I can’t believe it’s been over two years since that fateful day: March 32, 2022 — launch day for the humble auto website you’re reading right now. The Autopian. Lots has changed since then, lots has stayed the same, and lots is currently in flux. One thing that will forever remain is our site’s desire to get feedback from you, dear readers. You are what make this site work. You motivate us every morning to crank out the most Double-E articles (Entertaining, Enlightening/Educational) we can think of, and we are forever grateful. Anyway, let’s chat!
It’s been far too long since we’ve done one of these “Let’s Talk” articles with you wonderful readers, so we’ll try to do them more frequently moving forward. If you want to tell us what you’ve enjoyed about our site, what you loath about it, what you’d like to see improved, or if you just want to hang out and learn more about us authors or tell us more about yourselves, please head into the comments and bang on those keyboards.
Jason is in the hospital trying to figure out what’s going on with his recurring fevers, Matt and I are recovering from a huge week at Pebble Beach and Willow Springs Raceway (where Matt worked with our video guy Chris to organize the most epic shoot involving the 2004 Ford Shelby Cobra Concept (Codename: Daisy), a Dodge Viper, a C6 Corvette ZO6, and an original Shelby), and Mercedes is gearing up for her first international trip ever! Thomas is hopefully… you know what, lemme just ask Thomas. He always has cool stuff going on, often involving the ultimate duo: Good Food And Good Cars. From Thomas:
Oh gosh, my weekend plans involve writing some road tests, going for milkshakes at one of Toronto’s oldest ice cream shops, catching the Italian Grand Prix, figuring out what pieces I want to enter for the annual AJAC journalism awards, and possibly driving an original Series 1 Lotus Elise.
What do you have going on this weekend? What feedback would you like to give us? Let’s talk!
Can you please not have the auto-playing videos on every page, or put a thing in the page settings so that they are not auto-playing. Thanks.
And still, here I am; just lurking in the background, rarely supplying any input, only occasionally looking. Same as when I use to frequented Jalopnik. I’d think being a creative artist (mostly drawing, but occasionally comics and writing) would give me more to comment about, but I’d either have nothing worthwhile to say or let my anxiety prevent it. Sigh…
Geez,
342344345 comments. There’s nothing I can say here that hasn’t been said, so get better, Torch!Mice probably don’t appreciate being the subject’s of so much scientific experimentation.
Nothing you can say that hasn’t been said?
I trained my dog to hula hoop.
#353
I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say, more articles about Jatco-CVT-equipped-cars! They’re very advanced machines, and I feel they’re the sort of under-appreciated gem readers of this site appreciate. Let’s start with the Nissan Juke, perhaps?
You know what works about this site? It’s the “Oops! All Berries” of car magazines.
I’m as excited about normal auto journal stuff as anyone else, but The Autopian is full of stuff like deep dives on two-stroke cars from beyond the iron curtain that have strangely alluring taillights. I don’t know that such a car exists, but Torchinsky does and I’m looking forward to reading about it. Same goes for super nerdy suspension engineering explainers, sharing in the joy of filling your yard with really questionable purchases, finding every possible excuse to tell everyone how many copies of the same German microcar you own, and all the other stuff you folks do that makes you a little different and a lot of fun.
Thanks for being yourselves!
Not working on my dirtbike!
I took it for a little rip yesterday and it seems like it’s good to go for the upcoming riding season… finally. There is still a very small amount of oil weeping from somewhere, but at this point, I’m gonna just ride the thing and have fun. At some point you need to accept a 15yo bike will never be perfect.
Can we please get an update on the Jeep Kitties? Preferably with pics. Also, an update on the metro, unless I missed something, and the ZJ overland build. Other than the requested updates, Everything is great!
Yes! This is important news!
Spent the day working on the pickup. Tomorrow I’ll grab a load of landscape bricks for the yard and on Monday, I’ll just cruise around with it. It’s been a good friend, like all the Autopian cars, and deserves some fun.
Same here. Recently finished body work, painting and little things on my Jeep J10. All the while still using it for various jobs.
Going to finally get around to replacing the steering wheel airbag in my commuter Civic that some %##$% broke my driver’s side window to rip out the other day.
