’s not exactly a great look IMO.
You raise a good point about the site's voice. I believe I characterized it before as "weird car twitter" in blog form. See comment elsewhere where I said we don't need another article rehashing how the Diablo had 300ZX headlights. There's nothing inherently wrong there, it's just not the content for me.
FWIW, I had dinner with Torchinsky (and a few others) back in 2016. He asked what I read and if I enjoyed his content. I politely told him that it wasn't my bag and he admitted that I wasn't their target demographic. Take that for what it's worth. I'd happily chat with the man in person again though.
What I would pay for is a site that pairs interesting car builds with quality photos and good writing. Think an elevated form of old forum build threads. GRM sort of used to do this, but they were obviously hamstrung by how many physical pages that they had to burn.
Last week, we had a thread on engine swaps. Imagine a site where they did some of those and documented it. You would pay for access to read the site for "fun", but would also get access to the information required to pull one off on your own. SOHC 2.6 stroker Neon? Sure. M156 swapped SEC? Nice. Manually converting a 575? Hell yeah. If you want to promote/"save" auto enthusiasm, address the issue of people hoarding/gatekeeping technical information.
There are plans for the site that, I as a lowly contributor am not privy to. But I know discussions are happening. Matt wanted to first get the site to be reasonably sustainable, and as far as I know that has been achieved. One of Matt's dictums is 'write for the readers you want, not the readers you have' and now we've expanded beyond Jalopnik refugees there is a balance to be found between staffers turning out three blog posts a day and longer form stuff like I do. Part of the problem is finding contributors who can do the longer form stuff - they often have full time jobs elsewhere (I don't, but I have other responsibilities) for a freelancers rate in a timely manner.
I think your idea about threads on interesting builds and technical information is a good one, and I will pass it along. There's a dearth of reliable information now the forums are dying as fans migrate into closed Discord chats and retrench into fervant fandom.
The biggest problem the Autopian has is that Matt Hardigree, in the final analysis, is not a leader of men, nor a particularly creative person. He had the most success in his life following Ray Wert's template to the letter. He was born to be submissive to others, and always will be.
That Rivian article was a total shit show. We had a 'free and frank exchange of view points' Zoom call in the aftermath, but essentially it happened because the least experienced editor panicked, and that was one of our first pieces that really broke out. As it happened Matt was in London that week (another contributing factor) and he told me it should never have been edited like that and if he'd been there it wouldn't have happened. FWIW they barely touch my articles either before or since, so hopefully that will remain a one off.
I have read the original uncensored version of the article, and I didn't quite get why they made it a big deal. It had the usual snark and witticisms of my favorite car designer goth uncle! My favorite part of The Autopian are your long form car design articles. I have been enjoying them since first reading them on the insurance site.
Oof that’s… a tough look for that editor and doesn’t speak well to their qualifications. I would not be particularly comfortable with someone apt to panic like that as my boss.
At any rate, I appreciate your candidness. I genuinely enjoy reading your articles, and moreover that the autopian exists at all. I sincerely hope it continues to find the success that you are all very clearly working hard towards.
He’s finding his feet, and to be fair the article went live while I was asleep. He could have called me to tweak the piece, but it’s all under the bridge now. Commenter were extremely supportive of me next piece I did I wrote a humorous authors note explains what happened.
But as Matt said, if he’d been there it wouldn’t have happened and that was good enough for me. But I told him it better not happen again. And it hasn’t. The Capri rant was spicy and that wasn’t touched.
1-On a recent episode (s49e43) of my favorite show, Motorweek, there was a spit take inducing segue where they went directly from saying goodbye to two of the finest cars ever made from their test fleet. I don't recall what they were, but I do know they were fantastic because they told me so,. Anyway immediately following that they launched into a Consumer Reports-esque spiel about how they never accept advertising or money from manufacturers and they never skew or hide their results.
2-Just read "The Jasons" and while the whole thing is interesting and sad, in some ways the saddest thing is reading about how the families used to be able to get together in La Jolla for six weeks every summer and hang out and now because of the destruction of the economy and rampant immigration that is not possible anymore. Like our host always says about the Brady Bunch house being unobtainable.
I wish I had the wherewithal to do a proper review. The short version is this: The author being a journalist rather than a historian or an insider has some pluses and minuses but ultimately are probably a wash as she seems to have good access and writes well, although having just read the minor classic "The Village" where the author is both, it's jarring when she uses the first person (Captain Bing never does). The book is about the Jasons, rather than their projects per se, and of course much of their work is classified, so one wishes for more detail about their experiments and inventions. Where she can go into some detail, such as about the ill fated McNamara Line and it's almost unknown but very positive impact at the Siege of Khe Sanh, the CTBT, and the methods for correcting for atmospheric interference in optics the book is fascinating. The characters, not surprisingly, are remarkable, and the country that allowed such a group to be created was as well. Its like may not be seen again.
I know nothing about his family history and he's had the car for a while so he probably paid a lot less than it's worth now, but based on the fact that there's a Henry Payne V, I assume they are an old established family of some means.
Next time I see him, I'll ask if has any ties to the Scripps-Booth families that started the DetNews back in the 1800s.
There are lots of ties between notable Detroit/Automotive families. Eleanor Ford, Edsel's wife, was the niece of J.L. Hudson. Her daughter-in-law, Martha Ford, who owns the Detroit Lions, inherited from her husband Wm Clay Ford, is the granddaughter of Harvey Firestone.
Walter Briggs made car bodies and built a mansion called Stonehenge on Boston Blvd in Detroit in 1915. Seven years later, Charles Fisher, one of the 7 Fisher brothers who started Fisher Body, Briggs' competitor, built and even bigger house next door. Their kids married. The competitors and friends are buried right across the road from each other at Holy Sepulcher. Frank Navin, who sold the Detroit Tigers to Briggs is also buried there. Two life-sized bronze Bengal tigers guard his mausoleum.
It wasn't her. It was her kid, who married Billy Ford's kid. Let me look it up. Ford's daughter Eleanor (named after his aunt presumably) married Harlan's son from her first marriage, Joseph Cobb Jr. I believe one of Billy's cousins married a Jew. Henry's got to be spinning faster than a Model T crankshaft. Unfortunately, I can't find the name because Microsoft's AI on Bing won't even try to answer any questions about the ethnicity of Henry Ford's descendants.
It's all a question of whose parties you went to, back in the day. Probably still is for the 1% or 0.1%. Internet dating take the hindmost, possibly by the hind. Ewww!
I was more surprised than I probably should have been when I read the Autopian piece about Autoblog.
