Journalist Vs. Writer

I often use the terms "auto writer" and "auto journalist" interchangeably, particularly among people who drive automatic. Most people think that writing about cars is some archaic, anti-social practice, like bear-baiting or blood-letting.

As Banovsky points out, there is a difference.

If you lose the ability to objectively question, consider, and adapt, you're a writer — not a journalist.

The funny thing is, I never considered myself a real dyed-in-the-wool auto journalist, who bores readers with details of pedantic technical minutae and condescending disdain for "slow" vehicles that posess a mere 250 horsepower.

My raison d'etre is to entertain. I like to make my readers laugh. I like to take my friends for drives in my press cars, to get the opinion of the common person (and occasionally to make them soil their underclothes). Most of all, I enjoy the experience of driving. I am almost mercenary-like in my lack of principles for what makes a good car, and will entertain any promising candidate, irrespective of the number of cylinders, country of manufacturer or price tag. My literary heroes, in no particular order, are P.J. O'Rourke, Jack Baruth, Jamie Kitman and Ezra Dyer. Jeremy Clarkson is an undeniable influence in my writing, and while I envy his fame, fortune and seemingly bottomless expense account, his editorial inconsistencies are too transparent for me to abide by.

It's funny that the starts aligned in such a way that Banovsky has effectively mentored me and pushed me to where I am right now. He is, without question, a journalist, who has come up with an iron-clad, publicly available set of ethical principles - who else has done that? In addition to that, he is undeniably a pioneer in using social media tools to reach new readers, with the #carchat discussions, the new #carchat blog, Vlane and other, upcoming projects we have mutually discussed.

I remember one discussion we had, where I wrote my review of the Chevrolet Malibu, and recommended it. Banovsky disagreed, stating that the depreciation of a Malibu was too severe, and that consumers would be better served with a Camry or an Accord. I argued that I was objectively analyzing the driving experience of the car, and that personal finances were the sole discretion of the reader. I further posited that his commie-paternalist political views dictated that he had to stick his nose into the purchases of every man and woman, but one this is certain. This guy really cares. On the other hand, I'm a driving junkie, looking for the next high by whatever means necessary.

I wouldn't want to suggest that you don't take me seriously. Writing about cars is perhaps the only area of my life where I haven't relied on charm, bluster, family connections, deception or treachery, but rather skill, honest work and a little bit of being in the right place at the right time. It is the charm, bluster and treachery that helps me write the way I do, but I wouldn't be getting paid to do it if someone didn't think I had something to say.

Really, I'm urging you all to be careful who you trust. I am privy to a lot of information that you are not, and I know that "award winning", "respected" auto "journalists" are often egotistical scumbags, who make rock-star like demands and treat PR people like glorified rental car agents.

I'm not pulling the moral superiority card; I got two bottles of wine as a gift on my first press trip, and when I got back I drank them with my friends, and we spent the night shooting each other with pellet guns (and then gave the car a lukewarm review). I know not to take any graft, but I am a bad flyer, and am looking hard to justify accepting first class travel when I go on my next press trip. I am a great automotive writer, but I haven't earned the title of "journalist". But the current crop of writers are headed for retirement fairly soon, so I guess I should get used to airline food and deep vein thrombosis.

Soul

While recording our last podcast (episode 10), I tried to ask Michael what his criteria was for a "good car." Rather than give me a disertation on the primacy of rear-engined Czech cars, his answer was concise. He liked cars that were utilitarian and "had character". He further went on to say that he didn't like most "modern supercars, because they are products."

I then asked him, what car, since the demise of coach building (when you could conceivable have a truly individual car unlike any other in the world) not a product? It was a stupid question. When has any car not been a product, full stop?

We love to intertwine our love of cars with narratives, and advertising is the biggest enabler. Think of the mythologies of various cars. The Chevy Truck, the Jaguar XJ Vanden Plas, the Alfa Romeo Spider. Each represents something like an identity thanks to advertising and people's own longing to fashion themselves as they'd like to see fit. The greatest trick the devil (marketers) every played was convincing you that your identity is based on material goods, and cars are not immune to this. Enthusiasts often fall prey to this in a different manner.

