With those first tentative whacks at my new iMac, I officially begin my tenure as Car and Driver’s 18th editor-in-chief. I also officially paraphrase the opening lines of David E. Davis Jr.’s column for the inaugural issue of Automobile, the magazine he started in 1986 after his second run as editor here. I got into the business of writing about cars, and into cars themselves, largely because of David E. When I went to work for him at Automobile in 1991 as a college intern, it was the fulfillment of my fevered, 19-year-old dreams. The first day on the job, I stepped into his office wallpapered with framed photos of him with Jackie Stewart, Carroll Shelby, and Jim Clark and felt as if I had entered the nerve center of American automotive enthusiasm. There he sat—large as a bear, dressed like a billionaire, and surrounded by the evidence of a life well lived. Now I step into his indelible footprints, laid down in the ’60s, as I write in the same space.
DED Jr. inspired generations of car enthusiasts with his ability to depict cars as somehow more than just machines. When David E. sets his fingers to a keyboard, the whole history of the automobile comes flooding out—short, self-contained stories of human achievement and conflict and passion. His writing made me see man’s best ambitions reflected in cars’ bodywork.
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