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Before we delve into our daily news bulletin, TTAC is proud to announce two additional contributors. Former Autoweek Associate Editor Blake Z. Rong will be contributing to the site starting later this quarter. In addition, Doug DeMuro will be returning to TTAC as a contributor, starting later this month. We are thrilled to be publishing the work of two of the best young writers in the business.
- Nissan and NASA have inked a deal to collaborate on autonomous cars.
- Russia has banned individuals with “disorders of sexual preference” from driving.
- Land Rover is launching final editions of the Defender, including the lovely Heritage edition (above).
- Next Nissan Titan teased again.
- North Dakota’s Bakken Shale needs prices of $55 to break even. Currently, the benchmark price is $48.40
61 Comments on “While You Were Sleeping: January 9th, 2015...”
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I’d love to have Mr. Regular and the Roman here, too; Jalopnik can’t have all the fun, after all. That, and I want to be the next one to take Mr. Regular’s phone calls.
This. I’d love to see RCR on TTAC. They have the really good writing, and that’s a big part of TTAC’s appeal.
“Russia has banned individuals with “disorders of sexual preference” from driving.”
I do apologize if this seems trite, but I would wager that, when the biography is written decades from now, Vladimir Putin (or someone very high up in his organization) will have been revealed to have been struggling with repression of his own sexual identity.
Why else would he do all those hypermasculine photo-ops, right? Anyway, not that I had planned on visiting Russia anytime soon, but I guess I definitely won’t be driving there at all now. Thank Putin!
Could I change your mind if I told you it was Mevdev?
Or is Russia FIRMLY saying that they believe LGBT is trend based and not a biological condition. Perhaps Russia is saying we will not sell…
@Nessuno, no you wouldn’t change anyone’s mind. Mevdev is Putin’s ventriloquist dummy.
My favourite was the amphora he pulled from the Black Sea that were so very neat and clean for sitting at the bottom of a lake for a millenia.
Whilst wearing a skin-tight wetsuit.
Haha it is truly getting ridiculous. The true reason for all of this legislation is strictly appealing to the incredibly rigid, socially conservative nature of many working class and non-urban Russians, that make up the backbone of Putin’s 80%+ rating. Same as all of the social issues discussed in the election cycle here in the US, basically vote buying and distracting people from the real issues of the economy, foreign policy, civil liberties, etc.
I read one of the stories that came about regarding the “Russian Driving Laws” and the author commented – Despite pictures like this one (picture of Vlad on his horse shirtless) Putin has vigorously pursued restrictions on homosexuals.
I would agree that someone high up in the Russian government is wayyyyyyyyyy too preoccupied with sex and sexuality.
“I would agree that someone high up in the Russian government is wayyyyyyyyyy too preoccupied with sex and sexuality.”
So is most of our own Congress.
Yup, except our Congress has the bathroom solicitation citations to prove it.
I remain convinced that the biggest difference between the two countries is that no one arrests members of the majority party in Russia. For anything. Or else.
P man will be riding in the back of his limos from now on it seems
“The lady (Premier) doth protest too much, methinks”
More Demuro = good thing. 2015 is looking better and better for TTAC!
Talk about Republican Cognitive Dissonance…………….
Many would be applauding the Russian Government’s anti-gay stance if it wasn’t for the fact they are just rebadged Godless Commies.
The irony………the irony.
“Doug DeMuro will be returning to TTAC as a contributor, starting later this month. We are thrilled to be publishing the work of two of the best young writers in the business.”
Since BOTH Derek AND Jack have criticized his content, writing style, departure from TTAC, and subsequent work at Jalopnik, it smacks as just slightly hypocritical for A) him to return and B) him to be praised so highly for returning.
Truly, what the hell.
I am confused as well.
If you thought this was exciting, there’s more on the way…
Is Bertel coming back too?
What that horrible misogynist? With S&M photos right in your inbox?
He’s great, and a credit to the automotive writing profession! Can’t believe we got rid of him before, what a mistake!
/s
Not quite.
Something’s afoot…
So Doug is coming back , good thing for some of us, and no Bertel , also a good thing at least to me, but more folks are coming back according to Derek, so with Doug at one end and Bertel at the other, that leaves a large amount of people.
Hopefully this means Steve Lang and his used cars reports and Mike K with his car reviews are coming back.
I was surprised by Doug’s return since the way he handled his exit and his rudeness to Jack.
Farago?
“Farago?”
I miss the Farago/Berkowitz podcasts. They were what got me started here.
How about a Bark/DeMuro podcast?
I just hope doug doesn’t bring his jalop knob polishing brigade with him
If they read this, there going to have so many disapproving memes and gifs for your comment.
I think I’d rather see Alex come back.
Alex’s reviews are super informative. I’ve never read anything Doug’s written that was informative. Usually he’s just bragging about working at porsche or owning a ferrari.
If I had my choice, I’d ask for Michael Karesh’ work. Clinical enough, but not dull, and they were fair in assessing a car’s strengths and faults.
Mr. Karesh’s review on the Buick Regal was so comprehensive and fair that I was able to buy one over the phone without having to test drive it. I drive my cars for about 10 years, so you can tell that I trusted his ability.
