THE AUTOEXTREMIST
Sunday, May 31, 2009 at 01:16PM June 3, 2009
Ten Years After.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 6/1, 7:30PM) Detroit. Today marks the 10th Anniversary of Autoextremist.com, as incredible as that may seem to us and to a lot of other people who have been along for the ride. On the morning of June 1, 1999, I sent out a series of guerilla emails to assorted members of the media – I had absconded with a confidential media roster from a source who shall remain nameless – that all went like this: “Hey __________, wake up! Go here. Right now.” With a link to issue No. 1 of Autoextremist.com provided. Using the nom de plume Michael Paratore (a combination of my middle name and my mother’s maiden name), that very first issue of Autoextremist.com opened with the following statement:
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...
And from that point on the buzz began to build for this incendiary “thing” we had created. Cryptic emails began to pour in with comments like, “You know too much. Who the f--- are you?” and “You have to work for a car company, right?” Even the head of my last agency anchored a meeting (with me sitting right there in the room) and wondered out loud: “Who is this Autoextremist guy? Have you read the website? He has to be in advertising because he knows too damn much and it’s so right on the money. You should check it out.” I just smiled quietly to myself as the room burst into intense speculation.
Over that summer the queries and the investigations heated up. Some of my close ad colleagues began to get suspicious, one even telling me point blank, “It’s gotta be you!” He had been with me in the trenches over the years and heard too many of my “Rants” live and in color, so he knew.
The media loved a good challenge too and was buzzing about the “who-what-when-where-why-how" of Autoextremist.com and started to write stories in the mainstream press about it. The hunt was on. And we noticed something else weird happening right about then too. The media wasn’t just poring over the website to uncover the mystery, they were poring over the website because we were writing the kind of hard-hitting stuff that they could only imagine having the freedom to do. (And they freely helped themselves to story ideas from AE while they were at it.)
I worked at the ad agency by day, and cranked out Autoextremist.com by night and on weekends with my longtime editor (aka Wordgirl) and ad colleague (and tremendously talented writer in her own right) - Janice Putman - with me every step of the way as our emails burned back and forth.
By the end of that summer it was time to make a decision. I could keep doing Autoextremist.com anonymously, or I could walk away from the ad game for good and come out with guns blazing, with my real name attached.
I came out with guns blazing, of course. Was there really any other way?
So on September 28, 1999 (issue No. 18), my name appeared on the website for the first time. Some in the media back then expressed disappointment, even suggesting that I should have stayed with the nom de plume because it would have been better that way. But others took a different view: Now it all made sense. Now Autoextremist.com would be even more influential because of my backstory.
But what about that backstory? How did I get to that point, exactly?
The growing up in a car family part of the story most of you are aware of. I was able to experience Detroit’s heyday like few others, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
The advertising and marketing side of the equation was the rest of the story. My ad career was made up of fleeting moments of intense fun (with major stints on Pontiac, Nissan, Dodge & Chevrolet) punctuated by long stretches of pure drudgery. Not an uncommon experience for being in “the biz” by any means, because that’s just the nature of the game. But by the spring of ’99 I had grown tired of what the business had become, especially as it was being played here in Detroit.
The fun had given way to the drudgery part, and the business had become chock-full of weasels and twerps, no-talent demigods, and more spineless and gutless hangers-on, sycophants and delusional one-hit wonders than your average record company convention. And that was just on the client side.
But my ad career was not for naught, by any means. While in it, I was able to observe the car business close-up, and I was forming definitive opinions and insights every step of the way.
(Peter wrote the original manifesto for Autoextremist in 1986. It was going to be a new car magazine aimed at enthusiasts that wouldn’t accept advertising so we could blow the lid off the business and say what was needed to be said, but his ad career got in the way and by the time he had had enough with “the biz” the Internet provided the opportunity we needed to get it going. - WG)
Autoextremist.com became my crusade. It combined my living, breathing childhood experiences - which gave me a historical perspective others could only dream about - with more than two decades of in-the-trenches battles with the marketing, advertising and product troops who made the decisions that inexorably affected Detroit’s course, and contributed to the predicament in which the Motor City finds itself today.
From Day One, the real essence of Autoextremist.com was the fact that we said what others in the media were merely thinking, or would only discuss in "deep background" and in "off-the-record" conversations.
Born out of a defiance and frustration with the status quo that I believed was stifling creativity and squeezing the very life out of the automobile business - particularly as practiced here in the Motor City - and then fueled by my passion and vision for how great the business could become again and what was necessary in order for it to get there, Autoextremist.com was not only a labor of love for me personally, it became an influential force to be reckoned with in this industry with an impact far beyond my wildest imagination.
Taking this town and this business by the scruff of its neck and trying to shake some sense into it proved to be, at times, exceedingly difficult, always enlightening, terribly frustrating, wildly exhilarating and every conceivable emotion in between. I never thought it would be easy, not by a long shot. How could it be? After all, this is the most heavily guarded, painfully conservative, religiously self-important, myopically reasoned, carefully orchestrated and minutely calculated business in the world.