Look at podcast 7. We joke that Nauman just wants to be James Bond, but maybe he does fancy himself as a slick super-spy, even though he freely admits that he shops for clothes at Wal-Mart. Could that be why he has such an affinity for Aston Martins and Jaguars (or is it that holdover from the days of the British Empire that seems to afflict so many former subjects)? Similarly, Michael is an uber-lefty, on the cutting edge of technology, with a fierce code of ethics, an iconoclast perhaps. Could that be the source of his antipathy for "wasteful" supercars ("The R8 is the worst Car of the Year) and his love of all things bizarre(his choice for COTY; the Dodge Sprinter)?

When it comes down to it, a car is merely metal, rubber, glass a mere vessel for fluids and energy expelled as heat. No doubt it is capable of stirring some of the greatest emotions ever. Michael may claim that the R8 is atrocious, but I posit that you have to be dead inside to not be thrilled by it. But in the end, is it merely a collection of the aforementioned materials, as nice as the gated shifter, leather dash and cross drilled rotors may be.

It's for this reason I can never truly be attached to a car, specifically my own. For all the times I've worked on it, for all the pleasure it has given me on barely lit backroads and despite the devestation I would feel it it were to catch fire, be stolen or plow into a guardrail, I am prepared to part with it at a moments notice, collect my money (or insurance payout) and move on. I have not named it. Endowing a car with human characteristics is foreign to me, and borders on disturbing. The car makes me feel alive, but I know that it is inanimate. The closest I've come to feeling that an automobile was a sentient being was upon returning the S2000 after my week-long press review had come to an end. But it was merely disheartening to know that I would not drive one again for quite some time.

With regards to "soul", "character" or "being a product", I take Jack Baruth's dim view of these characterizations.

Soul is a crutch, a cop-out, a shield behind which the harried hack may hide everything from laziness to journalistic incompetence to plain, simple bias or hatred.

We must ask ourselves at what point do these platitudes merely become a mask for a truly awful vehicle. The MGB, with its hairy steering, awful brakes and wonderful, carbureted powerplant, has "soul", because it evokes the spirit of "motoring". I say that it is absolute crap, but its legion of apologists help perpetuate the myth that it is a superlative automobile.

Similarly, Sam Burnett's Carchat post bothers me when he admonishes Kia for naming their car the Soul. The name "Soul" is meaningless, it was likely trademarked by Kia a decade ago, when, like most OEM's, they came up with a bunch of names and locked them down in advance. It is totally meaningless and empty, just like the drooling and mythologizing we do over all manner of cars.

I feel that a fair number of people are reluctant to admit this, because at that point, your entire devotion to the automobile loses its meaning. For me, I rationalize this in two ways, for two very different types of cars. When I review a car, I judge it objectively on its merits. Is it a worthy competitor relative to others in its class? Does it set out to do what a car in it's class should do? This is how you judge a Chevrolet Malibu, and it's important to remember that even with a Malibu, a Caravan or the most wretched beige Camry, someone (especially if it was a Japanese compact) really did put their heart and (pardon me) soul into this car.

For the second class of cars, the answer is much simpler. Does it put a smile on my face, fill me with rapturous joy and compel me to try and almost kill myself just to try and go that little bit faster? If the answer is yes, you might end up with this.

Economy Of Whores

Last weekend, while sitting at a friends Montreal apartment, we were indulging in our usual weekend routine; drinking a big bottle of rye and watching rap videos from our junior high school days on Youtube. All of a sudden, my friend jumped up from the couch and comandeered the laptop, right as the climax of Ja Rule's seminal ballad "Livin It Up" began to play.

"Have you heard of Justin Beiber?" "No? Ohmigod, let me show you."

For those of you without pre-teen daughters, Justin Beiber is an international sensation, a 14 year old Canadian, who is sort of like an urban Jonas Brother. As we sat there, we came to a few realizations.

1) Girls (not just 12 year olds, but females our own age) were into this stuff

2) He was making more money and crushing higher caliber ass than we were

3) We kind of liked the song, although it was a mixture of disgust and envy

After playing it for the fourth time and calling poor Justin every emasculating insult in the book, I declared that it was time to stop. My reasoning was that every time we clicked on his video, we helped him get richer.

This is the problem with the so-called link economy, and the title of this post, as well as some of the content, may seem misogynistic to the less well-read, but if you have good taste in non-fiction literature, you'll pick up the reference immediately.

The great thing about the link economy is it's a great way to authentically build buzz. If your stuff is great, it will get passed around, and you can build fans by word of mouth, one of the best but hardest ways to spread your message.

The downside is that even something so transparently insidious as the CTS-V challenge will get "buzz" and help build the "brand" (I fucking hate that word), because marketers know that big mouth keyboard jockeys will express their displeasure about it.