Other than that, very boring, resting up, getting around to doing garden and house chores and maybe some backyard grilling.
Hoping that Torch gets the fever problem sorted and he’s in better health soon!
I’ve never heard of someone stealing an airbag before. Is that a common thing or an isolated occurrence? Sorry to hear about it either way.
I really don’t know how common it is, my off-the-top-of-my-head guess would be stealing parts to order? There was another Honda Civic, different generation, parked right behind mine, so I’m guessing mine was the “right” year and theirs wasn’t. Assuming it was similar motivation when my 1993 Del Sol got stolen and half stripped before the cops found it. An expensive incident nonetheless.
I think my main worries are:
1. Jason getting better
2. David suddenly getting replaced by another dude who likes Lexuses, admires Cybertrucks and forks over for niche, expensive electric bmw’s. (He keeps mentioning a brother, hmmmmmmm)
But aside from 1) everything else is on par and what I’ve signed up for, never change!
PS. #1) is something we need to put behind us asap
Lime Rock Park for the historic races! I’ve got my 4 and 2 year old children with me. Building a future for autopia.
Keep up the great work David you always keep a level head even when some Commenters disagree , I can’t get enough of the articles from you, the insane takes from Jason and if course the rest of the crew.
Love the content and the tone of the site, that’s what gets me back everyday, multiple times a day, and makes the subscription a no-brainer. Thank you for taking about normal cars. And thanks a ton for not getting into click-bait.
I do sincerely hope you are happy with how the site is doing financially, and that it’s sustainable, because you deserve it. Please don’t do the “let’s talk” headline too often, it’s scary.
I feel horrible saying something negative because of all these Jeep kittens you all care for … But the site is soooo sluggish. Pages take a long time to open, hitting the back button after reading an article results in a pretty long lag before the main page is displayed again… I am sure if there was an easy fix it would have been implemented by now, but it would make this reader’s experience a lot more pleasant.
This
Absolute #1 complaint is lack of image hosting in the comments section. Love the content but want more inter-user engagement.
Well, after two years of being a multiple-visit-per-day kind of
freeloaderuser, I’ve finally decided to pony up the pittance required to become a low-level member of the site. First of all, thank you for all of your efforts that have resulted in the inclusive and frequently enlightening community of car nerds called The Autopian.To rattle off a few likes, I want to commend you on your variety of content; I find myself enthusiastically reading articles on taillights, motorcycles, planes, RV’s, vehicles of historical significance, and of course, the staff’s own trials, tribulations and wrench-wrangling in their daily vehicular lives. The site meets my personal content preferences quite well and still surprises me occasionally.
I also have some years of experience blogging in another niche industry, and while I obviously don’t have insight into the inner workings of The Autopian (and most folks on staff have at least as many years under their belt as I do), I had some feedback specifically for Jason and David:
Be wary of becoming victims of your own expanding skillset. I started out mainly writing and photographing, and by the end of my tenure, I was still producing core content, and also editing others’ articles, commissioning freelancers, analyzing metrics, running a social channel, performing user research, expanding core content, user moderation, video production, consulting on sponsored content, and so on. I’ve observed signs that you two are probably finding yourselves walking a similar path. I ended up burning out and took a way-out-of-left-field opportunity to start a new career in a new field.
So if you two are in this for the long haul, take care of yourselves and don’t forget your roots. You’re both excellent writers, with strong voices (quite rare) and great ideas, and your brain can only be split in so many ways. This isn’t to say that you aren’t capable of all that you are doing — I just really enjoy this site and want it to continue long into the future with your articles still prominently featured on it.
Alright, enough bloviating. Keep up the excellent work. The internet is increasingly turning into an AI-riddled, toxic-comment-filled cesspool, and this site continues to be a bright point for me. Well done to the entire staff.
I love everything about this site. Where else can I go to get my weird RV’s and tail light obsession fix satisfied? Also love seeing that talented Bishop fellow comes up with these cool concept car/what could have been drawings. Love the cranky British dude bitching about styling and then his next article will be full of cool styling clays and renderings of a new car being created. Love Mercedes’ museum tours and camping articles. Shit box show down and the morning dump speak for themselves. Like how Gossin saves cars from the crusher, heck I like every contributor on this site. I am, however, still waiting for David to live in that Aztec.
