By Peter M. DeLorenzo
Detroit. Twenty-two years ago, I opened the very first issue of Autoextremist.com with the following:
The Bare-Knuckled, Unvarnished, High-Octane Truth.
You’ve come here for a reason. You’re either curious, bored, or in some internet-fueled haze that’s taken over your body and turned you into a quivering jellyfish that has lost all concept of time and space. Well, for whatever the reason, welcome. I’m not going to sit here and make promises about what Autoextremist.com will or won’t do for you. I will say, however, that you will not read anything like it when it comes to the weird world of automobiles, because the people here are the most committed automotive enthusiasts in the world. So much so, that we operate in a dimension that other so-called “car people” find bewildering and even frightening. The Truth will do that to people. Especially in Detroit, which is one of the strangest places on earth. This place is dominated by the automobile companies. Ford in Dearborn. DaimlerChrysler in Auburn Hills. And of course, General Motors, who appropriately enough, has taken over the monolithic Renaissance Center on the Detroit river. And we mean dominated. People outside of this city can’t comprehend how dominant and pervasive the automobile business is in this town. It is stifling. Oppressive. Demented. And flat-out crazy. Executive changes merit front page space in the daily newspapers and lead stories on the local TV news. It is beyond being a “company town.” It is a company philosophy. A company social structure. Company clubs. Company communities. Company morality. And of course, company cars. And it isn’t just the car companies themselves. It’s the multi-billion-dollar juggernaut suppliers like the Lear Corporation, all the way down to the guy who knew how to work a lathe pretty well, who is now knocking down a million a year out of some skanky building in Madison Heights. Yup, it’s crazy alright. Which brings me to our lead story for Autoextremist.com No. 1…
It’s hard to understand the impact of those words now, but believe me, this was revolutionary stuff at the time, unheard of and totally unexpected. After the first emails went out announcing the website – I had stumbled upon a media list from a car company’s PR department and used it to great effect – the buzz grew exponentially. I wrote about things that the mainstream automotive press would only talk about in off-the-record or deep background conversations with PR operatives, usually at the bar when no one else was listening. I wrote about subjects that were taboo, blatantly calling out major screwups, and horror of horrors, calling out the individuals responsible and naming names. Oh my, that just wasn’t done around here.
Indeed, for me, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The ad biz had become overrun by spineless weasels, recalcitrant twerps and enough bloviating fools to make my skin crawl, and that was just on the client side. The agency side had its own rogues’ gallery of unrepentant, unmitigated assholes, egomaniacal empty suits, and a laundry list of vacuous, small-minded “Leader-Emperors” with no clothes who specialized in daily humiliation and condescension because it made them feel better. It wasn’t pretty.
And after three months of doing this site under an assumed name, it was time to go. (At my last meeting at Campbell-Ewald, the head of the agency closed the meeting with, “Hey, have you guys read that website Autoextremist.com? I know he’s in advertising, because he knows too damn much.” A few nodded yes. I remained silent, thinking to myself, “I gots to go.”)
As I have told my readers many times, there was no “plan” with AE. It was just me and WG creating commentary and content that was laser-accurate and uncomfortably scary to this town. Remember, this was a place that was used to existing in a “bubble” of rote press release regurgitation and endless softball stories passing for “coverage” of the auto industry. Everyone was walking around in a blissfully unaware stupor – that is, until we came along.
One thing that absolutely drove the upper hierarchy of the automotive companies bonkers and still does was the fact that I had the unique ability of knowing the auto executive mindset like no other. I knew what they thought and why they were thinking it almost before they did. It was an innate ability that I developed over the years after being exposed to countless executives in this business. And to be blunt, it scared the shit out of them. I lost count of the executives who have told me personally over the years something like, “I don’t know how you do it, but it’s like you’re in the room with us.” This was usually followed by, “I don’t like what you write about us but it’s so damn accurate and you’re usually right, which really pisses me off.”
Everyone was convinced I had moles everywhere, especially Sergio and his minions out in Auburn Hills. The reality? I just knew what those guys were thinking before they even thought it. And it indeed pissed them off. Sergio even sent his PR minion out to have dinner with me and scope me out. The guy actually used the word “inconsequential” to describe me to my face, and it was one of the most unpleasant dinners I’ve had in my career – and I’ve had a bunch of ‘em – but if I was so “inconsequential” why did FCA management come to a halt to pore over my latest column about them as soon as it hit the Internet? I’ve had several people who were “in the room” out there back in those days confirm to me that they were convinced I had a mole, because, “It was uncanny how you nailed what was really happening.” But I digress.
Creating content for AE every week has been exhilarating, debilitating, gratifying, frustrating and relentless. Usually all in the same day, in fact. And some days it has been “a pride swallowing siege” to quote a favorite line by Cameron Crowe. Having said all of that, it still doesn’t quite cover what it has been like over these 22 years. When I say relentless, you really have no idea. Because of the way we’ve conducted ourselves over the years our readers have come to expect a level of quality in our content that isn’t expected in other auto sites. It can be a burden, yes, but it also depends on how you look at it, because it also is a source of immense pride for us that we have established a very high standard. So, relentless it is, but frankly, at this point, we wouldn’t have it any other way.
So here we are. Yes, I have been thinking seriously about stopping the website or putting it on hiatus. Reaching the end of an era in any pursuit is fraught with peril and consumed by endless hand-wringing. Was it as good as we thought it was? Or was it even better than we realized? That’s for others to judge at this point. The thought of stopping has been a burden unto itself. When I got bounced from one of my previous advertising gigs, I took great pains to say that I refused to be labeled by who I was and it was good to be just “me” without the title.
But who’s kidding whom here? After 22 years I am The Autoextremist. It’s who I am, it’s what I do, and it will be my persona until I’m not an active participant on this planet anymore. And that is definitely not a burden. In fact, I am proud of the moniker.
We have accomplished a great deal with this website. We have rattled the sacrosanct cages, we have reduced grandiose executives to the egomaniacal weasels they truly are, and we have focused on the act of designing, engineering and manufacturing the automobile, which is still one of, if not the most, complicated endeavors on earth.
Needless to say, I don’t plan on going gently into the night. As Dylan Thomas famously wrote:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I will hammer whatever I have for all it’s worth and make every single moment count with Autoextremist.com from here on out. And I’m happy again to defer to another giant – Robert Frost – at this point:
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
So, we go on, with great pride and renewed focus and fortitude. WordGirl and I want to thank all of our readers for reading and listening over the years. And, thank you for all of the kind words that you sent to us in Reader Mail.
It has been a fantastic, glorious run, but I’m not finished. Not by a long shot.
And that’s the High-Electron Truth on our 22nd Anniversary.
Editor’s Note: Please go to “On The Table” for more on our 22nd Anniversary, and check out “Fumes” and “The Line” for our coverage of the Indianapolis 500. -WG