Take a recent addition to The Globe and Mail's auto section. There is an absolutely wretched column there, which I won't link to, because I don't want to give it any further exposure. However, the premise is some Carrie Bradshaw-esque advice column, and the innagural question is;

I just started dating a guy who drives a flashy new BMW convertible. His car impresses me but what's behind the wheel? Should I cut it off now?

Obviously, the answer is equally insipid, but my own advice, to both the letter-writer and the columnist, is "drink a gallon of Dran-o".

This column, aside from being a cynical ploy to get more female readers (which is insulting; my Mum knows what exotic car was partly developed by Formula One World Champion Ayrton Senna, among many other things), they know that this column will be crucified by angry, misogynistic gearheads. But that's ok, because The Globe wants to drum up publicity for their newly launched Drive section.

Thankfully, stunts like this mean that the Globe's automotive coverage will always be second rate compared to the Toronto Star, which, for all intents and purposes is a commie rag that I wouldn't let my dog use as toilet paper. BUT, they have the best auto writers in Canada, bar none, and a fair number of them are female. Jil McIntosh and Kathy Renwald are superb, and I'm pretty sure that Jil would kick my ass on the racetrack. And they don't need glamour shots or fluffy advice columns.

Last One To Leave, Turn Out The Lights

I'm not old enough to remember the milk man, or the diaper service, but I know that before my voice dropped, there used to be a wizened old guy, probably Calabrese, who would push a hand cart and ring a bell, letting everyone know that the knife sharpening man was coming around. I don't know what compelled him to do this in an area of laser knives, the constant firesales as "Bed Bath and Beyond and our disposable culture, but every week, he was out there, hunched over, dragging his cart and ringing his bell. The only time I ever saw anyone use his services was when the contractor who renovated our basement had his chisels sharpened. Eventually, he stopped coming around, and a younger, but still middle aged guy started coming, once a month, with a big truck and a bell. I don't see them anymore.

I know more than a few people whose occupations don't really exist anymore. One of the finest men I know was a salesman for Singer sewing machines. Back when the garment district existed, he sold to every single pseudo-sweatshop and maker of cheap quality clothing. This man, born and raised in post-WWII Germany would go to the shivah of every single Holocaust survivor in the neighborhood, as a means of atoning for his countries sins. Still, he saw his livelihood basically wiped out.

I can think of countless stories of good people who dedicate their life to an occupation only to see it obliterated. The shoemaker, the tailor, the furrier, the hat maker, all fixtures of a pre-globalized life. My own grandfather, who had a department store (a relic in its own right) started out as a peddler. A peddler. The most archaic of all sales jobs (if you can call it that).

I'm diverting from our regularly scheduled program, because more and more, the consensus is that the best days of motoring will soon be behind us.

It doesn't matter what you think the cause is; global warming, peak oil, the "relentless war on speed" (thanks for that, Clarkson) the complete clusterfuck of an economy we have. All of that could be hype, but the social pressures on car companies is enough that anything remotely exciting is being euthanized at the expense of hybrid/electric/green machinery.

And what if any of the aforementioned catastrophes really does occur (and let's face it, our current way of life is going to come to a halt very soon, for one reason or another). Then we're completely fucked. We're going to have to accept electric powered glorified golf carts that eek out a 200-mile range. Or walk.

The question is this. Should I dedicate a good portion of my youth to clawing through the ranks of automotive journalism, and try and milk it for all its worth, risking the prospect of the auto industry imploding on itself, or should I do something else and feebly attempt to do this as a side job, and watch it inevitably get swept away by the Unholy Trinity of a wife, children and mortgage payments?

I love to write. I love cars. It should be a natural fit. I always encourage my friends to follow their dreams, no matter how absurd, rather than eek out a pointless middle managerial existence.

On the other hand I would be downright miserable living on a meagre salary having to write articles about dreadful cars that use things like "range", "amps" and "DC motors" as performance benchmarks. Being Kim Jong-Il's personal sarin gas guinea pig is a much more enticing career prospect.