It does seem like there is a real tendency among auto writers (present company excluded obviously) to go out of their way to praise colleagues and competitors and avoid even the slightest criticism. While that may be rational given how much turnover there is, it does lead to annoyances like this article or the LinkedIn post Jack highlighted a while back from some writer fellating his employer who had just laid him off.
I won’t miss Autoblog. I would miss the Autopian if it went away. I suppose that means I should subscribe, but I’ve been reluctant to because there still seem to be enough traces of the old Jalopnik mindset that I can’t in good conscience support. Plus they don’t seem to be hurting, given that their writers are always off to Monterey or Goodwood or wherever.
I’ve always assumed it was a form of unwritten professional courtesy . Kind of like how cops rarely ticket other cops unless it’s a DUI stop with bystanders filming.
That was a bit of a joke, but not entirely. If Brad Brownell writes that Autoblog sucks and was staffed by talentless hacks, eventually people will wake up to the fact that Jalopnik sucks and is staffed by talentless hacks.
It’s exactly that. We’re not in the business of public tearing colleagues or peers down. I’ve publicly wanted to call Daniel Golson out a couple of times on his lack of car design knowledge (he fancies himself as Jalopnik’s design expert) but as our reach grows we have to keep it professional. Golson blocked me on Twitter though so he got the message!
It's everybody being a massive pussy with no options in life other than autowriting, so they all have to circle-suck as hard as they can so they don't get cock-blocked from the dwindling kiddie pool of opportunities in the business.
When I have my own site. What what am I saying. When WE have our own site, one of our editorial dictums will state nonsense should be called out loudly, succinctly and wittily.
Wow, that first video is frustrating to watch...I can only imagine how much more for you. Any reason why they mix up the car classes like that? Is it the # of cars competing?
I mean I like the *idea* of a new site, but I have limited time so not sure if I would read this AND that.
Umm... What is your plan to monetize it? Cause these things need to make $$, lights don't shine for free. I struggle for an idea that isn't already working poorly for someone else.
I genuinely don't know what the best way would be to do it.
Part of me thinks that I'd need to get a second day job and simply carry everyone's writer fees, while giving the site away, until there was a critical mass.
That might be required. If I put on my Sherman hat, I'd say subscriptions, but idk if that's best. You could also do like a newsletter...
I think that's actually a good idea.
A once a week, or 2x/mo newsletter, with links to longer stuff. Then you can put the ads right in the body of the email, so you can always charge for them. You could make the newsletter a synopsis of the stuff, or if you did like 1 article/wk, just put the whole thing right in there. And then when your 1 month free runs out, you start billing them4/mo or something and that membership gets you a login to the site so that you can read the stuff again. And see more adds. You're gonna need some pics though... Not that many people wanna read about cars and never see anything sexy.
"Hoping I understood this correctly as an open thread invitation. If not, my apologies."
Gonna pin this, since you're arriving a bit late. New, used, or either?
Fully loaded Challenger GT AWD?
E450 4Matics with low miles are in the $40k-50k range.
https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/vehicle/722898554?city=Mansfield&driveGroup=AWD4WD&listingType=USED&makeCode=MB&newSearch=false&referrer=%2Fcars-for-sale%2Fcoupe%2Fmercedes-benz%2Fe-class%2Fmansfield-oh%3FnewSearch%3Dtrue%26searchRadius%3D0%26zip%3D44901&searchRadius=0&seriesCode=E_CLASS&state=OH&vehicleStyleCode=COUPE&zip=44901&clickType=listing
How did you like the Challenger from behind the wheel?
I never cared for 360 parking cameras and what not, but both the Challenger and Camaro always felt like one big blind spot to me.
I keep forgetting there's an E coupe...
Looked at leftover 2023 E coupes or certified with minimal miles from same year. You could get em for 60k otd
That's a value IMO.
I'll assume "works in winter" implies a preference (but not mandate) for AWD, esp. since you made do with an S197 earlier.
Not exactly a coupe, but a used RS7 has that sleek glove-fit, coupe-vibe. And quiet, powerful, winter-friendly, etc. Here in the NYC suburbs, nice ones run in the mid-to-high 60's. But once you're out of Manhattan's blast radius, they seem to skirt around $60k.
For new coupe, maybe some version of an M240i? It might be the closest thing to a "platonic ideal" coupe RN.
I spent a little time recently in a new S650 GT (feels weird to write that... "S650 GT" seems like yet another cynical "AMG-lite" from MB) and... I didn't hate it! Every contemporary Mustang fits me funny, but then again, I'm built stocky like Henry Rollins. I can see how the long-limbed like it.
Don't know anything about pickups, except that my wife has wanted a Maverick since Day 1.
While I'm definitely - not - pushing this, the numbers might make sense if you find something German you like for around $55k and just budget another $5k for an extended factory warranty.
When I was looking at prior generation C43's and E43's, the MB factory extended was around $4k for another 5-6 years and equivalent mileage. Or even better, if you find a car that already has it bundled in from the prior owner or dealer.
If Toly can be believed, which he can... that RS7 costs a grip to run.
LC200.
The LX 570 is also the same.
They have been on my list for a while, I actullly just drove one yesterday. The one I drove was 2009, the dash stuff was definitely dated, but the car was solid, powerful, tomb silent and all of the seating options are really well designed. Love the actual tailgate. Suspension was comfortable but a bit mushy, you can definitely feel the 5300lbs when you corner. Would probably lift the front an inch and firm it up a touch. Will probably buy one myself soon, need to try the Lexus to see if I like it better.
Check out the Land Rover Defender 90. It's a 2 door which makes it a bit unique in the market of mom's taxi suv stuff. It has a 518 horse v8. Plenty of leg room. Starts at 55k, but that's sticker. Goes great in the snow. The stubby wheelbase makes it a piece of cake to park, like your RAV-4, but it's built with what amount to 3/4 ton parts. Lots of posh fun til the warranty ends.
I feel you
But considering you might be looking for something else in a few years, probably, the Big D could be great fun for the next four. As long as it's under warranty "wheeeeeeeeeeee!"
A restomod Bronco would be way better in most measurable respects I care about.
The modern Bronco is super roomy, fwiw, and can come with a stick shift.
I put 20k miles on a 2023 two-door with the 6 Speed and factory 35s. The only reason I wouldn't particularly recommend one is that Ford forgot how to make vehicles that don't crumble to bits. It was built like absolute dog shit. Fun truck though. Beyond brilliant off-road.
Go with the extended out of the gate and drive the hell out of it.
Totally love the proportions of that thing! Check out a 2 door Bronco for the same thing but 15-20k less.