But I never thought it would be quite like it was, either. I never thought "The High-Octane Truth" would elicit such wildly divergent responses from everybody, but it sure did. And I certainly never thought that simply telling it like it is would be such a controversial and explosive venture. Over the past ten years I've learned one irrefutable truth: It's far easier to criticize the U.S. Government than it is to criticize the insulated sacred cows of the auto business.
When I decided to expose everyone from the fakes to the scammers, the bright lights to the schemers, the ones with the brains to the ones still in search of one, I knew I was venturing into hostile waters, but I was bound and determined to say what needed to be said.
From the very first issue of Autoextremist.com I began regaling our audience about how the Detroit automakers had lost their way and how they were clueless about their true place in the automotive world. I zeroed in on the countless missteps and the mind-numbing culture of bureaucratic mediocrity that was the cancer eating Detroit car companies from within in minute detail.
And to say the automobile business has changed dramatically in these past ten years is a supreme understatement. Detroit’s car companies went from being totally clueless, to starting to claw their way back into the game (at least to a certain degree); to finally veering toward almost total collapse.
Zero to oblivion in a decade, basically.
GM, in particular - the one company I devoted large amounts of attention to from the very beginning – has actually undergone the most impressive product renaissance in its history over the last six years because of the exceptional ability of Bob Lutz, the single most talented and accomplished product guy of the last 50 years. But in the end it was too little, too late. GM - once a shining beacon of American success and the envy of the industrial world - got swallowed whole by its own intransigence and is now crumbled on its knees, begging for money, bankrupt.
And what are we to make of Chrysler? Not so much. All of the pronouncements, platitudes and “what ifs” don’t amount to anything at this point. Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne might be a visionary, but he’s doing it with O.P.M. (other people’s money), and the jury is not only still out on whether or not his master plan is going to be successful, anyone who thinks they already see the blue skies on the horizon for this perilous venture is kidding themselves.
And what about Ford? Thanks to the brilliant leadership of Alan Mulally, the Dearborn institution that still revels in its familial ownership is in the midst of a complete transformation that will not only help save the company - it will reestablish Ford as a global player in this industry for many years to come. America’s Original Car Company could very well end up being the last one standing here before this is all finished.
But there’s another dimension to the unprecedented industry upheaval that we’ve experienced while doing Autoextremist.com too.
We are now witnesses as the center of the automotive universe undergoes a seismic, fundamental shift to the Far East, where the biggest automobile market in the world for the next 50 years at least will be centered in Shanghai.
We’ve also seen the anti-car movement in this country gain steam with each and every passing year over the last decade. Led by the abhorrent histrionics of High Priest Tom Friedman and his smugly self-righteous acolytes, pockets of the American population have not only turned their backs on Detroit and dismissed America’s eroding industrial base as a non-issue, they now equate the automobile as being the No. 1 societal pariah, something that must be expunged from our cities, streets and byways before we are all consumed by its exponentially multiplying negatives.
That some of these same people are now reeling in horror as the true costs of the implosion of the U.S. auto industry hits home all across America - even in places where the “it won’t affect me” zealots blissfully reside - would be humorous if it weren’t so devastatingly heart wrenching for the people directly consumed by it.
Hard on the heels of the anti-car zealots is the emergence of the Green-at-all-costs devotees, the armchair environmental fanatics (insert your favorite celebrity du jour here) who not only think that the radical transformation of the American industrial fabric can happen over night but that it can happen with the minimal effort akin to a finger-snap too.
That the anti-car intelligentsia and these Green-at-all-costs fanatics are coalescing into a movement that’s unfettered by such quaint notions as cost, technical feasibility or reality is not surprising. That whole factions of the media and hordes of our elected representatives in Washington have willingly bought into the movement hook, line and sinker - while abandoning such irksome little details as the inconvenient facts along the way - is not surprising either.
How all of this will shake out and what effect it will have on America’s manufacturing base remains to be seen, but initial signs aren’t good. We are losing manufacturing in this country at an alarming rate, and there just aren’t enough Shiny Happy Green startups to make up for the lost plants and the lost jobs. Not even close, as a matter of fact. And even worse, it seems to be impossible to get people to care about it.
There are even some in this country who believe that the continued erosion of the U.S. manufacturing base is no big deal, that we can exist just swimmingly fine as a Starbucks Nation of consumer zombies who devour everything in sight but who don’t actually make anything of value. But if we as a country lose the ability to manufacture things and lose the ability to successfully compete globally with our heavy industries, the end result will be that we will become a second-tier nation, which would be the quintessential definition of Not Good.