The electric car Politburo will tell you that battery powered cars make all their torque at 0 rpm, and its only a matter of time before we can unlock unprecedented performance from them. But for the same reason the Nissan GTR is utterly boring, I am apprehensive about electric motoring. Many of us forget, in the endless hype of skidpad numbers, 0-60 times and even fuel economy ratings, that numbers don't mean much. Can you really tell the difference between hitting 60 in 3.2 seconds, or 3.6? What about 4, or even 5 seconds? The butt dyno is only as good as the biases attached to the brain, and for everything else, you need to have that howling VTEC engine, the woosh of the turbocharger, the crisp notchiness of a great gearbox and the acrid stench of brakes that do not have any regenerative technology. A Tesla might be able to out drag a good number of cars, but a 1-speed gearbox and thousands of laptop batteries makes it as exciting as soft porn.

Nobody does auto journalism for the money. We do it because we want to drive cars that you, the public, will never even see with your own eyes. The perks of first class flights and five star hotels were bonuses, but with the transparency of the internet, not taking any graft is a much better choice.

When I picked up the S2000, it was the first day of my senior year of University, and I skipped a very important class to go get it. The week before, I was in a bit of a panic about what I was going to do with myself once Mum and Dad turned off the taps. And once I got on the DVP to go to school, all my worries fucked off. I was taking a butterfly blade to the road, listening to the engine scream, slamming through the gears at an aboslutely belligernt pace. I did two perfect heel toe downshifts, and slid the New Formula Red rolling penis right up to the front of the Journalism building, parking illegally for everyone to see. I couldn't believe that you could get paid to do this.

But take away the cars (and the delusions of grandeur), and what's left? Another career in a dying industry that I don't really respect. Like my grandpa, I have a serious entrepenurial spirit. Mixed with my creative bent, I come up with some good ideas that I habitually write down. I have other interests beyond four-wheeled, motorized vehicles. I'm starting to wonder if it's time to quit while I was ahead. At the very least, I can tell my kids that Dad once drove cars for a living, and they were powered by something called gasoline. But at the same time, I never want to be sitting behind a desk, having to ask a boss for one week off so I can go to some shitty resort in Jamaica, listening to office politics and absurd policies about sexual harassment and diversity, wondering what could have been.

Fraud

You might not know it, but I have a variety of interests outside the automotive world, and I find one of the best ways to keep up with them (and learn more about new topics) is through blogs. It ammuses me when I reach the intersection of automobiles and any other given topic. With the bailouts of 2009, there was the requisite blog chatter, and most of it was awful. On my own site, I called out people like Jeff Jarvis, Seth Godin and Mark Cuban, who, unable to step outside of the Web 2.0 hype bubble, wrote truly myopic drivel about the auto industry and its future.

I'm currently trying to learn more about economics and finance, and have subscribed to a blog called Zero Hedge. Ostensibly authored by a disgruntled Goldman Sachs trader, Zero Hedge is pretty controversial, but I enjoy it for its misanthropic "we-are-all-fucked-and-our-world-is-a-scam" perspective. Today I came across an interesting article entitled "You Suck At Central Planning".

Of course, I sent this to some friends and family who would be interested. Michael notes that he has gone for a ride in the pre-production Volt and "it will do what GM says it'll do." Like most automotive pieces written by non-automotive writers, certain things
aren't taken into account - like the substantial amount of time it takes to develop any vehicle, let alone a "game-changer" like the Volt. Nonetheless, I found it interesting how the automakers managed to essentially swindle Washington out of money. Michael points out that "Being a grant, that money is lost forever and does not have to be repaid," but that shouldn't take away from the insiduous and cynical nature of how the money was procured. If there really was a plan to posture about making EVs for the sake of getting more funding, and the intention was to never follow through with them in the first place, then isn't that fraud? Reading things like this, especially the rest of Zero Hedge, brings to mind the words of Mencken

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats."

A Bloodless Coup At Chrysler As History Repeats Itself

A few weeks back, I found a great deal on Ebay, and spent money I didn't really have on two Acura NSX Hardcover books and a promotional VHS tape. I already have an NSX book and the VHS tape, but my book is a little ripped. One of the books for sale was in good condition, but the other was still in it's original shrink wrap. For the price, I had to buy the shrink wrapped version. A decent one can go for $100 alone, and I paid a lot less than that for all three items. So I got some extra crap I didn't need, but also got something pretty damn valuable as well. Just like Sergio Marchionne.

Marchionne is the head of FIAT and the architect behind their plan to buy Chrysler. FIAT just announced a major restructuring of of the Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep lineup, and essentially, they're being gutted. Among the products slated for the abbatoir are the PT Cruiser, Sebring, Caliber, Nitro, Avenger, Caravan, Commander, Compass and Patriot.