Might I suggest, as I always do, the S550 Ecoboost Convertible? It may not be quiet, but I am sure with heated seats it won't be any worse in the winter than than the 1978 Monte Carlos our forefathers drove.
Pickup... take your pick? Any of the higher trimmed domestics with a V8 would be fine, just depends on your personal style. Rams ride the best, Chevy/GMCs have a 6.2 the best (I don't think they're competitve at all otherwise), and F-150s are the one product Ford cares enough about to actually attempt what they consider to be QC with. My choice would be an F150 King Ranch with a 5.0.
For coupes, the choices are slimmer. E450s are good. I just realized they are knocking on the door of my own price range and I've become enamored with them. Very pretty looking, very luxurious. Not particularly sporty though, if that's your bag. Chally GT is fine. It will not blow you away, and -- I know this isn't fair of me -- but idk that I could buy one with a V6. Just doesn't sound or feel right.
Other larger options: BMW 8 series, Audi S7 (four doors, but whatever. Looks amazing)
Other nominal options: Audi S5, BMW M440i X-Drive. I am the one person on the planet who the giant nostril look on the new-gen 4 Series has grown on, especially in a darker color.
If you're fine with just RWD, then yeah a Mustang brand new can be had at invoice. Big money on the hood of them last I checked.
Once I thought of the newer BMW grilles as Hitler mustaches, I can't unsee it.
For pickups, consider a Tacoma (drove a 2005 TRD sport 6MT for 11 years, gave it to dad who drives it daily with indifferent maintenance, durable, was available with a six speed which wasn't a bad driver, and pretty cheap to live with) or a later model Ram (on year 7 of my current 2500 6.4 gas power wagon, this year went in for $1500 worth of maintenance-it's first major one-including all drives and transfer cases, and it's hungry for tires and gas, but got it for a steal and it's been relentlessly reliable and actually pretty pleasant to get around in for something as big as a single-wide trailer). Also, it has a big honking V8 in the nose and a winch which is very useful--not sure how I did without one. Neither of these is cheap, but my personal experience with both for fairly long terms (both bought new) has been exceptional. As a counterpoint, had a Lexus RC-F (5.0 V8, 460+HP, lots of tech and oh so unusual) that was a delight for the 3 or 4 years I kept it, and apparently you can't give them away now. Lexus quality and, despite Jack and DG's experience, I actually got to like the touchpad thingy and could operate it nicely without looking away from driving. Very fast, good (not great) mileage, wonderful paint. Mine was a 2016, pretty sure they stayed pretty much the same until they were killed off recently. Look for the track pack, which eliminates the sunroof in favor of a carbon roof (meh) and a torque vectoring differential (yissss) which does magical stuff in tight mountain curves. The stupid radar cruise control and automatic braking safety stuff can be quickly and definitively circumvented without any permanent mods. The infrared paint is insane in the sun.
No problems with the ram, actually can't tell if it deactivates cylinders, although mileage improves non-trivially using cruise control for long interstate slogs (I routinely see mid 14s for this sort of driving, and that's with 35 inch MS tires). Cons: The transmission has begun to downshift more abruptly from 3 to 2 when slowing to a stop (although it may have always done this and now that I've noticed it, just can't unnoticed it, it's pretty subtle, and this is at 115K miles), the passenger side foot space is weirdly small for such a massive vehicle (the engine in modern trucks is somewhere between 80's pickup truck and 80's van, so there is more floor hump over there), although the wife doesn't seem to mind. Pros: about 50 cubbies. There was, at least for a while, a mega cab with a reclining back seat, as well. I see them from time to time, and it's a pretty impressive cab.
It's almost nanny-free, and will allow you to drive around with the door open and your seatbelt off if you can ignore the plaintive dinging that never stops (the old Tacoma would give up after about 2 minutes and just let you behave like you didn't owe Darwin nothin'); in contrast, the wife's 2018 Durango will put itself in park if you do such irresponsible shit (which you would like to do to open and close a gate, for example). The ram is a column shift, and I think it's harder to intervene when it's an old-fashioned mechanical linkage. My gas PW (not really rated very highly for towing) will happily tow a 24 foot travel trailer, a yamaha ski boat (3500 lbs without trailer) or a 4000 pound tractor on an 18 foot hauler. The regular 2500s are supposedly much better at this. You can't get the 6.4L in the 1500, I don't think, and that's a shame, it's a great motor, and while it maybe doesn't have the character of GMs 6.2, it's not without soul.
I have been thinking a lot about taking my late father’s archive (40ish years of automotive writing and thousands of photos from various press trips and auto shows along the way) and doing…*something* with it, even if it’s just commentary on old articles that might have some present-day context or interest
this is a great idea
do it
Do it!
Will read.
Superb idea! I hope you do it.
I agree with everyone else. Absolutely worth doing. If you need technical or conceptual help, just drop me a note.
Wow, I didn’t expect this kind of support from everyone in response to an offhand comment! Thank you.
It’ll probably take me a few months to cook something up (I’m living on a different continent now) but this is all the encouragement I think I need
Yes, please!
I remember Autoblog because it was one of the websites I used to frequent for its ease of use on my BlackBerry.
The irony of me reading and responding to this on my BlackBerry KeyOne has me chuckling.
Eric, I would comment but I am stilll using XP on one of the home computers. My attitude is if it still works leave it alone. Now if I could just remember the password for my computer that has 2000 so I could get to some old files….
Multibillion dollar companies are still using XP. Don't sell yourself short.
The IRS too if I'm not mistaken
They use computers?
And fax machines!
And guns too
More than a bit jealous at the idea of a physical keyboard. I loved my BlackBerries for that.
Heard a colleague say, ~14 years ago:
“The BlackBerry is the best possible device for managing email.
The iPhone is the best device for entertaining yourself with web browsing and games”
Funny to think which device won!
I suppose you also tied an onion to your belt, which was the style at the time.
It’s funny how the slow creep of time allows for the perfectly acceptable denial of getting older. BRB, I have some clouds to yell at.
I had to take a moment to call out the reference. thank you.
GIMME FIVE BEES FOR A QUARTER
I would certainly up my sub here if there were a few writers doing some content. Maybe something along the lines of telling the unvarnished Truth, perhaps about Cars.
You can't use the word "unvarnished." Peter Delorenzo will throw a fit. That is, once his assistant sends him a printout of your comment via fax.
And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.
okay how about the paint stripped truth
is that still legal
DeLorenzo is the Boomer version of “CarCounsel.”
Main character syndrome, shouting into the void.
