Who Killed The Car Journalist?
Ford GT going into Turn 8 at the 2016 Long Beach Grand Prix.
Originally published in December 2023.
Words and Photo by Michael Zurvalec
Remember the days when awards like Car of the Year from Motor Trend used to mean something to consumers? Remember the days when you made it big in the aftermarket by getting your car or your products on the cover of Hot Rod or Popular Hot Rodding and the magazines had relevant content aimed at their readers? I do.
I grew up, at least a little, around publishing. After I was born, my mom stepped down as Managing Editor of a motorsports trade magazine and continued to freelance for them for about another decade or so. If you don’t own a shop, sell speed parts, or manage a racetrack fighting for survival you’ve probably never heard of Performance Racing Industry Magazine. PRI is a niche publication with less of the pomp and circumstance of a publication like Hot Rod and focuses on the business side of our hobby. They cover things like trends in sponsorships, business, legislative developments and so forth. They also put on the annual PRI show in Indianapolis where, as I understand it, the aftermarket can get together in the shadow of Indianapolis Motor Speedway without the tire-frying antics of a production like the SEMA show in Las Vegas.
But personally, PRI was a gateway to experiences I would have never had otherwise. It led me down a rabbit hole that had me watching Overhaulin’ on TLC and reading Hot Rod when I should’ve been doing my math homework. When Hot Rod launched a little show called Roadkill in 2012, I eagerly followed along from print media into YouTube as a teen and later onto MotorTrend Plus after a couple corporate buyouts.
In the almost twenty years since I first picked up that copy of PRI Magazine, I’ve been able to go on an absolutely wild ride. I met Chip Foose at a meet ‘n’ greet in Pomona, got to celebrate 65 years of Hot Rod Magazine in 2013 with an insane gathering of feature cars at the Fairplex, and I’ve been able to stand right on the fence at track level when the Top Fuel cars clear the top end at Pomona. I watched someone rear-end a tow truck during the last-ever Toyota Pro Celebrity Race in Long Beach, took a Christmas card photo in the seat of some guy’s bracket drag racer in the 7th grade, and I’m actually in the background of a couple shots in an issue of DSPORT magazine event coverage at Fontana. I think I was in line for the taco truck or something like that. In short, the mid-2010’s were an absolutely wild ride for someone who couldn’t even work yet. Finnegan and Freiburger were off trying to drive a Ranchero to Alaska…again, car YouTube was at its most ridiculous, and Ford was even back at LeMans with an all-new GT. Car people were out to have fun and car journalists were out to document it.
Unfortunately, as they say, all good things must come to an end and after the death of Popular Hot Rodding in 2014 the times began to change. By 2018, MotorTrend YouTube content was behind a paywall now called Motor Trend Premium and by 2019 TEN Publishing had announced that 19 of its titles would live on only as brands and digital content. Now, with quiet announcement that even Hot Rod itself is set to become a quarterly publication from January of ’24 I believe that we’re well and truly at the end of an era. Just like the 1950’s, the hot-rodder is public enemy #1 and the world is changing. It’s a shame too because some of the greatest innovations in motor transport have just begun. Alternative fuels, alternative powerplants, and developments in the very science and technology that drive us forward are truly fascinating to follow but they don’t generate the clicks or impressions they need to be viable. You’re either Cleetus McFarland or HeavyDSparks on YouTube wrecking stuff for no reason ‘cause you’re rich or Johnny Lieberman getting drunk on his friend’s podcast while trying to downplay the environmental crisis of EV batteries. That’s not journalism, in fact it’s not even entertainment anymore because we’ve been indoctrinated as a society to believe anything and everything that we’ve seen on the interwebs. At the end of the day, the question still remains: who killed the car journalist? We can blame the EPA, we can blame media conglomerates like Discovery, we can even blame the readers or viewers but personally, I think the car journalist is a victim of their own success.
Editors Note, Feb. 2025: In November 2024, Warner Bros/Discovery announced the shutdown of MotorTrend Studios and the cancellation of all MotorTrend Original Programing. Motor Trend print titles were also acquired in a seperate deal by Hearst Communications. Strange times.
~MZ