I think DeMuro is kind of a zipperhead, but I find him funny. I don’t take him at all seriously, and he certainly doesn’t take himself seriously. Then again, I rarely take Jack seriously either – I think he is a born rabble-rouser.
I like both Alex and Michaels reviews.
“Land Rover is launching final editions of the Defender, including the lovely Heritage edition (above).”
The painful journey to irrelevance is complete. Like Jeep dropping the Wrangler to make room for the more Compass production or Porsche abandoning the 911 to focus on the Cayenne, Land Rover drives a nail through the heart of it’s founding legacy and brand identity, and officially becomes Range Rover; a purveyor of upmarket mall cruisers.
Have you driven a Defender? It’s basically unchanged since 1948: same frame, same bulkhead, same production techniques. The reason they don’t sell them in the US is because there’s no possible way to make it crashworthy without a full re-engineering.
By your standards, Henry Ford should have stuck with the original 1903 Model A (and not the 1920s aberration with the same name!). Why did he drop it for the Model C, did he not want to have a legacy?
Surely there is only one true Jeep, which stopped production soon after WWII, and everything since then is just a sullying of “it’s founding legacy and brand identity”?
I’m confused. You’re referring to demuro as one of the best young writers?
Are we losing jack?
Jack said he was going to write here “occassionally” in 2015.
We are NOT losing Jack.
Farago is going to use one of his many guns to assassinate Jack. It will be fiction, but will presented in weekly podcasts like Serial. It will catapult both of them to fame.
Yay, blog drama!
If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the garage…
Just for purposes of clarification:
We didn’t fire Doug, and Doug didn’t quit. He just wandered off and stopped returning emails when I told him that I, not he, would determine when his stories were published.
I don’t personally enjoy Doug’s work and I don’t think I’ve ever managed to read all the way to the end of anything he’s written. However, when I took over from Bertel as EIC pro tem I indicated that we would be customer-driven, not insane-perverted-secret-agenda-driven.
There’s a significant percentage of TTAC readers who would like to see Doug’s work. So Derek went out and managed to come to an agreement with him. I think this represents Derek’s commitment to serving the readers and even if you don’t care for Doug’s brand of “humor” it’s a good sign that the management is listening to the demands of the readers.
In a perfect world, every popular TTAC contributor would continue to publish work here, but not all of them are easy to deal with and in the case of at least of of them it’s like dealing with a greased-up snake that has fangs on both ends.
Such vague references to some writers make it sound like it could be almost anyone…
Who lives in suburban Atlanta and always leaves the reader wondering, “Would you buy a used car from this guy?”
I appreciate the clarification. It must have been hard for Derek to negotiate and come to some agreement with someone when he has no respect for their work. But I suppose that is the uneasy nature of business.
And hopefully there’s a clause in the agreement dictating how termination and/or resignation of employment with TTAC / Auto Guide is to be handled.
You know, I’ve been reading DeMuro over on Jalopnik and although he’s funny he kind of writes the same story over and over
I’m not sure there is such a thing as repetition when you’re talking FERRARI stories!
Yeah there is when all you do is take out FERRARI and replace it with RANGE ROVER or CADILLAC CTS-V WAGON
Did you know he wrote a book?
Yet he wouldn’t write about his G-WAGEN for some reason. Jack implied once that he lied about something regarding owning it, or something. Can’t quite recall.
I think the Germans shut him up. You VILL NOT WRITE BAD ABOUT G-VAGON
They can be persuasive
You two aren’t working very hard to make Doug feel welcome.
:)
In fact, I can’t remember what his writing was like. I suppose I shall get reacquainted with it.
It was easy. I offered terms that were fair and he accepted.
Derek, there’s a spelling error in that Cadillac story, people are getting upset
I got it from a Kanye West song. I found out he sampled Billie Holiday. No malice was intended.
Smart man
Done
Thanks, some folks are real sensitive about spelling, easier just to fix
I have to say that I applaud this decision. I love cars and I like humor. And it’s fantastic to get both at once. Jack, you do a great job of making both work in thoughtful and thought provoking ways.
I think there is plenty of room for everyone here. Sometimes I want a bit of sly dark humor and sometimes I just want to get hit in the face with a freakin’ pie, ya know?
Damn, that is one cool looking Defender.
Sadly, no neutered “city Rover” could ever have the “crossing the plains of Africa and the Australian outback in search of adventure” spirit of the Defender.
When I lived in Osaka there was a love hotel close to my office called “Hotel Africa.” One of my good buddies changed the lyrics to the famous Toto song to “I busted a nut in Hotel Africa” and used to sing it when we walked by on the way to lunch.
Thus, anytime I read something in which someone writes about “driving in Africa” I have a little chuckle. The moral of this story is that I don’t generally think of the Land Rover as the tool for that job.
Oh, and there is a whole other meaning to the great rift too – wink wink nudge nudge,
For a site called “The Truth About Cars,” regaining a writer with a steadfast commitment to avoiding facts at all costs seems to be a poor decision. Yes I’m referring to DeMuro.
DeMuro and Jack are both great, in completely different ways. Every car story does not have to take the same approach. See Consumer Reports.
DeMuro could stand to expand his range a bit, and Jack should get over his school girl crush on John Mayer, but I’ll read anything either of them writes.
More reviews would be good, too. As mentioned frequently above, both Alex and Michael’s reviews are sorely missed.