Sherman, Peter seems to have a wealth of knowledge about the auto industry and its power players. The fact that he sometimes writes about how Bill Mitchell who lived down the street would leave one off prototypes for his father to test drive, I find amazing.
Plus he created the 1979 Firebird TA print advertising of just the car turned at an angle with no text, just the car.
I read Autoextremist, but I’m under no illusions that anyone in a senior role in Detroit even knows who he is.
He lost me when he started deep-throating glorified golf carts.
He’s negative on them … at the moment.
You'd be wrong about that, I think.
Do you think Jim Farley reads his little blog?
I enjoy his stories about back in the day. After awhile, I realized that this is a guy who is still living in his brother's shadow. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it explains why he constantly tries to make himself appear to be some sort of power player.
In 50 years, a nontrivial amount of people will still talk about Tony Delorenzo's racing career. Nobody is going to remember his brother who made a (second?) career of writing one rant per week and making a fool of himself in front of John McElroy.
That hydrogen powered Indy 500 is right around the corner, bro.
"Unshellacked..."
How much faster does the blower make in a CRZ in real use? They are oddly expensive on the used market.
well its a centrifugal that increases power to almost 200 so not much of it down low and if you wanted more low end you could just bolt on a roots blower instead
either way a k swap makes more sense
I did a little digging. One article said that the factory version of the SC package sold *ten* units. HKS and Jackson Racing (I assume a relabel) sell their own, still.
Yeah you'd think a roots would perform better, but space, packaging, etc. A full swap would probably be even money compared to those kits, if you could get it to talk to the rest of the car.
My interest is based on pure CRX nostalgia as I've no need for such a thing.
Two seconds faster 0-60 is what I read. So it would be about as quick as a K24 Accord coupe.
The Autopian's design gives me headaches. Even if some of the articles are decent, I can't look at the site very long.
As for Autoblog, Press S to Spit. Imagine writing 7,000 articles for a site that was flushed without a care in the world. I'd say that they're a drain on society, but today I learned that there's a guy with a 9L Viper who is also the CEO of a virtual dog training academy. In comparison, Autoblog provides a valuable public service.
It’s fun and not to serious, like us. We must be getting something right because a few other websites have started copying our top shot style (fwiw the design is nothing to do with me, I’m just a contributor).
It's the teal and red. I don't know what it is, but those two colors together I can't take.
As far as layout and navigation goes, it's amongst the best IMO.
I wish the commenting and notification system was a tad better. In fact, as a WordPress developer, I’m thinking about reaching out and seeing if they’d like to consult on a new solution.
Make sure you get that Galpin money, if you do.
And get paid up front. I'm hearing from another Autopian partner that Hardigree can be a bit forgetful about settling accounts payable.
They're always fine with me. They need the occasional prod, but they always pay within a couple of weeks of invoice.
I think that's because they don't owe you ten grand or more, as is the case with this other fellow.
Are you calling me cheap?
It had an upgrade a while back, but it is still problematic. My notifications clear completely as soon as I click on one, which really cramps my ability to insult people in a timely manner. I don't remotely understand how the internet works, but I think it's something to do with the software the site was built on, which I understand is not a blogging platform.
That particular bug is exactly what I’m talking about. The paginated comments are also goofy.
I’m almost positive The Autopian is WordPress. WordPress *is* a blogging platform; it just wasn’t necessarily designed to do all the other stuff (like comment notifications). I’m amazed and appalled at how little core functionality has been added since it first debuted in 2001. Things like built-in custom field GUIs and, yes, comment notifications. As such, site masters and developers often rely on plugins, and they’re sometimes quite badly built, or have serious security vulnerabilities.
Whichever plugin The Autopian is using, whether off-the-shelf or custom-built, just isn’t very good.
That said, you have sites like Jalopnik that have their complete own infrastructure. I don’t know what to say about Kinja, other than that it’s arguably worse than any WordPress site I’ve ever seen. It routinely crashes my browser, or fails to load comments, or won’t let me log in, or adds double images when I paste them into a comment…or (lately) redirects me to their pro-Black property “The Root” when I scroll to the bottom of a page. And some of these glitches have existed for years. It even spawned its own verb, so you’ll have commenters complaining about “getting Kinja’d.” Are their developers asleep at the keyboard?
I suggest you use an RSS reader like Feedly or The Old Reader. Lovely and you lose a lot of ads.
You know I'd be down to do a writing collab.
As you sagely pointed out almost a year ago, the golden days of auto writing are over. They don't generate enough money because regurgitated press-release articles have been commoditized to the point of having zero worth to advertisers. Affiliate marketing doesn't work either, and even traditional institutions like Hearst no longer have the stronghold on the car-buying audience that they once did. Why should GM take out a full-page spread in Car & Driver to hock the Lyriq to potential buyers when it can instead spend that money on an influencer like Doug DeMuro, who will assign any number of (deserved or undeserved) superlatives to it and give it very specific attention? And even if a publication does bring in big dollars, its overhead on paying a ton of writers (either staff or contracted contributors) and putting on things like comparo tests and video reviews...wipes that away.
I made a not-insubstantial amount of money between 2017 and 2021-ish doing "overview" articles for CarGurus, but the money and work dried up pretty quickly once the pandemic began. Never mind that CarGurus probably operated its entire media division as a loss on the balance sheet (since its revenue comes from listing fees)...even CarGurus couldn't justify continuing to throw large amounts of money at that particular effort. I also was commissioned to write a few more in-depth articles, including one about the history of Saturn that I think was offensive enough (read: honest enough) to cause the editors to pull it and have someone else write it, lest they upset the Powers That Be at GM.
I think that whoever wants to be successful in the immediate future with writing, in particular, needs to provide some real value beyond just stories and news to their users. They'll need to provide a unique take, not unlike Jack does with his industry-insider stories. They will also have to run a very lean ship. I'm still trying to figure out how to do that myself. The reason I haven't launched my platform in earnest is mostly because I make a lot more money doing my normal work, which is software engineering. I'm in my prime earning years, so I can't afford to sacrifice the income now.
Excluding new car "news", not much is left to write about other than one's personal experience with a car. How many more stories do we need written about Diablos having 300ZX headlights, or Toyota cheating in WRC?
Plus most new vehicles are just not very interesting or desirable. I no longer actively seek out new car reviews. If by chance I do, I realize I’m just getting a warmed over press release, and I’d need to spend a lot of time looking at multiple reviews just to piece together what a new car *may* be like. Savage Geese would be an exception to this.
I will do personalized new car reviews for $5 a pop.
You send me what you bought and I will reply with:
"After much deliberation, you bought the best car in class. Well done"
If you haven't yet bought it:
The <insert car here> you are looking at and are going to buy regardless of whatever I say is clearly the correct choice. You are a man/woman of impeccable tastes.