That cranky British dude isn’t really that cranky, but he is devilishly handsome and witty.
I work in the car business, so my only day off is tomorrow.
It’s the life I’ve chosen, but….meh. Thank goodness for the Fubo app, though. I’m watching college football on my phone whilst typing this at my desk.
I’m here more for the entertaining articles (Bishop, Adrian and Torch, et al). The more in-depth engineering articles, while fascinating, mostly go over my head in the same way listening to someone speak of general relativity does.
Keep up the great work, and thanks for existing!
One of the things I loved about Popular Mechanics back in the day was that the magazine would periodically start a project build and document every aspect of it and how it was going in each issue.
Can we get y’all do do that?
David,
You’ve always been my favorite automotive writer on the net. Your articles were always interesting and fun to read, mainly because you were always up to something that no one else would try. Besides great articles, your attitude, and your dirty hands, attracted a certain kind of reader. Those readers also left great comments. Those guys are quickly vanishing or are just hiding.
Of course, I realize that the move to California means things will change, but the change has been huge. In other words, if I wanted to read about a guy who collected Jeeps and repaired them in his living room, there was only one place to go. If I want to read about the latest over priced electric Lexus? Well, that’s just it. I don’t. But if I did? Take your pick of any auto website. I’m hanging in here, mostly because of Mercedes. She’s great!
This place is slowly turning into Jalopnik, and that’s sad. Just read the comments to see the difference. And before the comments from professionally offended, snarky Jalopnik snobs start attacking me, yes I admit, I’m the Joe Dirt of Autopian readers.
I kind of have to agree. We helped you guys build this site because we wanted more David and Jason and we’ve gotten less and less of what we wanted since it started.
You have articulated this better than I did in my essay. Exactly this.
We’re trying our best! It’s not always easy, we don’t always succeed, but we always have plans and ideas and there is some really good stuff coming. We’re fallible. All I’d ask is you stick with us as much as you’re willing, because we want to keep trying to make the best car site we can.
But now David and Jason are also the bosses, so they have banal responsibilities beyond entertaining us (to say nothing of recovering from an aortic dissection), I suspect.
I kinda saw this coming, but the other contributors have filled in admirably.
Was able to read (by accident) the Autopian’s hiring letter. I’m confident the team means business and they know what they are looking for. Hoping for new shining stars in the constellation of Autopian greatness. I want more E&E. Cheers!
I once called Four Wheeler Magazine because they had ended their relationship with a writer/contributor. I called to politely voice my opinion against it and ask why they did so. I don’t remember the reason why they made their choice. What I do remember is that the editor was shocked that I had been a subscriber for over ten years. He stated that most subscribers lasted a year on average at the time. I never forgot that.
Readers come and go. Writers evolve to try new things. We all have stories we love and stories we hate. Hopefully they can find someone to pick up on the build projects.
I know I get involved in some of the more toxic comments and maybe I shouldn’t, but I have a real problem when someone enjoys what they are driving, and another tries to suck the life out of it or shame that person’s choice because the commenter does not like that vehicle. I find it wrong, and I will fight against it. I have a simple code here that I would hope is the baseline for Autopians: All vehicles are good. Each is loved by their owner as the next and the owner deserves the respect of enjoying it as much as any other enthusiast.
Here’s my reason: One summer I was headed home on a main highway. I had spent the day helping a family member move. My truck was used to pull a cargo trailer full of furniture. I spent hours helping them start the next chapter of their life. Traffic was light and the air had lost some of its harshness as the sky had entered its golden hour. I had the windows down and the radio off to drink in the moment. A Porsche 911 came out to enjoy the cooling air followed by a Dodge Viper. They skirted down the road looking for their own adventure. Soon after a Maserati pulled out ahead of me. Its engine must’ve been still cold as I could smell the sulfur from the exhaust. “Just like a GM.” I scoffed to myself. “No!” I admonished myself. “I’m not going to do that. That person probably worked real hard to get that car and deserves to enjoy it as much as I am enjoying mine right now.” With that change of attitude, I continued the drive. I ended up playing leapfrog with the Maserati along the way. Sometimes I would pass it and sometimes it would pass me. The sulfur smell dissipated within ten miles and the burble of its engine added to the soundtrack of the evening. Eventually it turned off into a newly built gated community as I continued on my way. I felt accomplished, relaxed, and happy during that point in time, and I wish for everyone to have that moment in their own life.
