With Sixty to Zero, leading auto industry journalist Alex Taylor III claims to provide “an inside look at the collapse of General Motors – and the Detroit auto industry.” The book is well worth reading, but not because it actually provides this inside look. Instead, this book, atypically as much personal memoir as history, lets us peer inside the life and mind of a top auto journalist. A close read suggests why such journalists provide little insight into what really goes on inside the auto companies.
OK, so we’ve been convinced that the re-born “Lancia Stratos” isn’t just a photoshop… but honestly, we wish it was. Because then the autoblogosphere might not have spent half the week running silly headlineslike “It’s Real!” and “Headed To Production!” and “My Sophisticated Appreciation For The Iconic Lancia Stratos Just Got All Over My Favorite Pair Of Blogging Sweatpants!” The reason that these headlines need to stop are simple: 1) Nobody will ever see this car on the road, 2) it will never be offered for sale, 3) It’s not even a freaking Lancia and 4) the entire story is so knee-deep in bullshit that it’s amazing anyone pays even the remotest bit of attention to it. And since we’re speaking truth to fanboyishness, I’ll just go ahead and say it : nobody actually wants a Lancia Stratos anyway… and even if they did, they certainly wouldn’t want this new one. Yes, you heard me.
TTAC’s mission is to call it like we see it, pulling no punches. Even on Facebook, because we somehow wound up there. No really, who knows why or how we got there, it just kinda happened. While other autoblogospheric Facebook forays occasionally leave something to be desired, that doesn’t explain why we’re taking Social Media seriously. At least now.
Editor’s Note: Legendary auto journalist and TTAC inspiration Jerry Flint died this week. Rather than write a sappy eulogy, we’ve decided to let Jerry speak for himself. What follows is a speech Flint gave to GM employees at Milford Proving Grounds in October 2000. It’s feisty, passionate and deeply insightful… the kind of speech that made Jerry famous, and paved the way for sites like TTAC. Moreover, it shows just how deep GM’s problems run, and serves as a timeless warning against the worst impulses of the business. Rest In Peace Jerry… we will always remember you at your best. [Courtesy: The Olds Zone Hat Tip: Ken Elias]
There was an auto executive, he was a very high ranking GM man. You all know his name but I won’t mention it because it might embarrass him. He’s not at General Motors anymore.
I once asked this man what he would do if he found himself the chief executive of General Motors. He said, and I quote, “I would fire 1,000 executives.” End of quote. I’m not sure whether it made any difference to him which 1,000 executives, if he had anyone in particular in mind, or any thousand would do. I just tell you this to start things off.
Just how American is the new Volkswagen Jetta? When a German car company comes out with a new car, they usually release it in Germany first, so the Teutonic car bible Auto Motor und Sport can run a big multi-page review in the front of the magazine. Not only was the 2011 Jetta launched in the US, but the latest issue of AM und S carried only a half-page mini-review. In the final paragraph, the buff book explains that smaller gas engines and a variety of diesels should be available for Germany, and that
Here [in Germany], the comfortable Jetta will get a higher-quality appointments/equipment (hochwertigere Ausstattung) as well as a multi-link rear suspension.
The hochwertigere Ausstattung line is (purposefully?) vague, and could mean that the German-market Jetta will get a better-quality interior (as implied by the caption “US version with hard plastic and simple instruments”) or that it will simply come with a higher equipment level. In any case, don’t expect the German market to be thrilled by the version that we drove. Or that VW’s “Das Auto” tagline means much of anything to our Mexican-built Jetta.
Your humble editor will be appearing on America’s Nightly Scoreboard on the Fox Business channel today at 7:30 PM Eastern (4:30 PM Pacific) to discuss my NY Times Op-Ed on the Chevrolet Volt.
As much as we web-based types like to smirk at the slow death of the traditional media, the real truth seems to be that, more often than not, the internet is more of a training ground than a final destination. So it is with former TTAC reviewer Jonny Lieberman. Jonny has worked at a number of automotive blogs, including a stint at TTAC that stretched from February of 2006 to January of 2009. After TTAC, Jonny went on to become the Associate Editor at Autoblog, where he primarily focused on road test reviews. Having worked his way to the biggest car blog out there, Jonny’s ambition has taken him beyond the internet to the world of print journalism, and the halls of Motor Trend where he will become Senior Editor. In his farewell piece at Autoblog, Jonny looks back at his time in the autoblogosphere, and notes
I’ve worked at some sites filled with mega-friendly people that weren’t capable of pouring piss from a boot. Other places were hyper-competent and staffed almost totally with assholes.
Anyone want to bet that the second sentence wasn’t written with TTAC at least partially in mind? And though Jonny was never the most confrontational writer at TTAC, we certainly hope that he will bring at least a tiny bit of TTAC’s take-no-prisoners ethos to Motor Trend. Or at least the raw enthusiasm embodied in such TTAC pieces as his Audi RS4 review. Either way, his hiring helps prove that even the buff books are looking to the internet for fresh blood. The autoblogosphere may not replace the print magazines, but it cant help but have a profound effect on it. Hopefully for the better.
Noticed that things have been a little slower around here this week? Yes, well, it’s summer and I’m much harder to motivate in the summer. Also, I’ve been working on this op-ed on the Chevy Volt for the New York Times. My conclusion on the Volt?