1980 Chevy Citation. Bought to cruise the idyllic streets of DuPage County and get pulled over by the Naperville Police.
Ooh. A classic car review.
The 1980 chevy citation is an great choice for a classic car. Impeccable tastes my friend. Just be careful not to get any citations in that citation.
Impressive work!
I once got pulled over in my 1980 Citation on a Chicago highway back when Chicago PD radar cops still worked them. This was back when you would get out of your car and go talk to the cop so he wouldn’t have to leave his warm car on a cold Chicago night. Copper tells me I was going 85 in a 55, and I burst out laughing and said, “You have no idea how scary this car would be at 85, it would probably shake itself apart, so no officer, I can honestly say I was not going 85”. He was rather amused so he let me go.
The faulty brakes combined with 60% of its weight in front meant that Citations would swap ends in a heartbeat. The one time I did it was on a highway off ramp with a wide grassy shoulder. I was very lucky.
DID YOU KNOW THAT BENZO AND PORSH MADE A CAR
IT WAS CALLED THE 500E
WELCOME TO "ICONS"
EPISODE TWO IS ABOUT A JAPANESE CAR YOUVE NEVER HEARD OF THAT WAS CREDITED WITH REVIVING THE CONVERTIBLE SPORTS CAR SEGMENT IN 1989
kill me please
CAN WE TAKE A MINUTE TO TALK ABOUT GROUP B RALLY?
gimmie a sec to put the loaded gun in my mouth an then you can go ahead
Extreme risk protection order.
We talk about car journalism here, but this is really a microcosm of what’s happening in journalism, no modifier needed. If you have an audience, you strike out on your own platform (Medium, Twitter channel, YouTube, podcast, whatever). If you don’t have your own audience you make peanuts regurgitating bullshit for your masters.
The legacy media has not exactly wrapped itself in glory as it has spread approved narratives on a variety of issues for much of the recent past, narratives that have proven to be wrong, sometimes deliberately so.
Still I retain some skepticism about "citizen journalism" as it regards spreading things that aren't exactly true. Think the loudmouth guy at your favorite watering hole with his favorite conspiracy theory. However, the average shoe-leather reporter from before Watergate was probably closer to the average newspaper reader than some graduate of a J school now writing for the WaPo.
A lot of today's high profile journalists went to the same "elite" schools as many of the people that they cover. With whom do you think they identify?
When Europe was ruled by an aristocracy, there was the phenomenon of hofjuden, "Court Jews", usually financiers who helped finance the rulers' rule. Sometimes, in times of persecution, the Jewish community would use them as emissaries to try and negotiate with the local prince, baron, or duke because they had fluency in both language and social mores. Unfortunately for the communities that sent them, they often identified more with the nobility than with their own community so things didn't always work out.
Ronnie, you hit a nail on the head. The young journalist at the WashPo, Politico, The Hill, and other required reading inside the beltway for the most part are graduates of the elite schools. They network and party with the young staffers at the WH, or Congress, or the Court. So therefore they not only fall for group think but develop a contempt for the proles out side the beltway. And this does not include the A list journalists that get invited to the State Department Dining Room to meet with Secretaries or hit the dining hall at the WH while lunching with senior staff.
Court stenographers of the Deep State, not just of few of them DEI admissions to those elite schools, and DEI hires.
Seriously, I look at complete tools like Brian Stelter, Jim Acosta, and Joy Reid (If she got into Harvard - Film Studies '91 on merit, I have a 10 inch dick), and then I see the work that Jack can do and think the news business is nowhere near a meritocracy.
We live in an age where a reporter from the Washington Post ("Democracy Dies in Darkness") asks the President's spokesperson, 'How come you guys aren't trying to suppress Elon Musk's conversation with Trump?"
Kyree, ran across your story on the L322 Range Rover and throughly enjoyed it. I prefer reading to watching videos. Too bad that there is apparently no money in it.
Nice! Where can I find this article? The L322 is one of the greatest vehicles ever. I will die on this hill.
i have been lead down that path but the maintenance gives me hives but damn i still do lust over them
Harry Metcalfe visits Jeremy Clarkson to compare notes on the L322.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LS54AJSadT4
that was the vid that caught my attention and drew me to the land rover
i figured those guys would know what theyre talking about
They sure make it sound enticing. But as an old guy I now always think, “What can I get for the same money that won’t have bad repair bills?” Boring but true.
The 2007-2009 models are the kindest ones to potential owners, in terms of costs. The 4.4-liter N/A Jaguar V8 and 4.2-liter supercharged Jaguar V8 are incredibly solid, with little to go wrong on them and easy maintenance. The N/A engine on the HSE models is the easiest, due to fewer components, an easier placement of the throttle body, and the avoidance of pricier bits like the variable front dampening and specific taillight bulbs. I wouldn't hesitate to own a 2007-2009 that had been reasonably maintained.
That said, I would avoid the 2003-2005 models, as they are chock-full of BMW running gear and electronics that don't age well, and demonstrably subpar interior trimmings. Unfortunately, while the 2006 has the updated exterior and Jaguar engines, it still has the BMW-era interior, so that one is to be avoided, as well.
I would also mostly avoid the 2010-2012 models, as they have some very expensive engine-related trouble on account of the gen. 3 5.0-liter N/A and supercharged Jaguar V8 engines. If you can get one wherein you know the timing chains have been sorted and the coolant pipes have all been taken care of, they *can* be solid, but if not...expect $8,000 or more in engine work to get them right. And the consequences are dire, with either valve collision (for the timing chains) or overheating and warped heads (for the coolant pipes).
thanks for the info man i appreciate it
will keep this in mind if one happens to cross my path
i bet those supercharged ones are a riot
Shhhh! Don't go telling people, prices are coming back down.
Yes! this is exactly right. My 2008 4.2sc has 225k miles on it now. I put 30k miles on it in the last 2-3 years without doing anything at all. Those early 1st and 2nd generation AJV8s are fantastic motors.
Some really cool details: the headers have a flange right at the very top of the downpipe so you can undo 4 bolts and pull the heads without removing the headers. The timing tools lock the engine 30 degrees after TDC rather than at TDC like a BMW etc. This means that when reinstalling the cams or doing any kind of valvetrain work all of the pistons are in mid travel and the valves cannot make contact. There is a little intermediary section of the intake manifold that houses the injectors and that the fuel rail connects to. The fuel lines have quick connects and this whole unit can be removed as one piece. The VVT units are very simple and were completely ripped off by BMW when they moved to the N52, N54 generation motors. Nothing like a vanos setup they are super easy to time.