> All vehicles are good
I’d like to carve out an exception here for the 1989 Plymouth Horizon.
LOL!
Loved that.
Thanks. 🙂
First off, thank you James for being a loyal reader.
After 7 years of wrenching on cars 24/7, hundreds of readers emailed me telling me they wanted to read my work, but they couldn’t anymore on Jalopnik. “Go somewhere else” they said. “But there is nowhere,” they lamented.
So I went and built a new site from scratch. It’s laborious, and requires leadership. Sacrifices.
It was “wrench on cars 24/7” or build a company. I chose the latter, and hired sharp talent. I get that me wrenching on 14 cars in my backyard was epic; I miss it in some ways, too. But nobody really thought I could do that and build a company, right? Other that I, but I’m also a bit nuts. (see: starting a media company in 2022).
We will continue searching for people like SWG who can add some wrenching goodness to the site. Please send recommendations my way as you see them. That’s really the one area where I think we could crank up content: more wrenching! We’re in agreement there.
I’ll keep wrenching when I can, and editing excellent pieces from great writers (including the best technical articles on the web from real engineers), but the days of 24/7 wrenching are behind me.
And for everyone’s benefit, if you think about it. Especially my Michigan neighbor’s!
Whatever my role, I always strive to do an excellent job. When I was a staff writer at Jalopnik, that meant writing epic tales of wrenching woe and also technical deep-dives, ultimately becoming Jalopnik’s traffic leader.
As EIC/Editorial Director/COO, that means hiring the right people, setting standards for articles, editing, making strategic decisions, and on and on. I have to make sure I do a good job in these roles; that’s job 1.
Of course, I’m also in a relationship now, whereas in Michigan I was perpetually single for, quite literally, a decade straight. Not surprising given that I used to go grocery shopping in my green coveralls with my headlamp still strapped to my head and my face and hands covered in oil. But believe me when I say, for someone as social as I, this was unsustainable. I moved to CA and started The Autopian not because I disliked the old site, and not ENTIRELY because of all the requests to get out of there, but because I needed a change. I felt I had stagnated.
It makes sense that following your favorite writers means you want to read your favorite writers, and particularly stuff not too dissimilar from what you’re used to. I understand where you’re coming form on that point. At the same time, it’s worth noting that we’ve put our stamp on every story you see here. Everything from a suspension deep-dive from Huibert to a wrenching odyssey from SWG to an awesome diesel truck history lesson from Mercedes to a crazy design breakdown from Adrian to a cool story about Chinese car culture from Tycho.
I totally get that a dude flying across the world and spending a month fixing a completely hopeless Australian ute isn’t something that’s replaceable, though.
There is a potential future in which I replace myself as EIC — just put someone else in that role, I remain head of content, but more of an advisory role while I do what I did best at the old site: bring in traffic, in part, via crazy wrenching jobs. The tricky thing is finding an EIC who shares my values/vision/standards; it’s either that or find someone with the same technical background as I and who also will wrench so hard it comes close to ruining their life. Either is an extremely hard role to fill!
Finally, I’ll conclude by pushing back on comments that somehow I’ve changed or that somehow California has changed me. I’m literally exactly the same; I’ll weld up a rusty frame with a $100 Harbor Freight Welder, gravity-feed a car off a Jerry can on a wooden pole, road trip a $600 minivan through Europe and swim in the Baltic Sea. I’m still an army brat engineer who can wrench with the best of them, and who never backs down to a challenge. It’s just that, right now, I’m in the middle of a challenge more difficult than Project Swiss Cheese, Project Postal, Project Redwood, Project Slow Devil, Project Krassler, and Project Cactus COMBINED.
“will wrench so hard it comes close to ruining their life”
The internet likes slowing down to look at an accident. Maybe you could find someone whose life is already a mess that would be willing to live in an RV somewhere with a harbor freight portable garage. Give them a broken $500 car from the auction. They can order parts and tools from the internet with slow shipping, but have to eat rice and beans until they can drive the car out. Then after the car is fixed, make up some story like they sold it and blew the money on something frivolous or bet it all on black at the casino. We as the audience want to be worried about starvation if some random car does not get fixed.