In the end, making the bailout work — whatever the cost — is the only good reason for buying a Volt. The car is not just an environmental hair shirt (a charge leveled at the Prius early in its existence), it is an act of political self-denial as well.
If G.M. were honest, it would market the car as a personal donation for, and vote of confidence in, the auto bailout. Unfortunately, that’s not the kind of cross-branding that will make the Volt a runaway success.
The walrus is famous for being immense, powerful, and oddly lugubrious, and for having a mouth that looks like Wilford Brimley after nine hours of cunnilingus. Ditto the Lincoln.
Vanity Fair’s Brett Berk channels his inner Robert Farago and comes up with one of the more memorable metaphors we’ve heard in some time. Word to Berk: PR folk don’t tend to celebrate the metaphorical marriage of the ridiculous and the sublime as much as… well, everyone else. As we’ve learned the hard way here at TTAC, sexually-tinged metaphors can get you cut off fromthe press car gravy train faster than you can say “flying vagina.” On the other hand, devastatingly accurate metaphors delivered with little regard for their consequences have a way of endearing you to a the best kinds of readers. And that, after all, is what this whole auto writing this about. Consider us inspired!
Chrysler’s Ed Garsten breaks the last bit of bad news TheFirehouse will ever have to spin:
I wanted to let you know that on Wednesday we’ll be closing the doors at TheFirehouse.biz, our media-only blog…
We had a great time posting things you wouldn’t dare put in a news release. Things like “Friday Night, Gotta Go,” an explanation of the company’s potty break policy in response to a minor flap at one of our competitors. When coverage of recalls at domestic automakers seemed out of whack, compared with coverage for recalls by foreign companies, we listed every recall by a major Japanese competitor that had previously won a free pass in the press, and pointed out that indeed, they had recalled many, many more vehicles than the Detroit bunch.
Our biggest blowout was calling out “Big Oil” for artificially propping up fuel prices.
Over time we were playful, pointed, and took great glee in “guiding” journalists towards positive results hidden in those monthly sales reports.
The brick and mortar firehouse during the auto show has been gone for a couple of years, a victim of financial realities, and now we’ve made the tough, but logical decision, to shutter the virtual version.
O Noes! Where, oh where will the internet get its coveted Chrysler spin on the automotive industry?
A lawsuit brought in California against Toyota led to the disclosure of allegedly damning documents that could cost Toyota another huge fine if the documents contain what the lawyers say. Unless lawyers (or the media) were asleep at the wheel. According to USA Today, these documents “point to possible delays involving an earlier safety issue, one that could result in loss of steering control.” USA Today says records that are part of the lawsuit show that Toyota was dealing with cracking and breaking steering relay rods in the U.S. for at least 11 years before it recalled 330,000 pickups and SUVs in Japan to replace the rods — and 12 years before its 2005 recall of nearly a million similar trucks in the U.S.
Sounds kind of familiar. I’m not suffering from Alzheimer yet, so let’s go on a fact-finding mission to the TTAC archives … (Read More…)
The auto enthusiast community is far too fragmented to ever achieve real consensus on any issue, but if there’s a single authority on performance-oriented cars, it’s Britain’s enthusiast bible evo Magazine. So when evo bashes an enthusiast-targeted model, it’s usually worth taking note of. The latest print issue of evo includes a Chris Harris review of Audi’s range-topping RS5 coupe [online summary here], the 444 hp, V8-powered flagship of its A5 lineup, and from line one the reader can tell that something is rotten in the state of Quattro GMBH. Harris describes an attempt to blow the doors off a 328 hp S4 camera car, only to find that, three gears later, his $15k more expensive coupe had barely gained any ground on the supercharged V6-powered S4. So, what gives? (Read More…)
The auto-journo world has been a-Twitter all night about the journo’s kid who crashed a 997 Turbo.. The actual “crash” doesn’t amount to much (about fifteen grand in damage to car and house, most of it covered by insurance) but the article Peter Cheney wrote to describe the incident provides some near-priceless insight into the manner by which automotive “journalism” has become PR by another name.
About a half-hour after TTAC’s 15 Years of Compact Car Sales graph went up today, the normally enthusiast-oriented car blog Jalopnik gave the internet its own take on compact-car segment analysis with a post titled The Ford Fiesta Will Dominate The Small Car Segment. Some might question how this is supposed to jive with Jalopnik’s alleged commitment to “awesomeness,” but our concerns are far more prosaic. Examples: the absence of the Fiesta’s actual competitors like the Honda Fit, Nissan Versa and Toyota Yaris, and the absence of interior volume comparisons which would expose this “comparison” for the fraud it is. And that’s just for starters…
I received a love note from (former TTAC scribe) Frank Williams that was more than a little irk-inspiring. Frank still reads AutoWeek, but that’s not a big deal: he noticed that Senior Editor Mark Vaughn’s column on the print rag is called “Piston Slap.” Or to put it in his own words:
“I don’t know how long he’s been using it, because this is just bathroom reading material that I toss as soon as I finish so I don’t have any back issues to look at. However, I’ll bet your use of the title predates his. Sounds like the making of a snarky blog to me.”
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