Suffice to say a lot has happened in this business, in this country and around the world since 1999. But one of the most fundamental changes - if not the most when it comes to this country at least - is that the domestic automobile industry that’s embodied in the one word moniker “Detroit” will never be the same again.
The anti-car zealots seem to be trying to force this country into a future fraught with restrictions and reduced expectations, while the auto industry races to transform itself to meet a new level of environmental responsibility and fuel economy regulations. One side demanding total capitulation and annihilation, the other side embedded in reality trying to respond to a challenge that will actually benefit the country. 180 degrees apart doesn’t even begin to cover it.
It’s easy to question the automobile’s future role in this maniacally whipsawed environment. A lot of the “anti-“ people are insisting that the automobile will never have the same impact, will never enjoy the mass acceptance of large swaths of the American population, and will never hold sway over the American consumer consciousness like decades past.
But I vehemently disagree.
Personal mobility is a powerful concept and the freedom it brings to people cannot be overstated. And it will remain that way too. Yes, in our urban city centers compromises must and will be reached. But this is a vast country, and people will still want to roam to the far reaches of it. And the automobile - newly reinvigorated and environmentally cleansed - will still play an integral role in America’s every day life for a long, long time to come.
And so here we are, Ten Years After.
What started out with the simple premise of me having something to say and needing a forum to say it has turned into one of the most influential publications of its kind. We set out to “influence the influencers” with Autoextremist.com - as we often said in the early days - and we did exactly that. And we’re still doing it today, albeit with a much larger audience and with much greater impact, nationally and even internationally.
When we started Autoextremist.com the automotive media landscape was, to put it mildly, painfully predictable. But in the first two years of doing AE we noticed as the rote stories from the media establishment began to be replaced by more biting pieces, and the tone and tempo of automotive journalism started to change right before our eyes. Even that staid bastion of industry coverage Automotive News notably began to sound different. It was an amazing transformation to watch. And we take pride in the fact that we played a part in this fundamental shift too.
To say that I’m extremely grateful for what Autoextremist.com has become goes without saying. But to imply that the past ten years have gone by in an instant or that doing this has been in any way easy or some sort of cakewalk doesn’t even come close to conveying how difficult it is to create Autoextremist.com to the standards we set for ourselves every single week. The reality is that it has been a relentlessly intense grind of unimaginable scope and ferocity, day-in and day-out.
Would I have it any other way? Of course not. Anything worth doing is worth doing well – and in my case, flat-out too.
I have had the pleasure of bringing my thoughts and perspectives to you every week, and it has been an honor to do so. I have made countless new friends and gotten to know interesting colleagues here and around the world in the process.
And it has been a wildly gratifying ride.
I have plenty of people to thank. They’re running car companies, in the media, at ad agencies, shooting commercials, in racing, and just friends and readers who have been there for us every step of the way. Rather than list everyone I will just say you know who you are, and I want you all to know that I am sincerely appreciative for all of the support and kind words you have given us over the last ten years.
And now I suppose it’s a good time to reveal that this was slated to be the last issue of Autoextremist.com. Yes, issue No. 499 (we wanted the 10th Anniversary issue to be No. 500 but it didn’t work out that way) was going to be our swan song, as I was going to concentrate on books, pursue my other interests and focus on all of the other things I do besides this website (you readers out there have no idea – WG.). But when it came right down to it, I just couldn’t walk away.
Autoextremist.com is such a part of me now that it defines who I am and what I do, and to drop it cold turkey just like that wouldn’t have worked. So for the time being at least Autoextremist.com will continue on, but stay tuned because that could change at any moment, depending on what comes my way.
In closing, I think it’s important to point out that in the face of a business that grows more rigid, regulated and risk averse by the day, there are still lessons to be learned and new heights to achieve.
If anything, we must remember what really matters in this business above all else - and that is to never forget the essence of the machine - and what makes it a living, breathing mechanical conduit of our hopes and dreams.
And that in the course of designing, engineering and building these machines everyone needs to aim higher and push harder with a relentless, unwavering passion and love for the automobile that is so powerful and unyielding that it can't be beaten down by committee-think or buried in bureaucratic mediocrity.
Thanks for listening and for helping us call it a decade.
And I’ll let Paul Simon’s Papa Hobo take us out...
It's carbon and monoxide
The ole Detroit perfume
It hangs on the highways
In the morning
And it lays you down by noon...
...
Detroit, Detroit
Got a hell of a hockey team
Got a left-handed way
Of making a man sign up on that
Automotive dream...
Editor's Note: If you would like to read Peter's take on the GM bankruptcy, please click on "Next Entry" below. - WG
See another live episode of "Autoline After Hours" hosted by Autoline Detroit's John McElroy, with Peter De Lorenzo and auto industry PR veteran Jason Vines this Thursday evening, June 4, at 7:00PM EDT at www.autolinedetroit.tv. By the way, if you'd like to subscribe to the Autoline After Hours podcasts, click on the following links:
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