I feel sorry that you have to defend your self and your life’s choices from the internet on all of these post David,hopefully that will blow over soon. Change is good as long as it is done by yourself and from a wish to have a better life and we all need to do so sometimes. You and Jason starting this site was a good thing and moving and everything after that has probably been nothing but positive for you. Hope Jason is doing well now and that you all can keep this going. With that said,I want more podcasts with you two,maybe you can put it as a membership thing.
I also hope you get the comments,especially the notifications fixed soon,it’s one of the truly great things about the site.
We would all love to see more David and Jason articles, but I think we all want this site to succeed more than anything else. I know how hard it is to build a business from scratch, and you guys are doing a great job. Keep up the good work.
Greep jeep will forever live in my heart, let’s pause for a moment to remember the greep jeep
“I totally get that a dude flying across the world and spending a month fixing a completely hopeless Australian ute isn’t something that’s replaceable, though.”
I would say that it’s still possible to find that person even though it has to be the right person- there’s gotta be someone out there who can do that; that being said you are irreplaceable in that sense…but it would still just be a different personality; and we would still have your L.A. wrenching articles. Just have to say that Project Cactus was my favorite collection of articles so far!
Wow! I had no idea that my comment would get so much attention! David and Jason both responded? I’m honored!
David, You’ve done a wonderful job creating this place. You wanted to talk, so I was just venting! Keep on, keeping on! Thank you for the hours of great entertainment.
He showed up for a meal at a Wolfgang Puck restaurant carrying auto parts. You can take the boy out of the rust, but not the rust out of the boy.
I’m here for the wacky articles about taillights and obscure holy grails. Every other auto blog follows the same manufacturers press cycle, so it’s boring to read or watch about the same new car in five different magazines. And new cars are just so bland these days.
Speaking of wacky topics, what’s up with fold-in mirrors that don’t actually save that much space when folded in? Looking at Mercedes in particular.
There is a sad lack of traction engine content, probably because nobody in there right mind would find enormous road going hundred year old steam engines fun. Also it is impossible to get your hands clean. I an typing on my steam engine keyboard,between shows. Tonight is a party night, using the thing as a generator for an electric folk evening, tomorrow is a harvest festival, the plan is to pull six 40ft trailers with all things harvesty on them, (mainly accountants and shop assistant dressed as yokel making corn dollies)
The steam engine keyboard is an environmental problem all of it’s own.
The sad lack is likely to continue, but please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t give up!
Criticism like competition is a good thing. It keeps you on your toes. I can’t imagine having to wake up every morning needing to find an interesting topic to write about! The site does have its glitches but what doesn’t? Would adding content about your home garage be acceptable? Did you know they make track less garage door openers?
Keep up the good work and go wrench on Jason.
Trackless?!
Yes one system attaches to and spins the torsion bar. The other one folds the panels up inside the door (truly trackless)
They also have roll up garage doors, that’s my plan when I rebuild the old garage next year.
IndyCar weekend in Milwaukee! That’s my car related activity for the holiday weekend. As far as the site goes, I love it, keep up the good work. I come for the entertaining, well written articles, and stay for the fun in the comments section. It’s a nice community that’s been built here. I feel like you guys make stops and starts on the video side, and whatever happened to the podcast? You’ve gotta be consistent in those areas to find any success there. Maybe partner with people who do that work to build a consistent schedule and improve quality? Someone like Klapman or something?
I generally like the site and visit it several times a day. The minutiae can be intriguing (taillights, random buttons), but one thing J-nik does better is their daily NP/ND (versus your Shitbox Showdown). The only other negative is that some articles seem to have way too many random photos, especially recent ones with girlfriends . . .
Whatever anyone may think about Jalopnik, Rob Emslie is a treasure, beavering away, week after week, year after year.
unloading a boatload of rocks from the bed of a Nissan Frontier, hoping to have a bit of fun taking the GLI around this weekend.
As for the site, there are few issues here and there, but my major concern is that Jason gets better and keeps writing for another 100-150 years. Everything else can kick rocks if you all could make that little dream come true!!!