The whole thing is pretty genius honestly. I have a 99 XJR I'm rebuilding now with the same motor and it's been painless. The supercharged models are the ones to get. Fuel economy is actually better than the NA and they make great power for towing.
well if the blown ones get better economy whats not to like
You too!
Tell people these cars are horribly unreliable and fall apart when looked at wrong.
I really don't want anyone snapping up the miniscule number of clean 08-9 4.2SCs
07-09 and you'll be fine. The earlier BMW models may be some of the most unreliable vehicles ever, and the 10-12s had the 3rd gen AJV8s which weren't built to the same standard as the earlier engines. Both Clarkson and Metcalfe have the 3.6 TDV8 which was the diesel offered from 07-09 in Europe.
There were three, one in which I gave an overview on the L322 and its development, and two outlining my brief ownership of a different L322:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/curbside-classic-the-2003-2012-l322-range-rover-new-heights-horizons/
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-2006-range-rover-supercharged-how-to-flip-a-whip/
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-2010-range-rover-supercharged-510-hp-of-glory/
Kyree, the one of those pieces I just read was excellent (and tragic to hear of your loss of the RRS; glad you were unharmed).
In my mind this is the sort of writing that should be in what was once known as the Buff Books. I realize they no longer exist but I’m constantly doing a reverse chicken-egg analysis regarding the collapse of the buff books:
Did they fade into irrelevance because of the crap writing, biased reporting, and lousy content, or did the reduction in incoming advertising/subscription money force cuts to key staff who made good content, OR were these more like independent & simultaneous but mutually reinforcing death spiral encouragers ?
There’s obviously a lot going on there. Regardless it’s all somewhat tragic.
All of this aside, it does sound like no one, not even the great Derek Kreindler, could make an online automotive news outlet profitable.
I’d be really interested to see the books of ANY automotive news outlet these days
The strength of Jack's rental reviews has always been that it's truly "regular" cars, in real world use. Something that is somehow so incredibly hard to find in traditional/established sources. Even their long term reviews somehow never capture what the cars are like to live with as well as a long road trip of a rental.
On that note of "regular cars in the real world," I'm saddened by the demise of the 2010s era of simple cheap domestic cars, I'm thinking specifically of the Avenger/200, Journey, Grand Caravan, W-body Impala. And before that you had all the N-body, H-body etc GMs, before that you had Ford Tempos and the like. They are working/lower middle class staples that went away and were simply not replaced by anything. Pompous car reviewers slagged them, but middle America (rural, urban, you name it) snapped these things up. My wife's friend is a 2nd gen Vietnamese immigrant and her dad worked at a wire factory in Fort Wayne Indiana. He saved up and bought his two daughters that were going off to medical school a pair of 4cyl Avengers. You used to be able to buy a *new* Grand Caravan AVP for under $20k. The basic Chrysler Voyager was supposed to replace that but was quickly killed off. I had a rental V6 Journey (the butched up looking one) to drive 8hrs from Indy to Des Moines back around 2019 and I thought it was a perfectly decent car. Not best in class, but for the money they sold for, just fine, and very practical. My '16 Town&Country has been a perfect family car. A few cheap "chrysler-isms" but I'm at 112k miles going strong. I used to enjoy rental W-bodies, with the 3.6 especially, but even the older 3.5 cars with the 4spd auto were great mile burners.
The beginning of my "5-speed Milan" story was an attorney who got a pair of new ones for his kids, at something like $14,500 each, in 2008.
“ They are working/lower middle class staples that went away and were simply not replaced by anything”
The Korean brands, Nissan, and Mitsubishi now fill that niche. Although one could argue that lightly used cars now more broadly fill serve that market.
I suppose, but back in the day a small town would almost always have a local domestic dealer for service/warranty work. I'm also of the opinion that a CVT Nissan or modern H/K product simply doesn't last under "severe" use that this class of car sees. A perfect illustration of this was when I drove through rural (appalachian) VA last summer and got to see a sight that I'm sure is not uncommon: a circa '11 Optima with weeds growing around it parked next to a trailer, and next to it was a roached out but plated/driving early 90s A-body Buick Century. That's not to say the newer domestics are any different/better. GM's final sedans were chock full of turbos and CVTs. It's seemingly criminally unsexy (and perhaps impossible in terms of money/regulations) to offer a family-sized comfortable budget automobile.
I agree, the modern alternatives I listed above aren’t direct equivalents. They are cheap and reliable in the short term, but lack the durability and longevity potential from the domestic equivalents from say the 1990s.
The W-Body carried this country from the late 80s through The Great Recession. In return, they get no respect. They were honest cars for honest people.
I had a 99 Century as a work beater for two years. Sure the Polar Vortex Winter of 2012 led to the car's early demise due to rust, but outside of that it was a perfectly competent car. Roomy, good enough power, decent gas mileage, handsome design.
I guess it's the very thing that got them into big trouble in the end financially, but in the modern context of $30k subcompact crossovers I miss the days of the domestic automakers flooding the land with cheap comfortable midsize sedans that would then serve as *very* affordable (and serviceable) used cars for another decade (three decades, in the case of some that are still roaching along).
So true. The absence of the vehicles you listed in domestic manufacturers’ rosters recalls the Jack-promulgated idea that in the future Our Betters™️ will ride around in 200k electric monstrosities and the normal among us will take the bus. (Gotta say the doordashers riding $900 Chinese scooters (even on highways where they cannot hope to keep pace) might be a realistic prediction as well)
Regarding the Journey specifically, I don’t know that I’ve ever driven a worse post-2000s car. Admittedly I only drove one (with 36000 brutally hard rental miles on it) for five days for a move, but man I was not a fan. Maybe the rentals were lower spec than the ones actually sold to private owners?
John's done a nice job panning!
He's improving for sure. I'm doing every bit of 80mph in that corner.
Your "opposition" might have been able to stay ahead of you if he could get within about 10 feet of the racing line... Other than that, it rather reminded me of the days when I was racing a 1000cc 4-stroke Kawasaki vs 2-stroke Yamaha TZ350s. I could get them on the straight but they got me on the corners, the bastards!
As much as I like the idea of doing features on obscure topics like a tier 3 which makes parts for almost everyone, it will take me longer than Jack to finish his book
I'm reaching back decades here, but my only vague memories of Autoblog were that it was always the shitty, deeply uncool cousin to the likes of Old Jalopnik and TTAC. Bland, vanilla, and not worth my time even as a then-teenager.