Believe me, there is no love lost for any of these products. Every single one of them is a dog, in the worst possible way. But after they're gone, the brand's product lineup is downright skeletal. I've previously advocated for such a radical restructuring of Chrysler's lineup. Of course, FIAT should really Chrysler a bone and help them out with some new product, but they won't.

The preliminary restructuring plans show that Alfa Romeo is going to return with a full product lineup, and FIAT will be using the next-gen LX platform for their own cars. There won't even be any product in the pipeline for until roughly 2011 or later. So where does that leave Chrysler/Dodge? Pretty much fucked. Now, Chrysler could become an upmarket luxury brand, just like it once was, with Dodge as the "blue collar performance" brand. Jeep will always be Jeep, but there's a very good chance it could end up being sold. The problem is, none of this is really feasible. Chrysler as a brand is about as strong as a premature infant and Dodge can't survive on two muscle cars alone. With Alfa being positioned as a premium luxury sports brand , Chrysler and Dodge are going to be royally screwed unless they get an injection of product, or a serious re-positioning. Neither looks likely to happen. Furthermore, it's very likely Chrysler and Dodge will not survive the next two years, and the new product will never see the light of day.

That is probably the outcome FIAT is hoping for. When Marchionne was looking at buying Chrysler, he wasn't looking at buying a car company, but a dealer network. Pretty much every small town in the U.S.A and Canada has one of each of the Big Three dealerships, in addition to several franchises in larger urban areas. These dealerships are often pillars of the local economy, supporting youth sports teams, local charities, bingo nights and other community events. Rather than start from scratch, Marchionne and FIAT can tap into this immense network and have access to a much greater market share than practically any other foreign automaker (hint, next time you're in a small town, trying looking for Japanese, European or Korean cars. You can count the number on one hand). There's also assembly plants. FIAT will now have access to numerous assembly plants across North America, and can build all of their products locally to save all kinds of costs. Who knows, maybe Alfa Romeos will actually be reliable again, although between the Italian reputation for shoddy workmanship and the CAW/UAW reputation for stuffing soda cans inside fender liners, it's a bit of a toss-up.

I've already seen Chrysler dealers advertising in local newspapers, branding themselves as Chrysler FIAT dealers, so the transition is obviously underway. The irony is that Chrysler was run by Cerberus, a private equity firm, for quite some time, and private equity firms are notorious for buying companies, stripping them of assets, and leaving them to bleed out and die. FIAT looks to be on a similar course.

The CTS-V Challenge Is A Farce

The CTS-V challenge is tomorrow, and it's getting far too much play on the Internet. If you agree with Jack Baruth's seminal essay on the illegitimacy of Nurburgring times, you should also boycott this thinly veiled PR stunt.

The whole thing started when Bob Lutz agreed to take on all comers in a stock four door performance sedan which seems fair enough. Jalopnik agreed to take them up on the challenge, and tried to procure one of the 6.3L AMG Mercedes cars. There was a minor kerfuffle when Mercedes denied their request, and Jalopnik supposedly snatched SpeedSportLife's Jaguar XFR from under them. Then Jaguar pulled out, stating that the XFR was not meant for track duty.

Now Jalopnik is going to field an Evo MR, and Jack is going to run his personal car, an Audi S5. Unfortunately, one of the rules is that the challenging car "must be a sedan within the CTS-V competitive set". Basically, GM has sole discretion to say "fuck you" to a challenger they don't like. The EVO MR is decidedly not a CTS-V competitor, and the S5 isn't even a sedan. Oh, and Lutz doesn't even have to race, since they have John Heinricy as their wringer.

With Mercedes, Porsche and BMW not allowing their press cars to be entered in this event, the field is a bit starved for talent, but is it any wonder they wouldn't capitulate to this fuckery?

You really can't bullshit the populace anymore, unless they want to be deceived. People will go along with the GTR Nurburgring story because everyone loves the GTR. There is no love lost for GM.

Before I get any more hate mail from Camaro/GM fan boys, I think the CTS-V is an awesome car. I have no doubt it is capable of stomping the competition. But the CTS-V Challenge is a dishonest publicity stunt, the "Balloon Boy" incident for the automotive world. Unfortunately, the automotive blogs are acting as the Wolf Blitzer Situation Rooms (Jalopnik first and foremost), breathlessly reporting every detail when we should have all turned our backs and counted are blessings that such a fantastic car even exists, and that its produced by Government Motors no less.

Follow the saga here