"I’ve been idly wondering if perhaps I couldn’t “hire” a few people from ACF to do a daily auto-news Substack. Would you read such a thing? Would you want to write for it?"
A) I'd certainly read it. The current Auto News sites (such as they exist are largely an unreadable mess of advertisements and bad/annoying/boring writing. The Autopian as a notable exception, as flawed as the site is. The people there are not without talent, and they clearly are trying very hard. Shout out to them.
B) I am not a good enough writer, nor am I an interesting enough person to write for such a publication, but what kid didn't dream of such a thing...
I’d be interested to hear what you think the flaws are, and what you would like to see that might encourage you to become a member (I’m a contributor there).
Saying this as an overall fan of the site and a frequent reader —
There’s a homogeneity to it that can get redundant and a bit tiresome. The writing voice for many of the contributors is the same. The tone of many articles is the same. The content of many articles is roughly the same, from “I have a fleet of shit cars, and here’s why this one is shit but I love it anyway” to “this car sucks but Actually it Doesn’t.”
What would encourage me to become a member? Good question. I subscribe to exactly three publications at the moment. This one, Defector, and Mike Tanier’s substack. I only comment on this one. To pay for another, it would have to offer me something else I absolutely cannot get elsewhere. Jack is who he is, for better or worse. Defector is one of the premier repositories of internet writers at present, and Tanier has such a unique voice on the NFL that cannot not read him. The Autopian doesn’t really give anything to that degree *for me.*
I also wasn’t a fan of how you had at least one article censored after publication. I can appreciate the need/desire to stay friendly with all, but it’s not exactly a great look IMO.
You raise a good point about the site's voice. I believe I characterized it before as "weird car twitter" in blog form. See comment elsewhere where I said we don't need another article rehashing how the Diablo had 300ZX headlights. There's nothing inherently wrong there, it's just not the content for me.
FWIW, I had dinner with Torchinsky (and a few others) back in 2016. He asked what I read and if I enjoyed his content. I politely told him that it wasn't my bag and he admitted that I wasn't their target demographic. Take that for what it's worth. I'd happily chat with the man in person again though.
What I would pay for is a site that pairs interesting car builds with quality photos and good writing. Think an elevated form of old forum build threads. GRM sort of used to do this, but they were obviously hamstrung by how many physical pages that they had to burn.
Last week, we had a thread on engine swaps. Imagine a site where they did some of those and documented it. You would pay for access to read the site for "fun", but would also get access to the information required to pull one off on your own. SOHC 2.6 stroker Neon? Sure. M156 swapped SEC? Nice. Manually converting a 575? Hell yeah. If you want to promote/"save" auto enthusiasm, address the issue of people hoarding/gatekeeping technical information.
There are plans for the site that, I as a lowly contributor am not privy to. But I know discussions are happening. Matt wanted to first get the site to be reasonably sustainable, and as far as I know that has been achieved. One of Matt's dictums is 'write for the readers you want, not the readers you have' and now we've expanded beyond Jalopnik refugees there is a balance to be found between staffers turning out three blog posts a day and longer form stuff like I do. Part of the problem is finding contributors who can do the longer form stuff - they often have full time jobs elsewhere (I don't, but I have other responsibilities) for a freelancers rate in a timely manner.
I think your idea about threads on interesting builds and technical information is a good one, and I will pass it along. There's a dearth of reliable information now the forums are dying as fans migrate into closed Discord chats and retrench into fervant fandom.
The biggest problem the Autopian has is that Matt Hardigree, in the final analysis, is not a leader of men, nor a particularly creative person. He had the most success in his life following Ray Wert's template to the letter. He was born to be submissive to others, and always will be.
The Autopian emulates the voice and look of Jalopnik, a failed site.
Why would anyone go through the trouble of starting a brand new site and model failure?
I only go there for Adrian’s next article.
That Rivian article was a total shit show. We had a 'free and frank exchange of view points' Zoom call in the aftermath, but essentially it happened because the least experienced editor panicked, and that was one of our first pieces that really broke out. As it happened Matt was in London that week (another contributing factor) and he told me it should never have been edited like that and if he'd been there it wouldn't have happened. FWIW they barely touch my articles either before or since, so hopefully that will remain a one off.
I have read the original uncensored version of the article, and I didn't quite get why they made it a big deal. It had the usual snark and witticisms of my favorite car designer goth uncle! My favorite part of The Autopian are your long form car design articles. I have been enjoying them since first reading them on the insurance site.
well now i really want to read the unedited article
It's is/was on one of the archive sites. I didn't see the big deal either.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240312215337/https://www.theautopian.com/the-rivian-r3x-is-not-a-retro-design-and-isnt-a-golf-a-delta-integrale-or-a-lada-niva-so-stop-saying-it-is/
Oof that’s… a tough look for that editor and doesn’t speak well to their qualifications. I would not be particularly comfortable with someone apt to panic like that as my boss.
At any rate, I appreciate your candidness. I genuinely enjoy reading your articles, and moreover that the autopian exists at all. I sincerely hope it continues to find the success that you are all very clearly working hard towards.
He’s finding his feet, and to be fair the article went live while I was asleep. He could have called me to tweak the piece, but it’s all under the bridge now. Commenter were extremely supportive of me next piece I did I wrote a humorous authors note explains what happened.
But as Matt said, if he’d been there it wouldn’t have happened and that was good enough for me. But I told him it better not happen again. And it hasn’t. The Capri rant was spicy and that wasn’t touched.
Open thread so:
1-On a recent episode (s49e43) of my favorite show, Motorweek, there was a spit take inducing segue where they went directly from saying goodbye to two of the finest cars ever made from their test fleet. I don't recall what they were, but I do know they were fantastic because they told me so,. Anyway immediately following that they launched into a Consumer Reports-esque spiel about how they never accept advertising or money from manufacturers and they never skew or hide their results.
2-Just read "The Jasons" and while the whole thing is interesting and sad, in some ways the saddest thing is reading about how the families used to be able to get together in La Jolla for six weeks every summer and hang out and now because of the destruction of the economy and rampant immigration that is not possible anymore. Like our host always says about the Brady Bunch house being unobtainable.
That book has been on my list for a long time.
I wish I had the wherewithal to do a proper review. The short version is this: The author being a journalist rather than a historian or an insider has some pluses and minuses but ultimately are probably a wash as she seems to have good access and writes well, although having just read the minor classic "The Village" where the author is both, it's jarring when she uses the first person (Captain Bing never does). The book is about the Jasons, rather than their projects per se, and of course much of their work is classified, so one wishes for more detail about their experiments and inventions. Where she can go into some detail, such as about the ill fated McNamara Line and it's almost unknown but very positive impact at the Siege of Khe Sanh, the CTBT, and the methods for correcting for atmospheric interference in optics the book is fascinating. The characters, not surprisingly, are remarkable, and the country that allowed such a group to be created was as well. Its like may not be seen again.
TY so much for this. Totally moves the book up my list!
"Detroit News autowriter Henry Payne". He's also done some editorial cartooning in the past. Nice guy. He has a pretty cool Porsche 904.
So you’re saying that he didn’t make his money writing for the news?
I know nothing about his family history and he's had the car for a while so he probably paid a lot less than it's worth now, but based on the fact that there's a Henry Payne V, I assume they are an old established family of some means.
Next time I see him, I'll ask if has any ties to the Scripps-Booth families that started the DetNews back in the 1800s.
There are lots of ties between notable Detroit/Automotive families. Eleanor Ford, Edsel's wife, was the niece of J.L. Hudson. Her daughter-in-law, Martha Ford, who owns the Detroit Lions, inherited from her husband Wm Clay Ford, is the granddaughter of Harvey Firestone.
Walter Briggs made car bodies and built a mansion called Stonehenge on Boston Blvd in Detroit in 1915. Seven years later, Charles Fisher, one of the 7 Fisher brothers who started Fisher Body, Briggs' competitor, built and even bigger house next door. Their kids married. The competitors and friends are buried right across the road from each other at Holy Sepulcher. Frank Navin, who sold the Detroit Tigers to Briggs is also buried there. Two life-sized bronze Bengal tigers guard his mausoleum.
https://www.detroitnews.com/gcdn/presto/2019/08/14/PDTN/fbeba913-2606-41b4-9eed-c7ecdf9c5bc1-navin2287.jpg?width=660&height=441&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp
At Woodlawn on Woodward, the Dodge Brothers' tomb is styled after an Egyptian temple, guarded by sphinxes.
https://www.detroitnews.com/gcdn/presto/2018/08/28/PDTN/84190530-bfd6-494b-acd9-be9fc24b2fd9-tdndc5-5jb0ospv3zkkntto5rm_original.jpg?width=660&height=440&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp
Wow
But I digress...
Which Ford did former WDIV anchorwoman Carmen Harlan marry?
It wasn't her. It was her kid, who married Billy Ford's kid. Let me look it up. Ford's daughter Eleanor (named after his aunt presumably) married Harlan's son from her first marriage, Joseph Cobb Jr. I believe one of Billy's cousins married a Jew. Henry's got to be spinning faster than a Model T crankshaft. Unfortunately, I can't find the name because Microsoft's AI on Bing won't even try to answer any questions about the ethnicity of Henry Ford's descendants.
It's all a question of whose parties you went to, back in the day. Probably still is for the 1% or 0.1%. Internet dating take the hindmost, possibly by the hind. Ewww!
"pretty cool Porsche 904" is redundant. :-)
Cooler still because Ronnie is mistaken..
It's
a
908
RONNIE!!! so STOOOPED!!
-eight cylinders
-five speed box
-no windscreen
-central driving position
-minimal weight
-appropriate sidewall height
[Shouting] “Honey! I finally found a car I can commute to work in.”
It's basically a Radical SR8 for people who like narrow tires!
I was more surprised than I probably should have been when I read the Autopian piece about Autoblog.
It does seem like there is a real tendency among auto writers (present company excluded obviously) to go out of their way to praise colleagues and competitors and avoid even the slightest criticism. While that may be rational given how much turnover there is, it does lead to annoyances like this article or the LinkedIn post Jack highlighted a while back from some writer fellating his employer who had just laid him off.
I won’t miss Autoblog. I would miss the Autopian if it went away. I suppose that means I should subscribe, but I’ve been reluctant to because there still seem to be enough traces of the old Jalopnik mindset that I can’t in good conscience support. Plus they don’t seem to be hurting, given that their writers are always off to Monterey or Goodwood or wherever.
I’ve always assumed it was a form of unwritten professional courtesy . Kind of like how cops rarely ticket other cops unless it’s a DUI stop with bystanders filming.
I guess so, but cops have jurisdictions and aren’t direct competitors in the same way.
I get being professional to your colleagues at other companies, but this seems to go beyond that.
That was a bit of a joke, but not entirely. If Brad Brownell writes that Autoblog sucks and was staffed by talentless hacks, eventually people will wake up to the fact that Jalopnik sucks and is staffed by talentless hacks.
Given the ~95% drop in comments per article vs a few years ago, I’d say most have figured that out already.
It’s exactly that. We’re not in the business of public tearing colleagues or peers down. I’ve publicly wanted to call Daniel Golson out a couple of times on his lack of car design knowledge (he fancies himself as Jalopnik’s design expert) but as our reach grows we have to keep it professional. Golson blocked me on Twitter though so he got the message!
It's everybody being a massive pussy with no options in life other than autowriting, so they all have to circle-suck as hard as they can so they don't get cock-blocked from the dwindling kiddie pool of opportunities in the business.
These are the JB comments that I pay for.
I am shocked, sir, shocked that you can read such filth!
When I have my own site. What what am I saying. When WE have our own site, one of our editorial dictums will state nonsense should be called out loudly, succinctly and wittily.
Wow, that first video is frustrating to watch...I can only imagine how much more for you. Any reason why they mix up the car classes like that? Is it the # of cars competing?
There are 26 National classes in SCCA, and we split them across six race groups, because there's only so much time in the day :)
I mean I like the *idea* of a new site, but I have limited time so not sure if I would read this AND that.
Umm... What is your plan to monetize it? Cause these things need to make $$, lights don't shine for free. I struggle for an idea that isn't already working poorly for someone else.
I genuinely don't know what the best way would be to do it.
Part of me thinks that I'd need to get a second day job and simply carry everyone's writer fees, while giving the site away, until there was a critical mass.
That might be required. If I put on my Sherman hat, I'd say subscriptions, but idk if that's best. You could also do like a newsletter...
I think that's actually a good idea.
A once a week, or 2x/mo newsletter, with links to longer stuff. Then you can put the ads right in the body of the email, so you can always charge for them. You could make the newsletter a synopsis of the stuff, or if you did like 1 article/wk, just put the whole thing right in there. And then when your 1 month free runs out, you start billing them4/mo or something and that membership gets you a login to the site so that you can read the stuff again. And see more adds. You're gonna need some pics though... Not that many people wanna read about cars and never see anything sexy.
as much as id like to write for acf twitter has cornered the market on inane and gramatically incorrect ramblings but i might be able to make it funny
congrats on making some nobody mad enough to complain lol