Bumper to Bumper

by Doug DeMuro

  So I arrived at the press briefing, and I wasn’t sure where to sit. I was nervous. I looked around. Everyone else was talking. Laughing. Having a good time. There I was, trying to avoid eye contact. I can’t believe I quit my job to do this, I was thinking. What have I done?!

  Then the head Lexus PR guy started giving a PowerPoint presentation. I won’t be asking any questions, I thought. I’m just going to sit here. He was telling us all about the Lexus IS.

  Everyone else knows what they’re doing. Not me. What AM I doing?! Should I be listening closely? Is that guy listening closely? What about that guy?

  And then, he said it.

  “The Lexus IS will help you stop blending in …”

  Oh, God, should I write on this pad they gave us? Should I be taking notes? Are they going to send us this PowerPoint later?

  “… and start blending out.”

  Should I … wait, what? Stop blending in … and start blending out? Did the guy just say that the Lexus IS will help you start blending out?

  At that moment, I was suddenly no longer nervous. If they were going to fake it with phrases like “stop blending in and start blending out,” then surely I could fake it in the world of automotive journalism. And I’ve been doing that ever since.

  By the way, they did send us the PowerPoint later.

  Many press events later, I was attending the launch of the all-new 2015 Hyundai Sonata near the car’s factory in Alabama. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Sonata, the 2009 model had a dramatically different look than earlier versions, but the 2015 model was far more restrained—an evolution, not a revolution.

  Or, in Hyundai’s words, “a bounce pass, not a no-look, behind-the-back assist for a layup.”

  I’m serious: this is how the car’s design was described to us, the journalists, as we were sitting in the morning press briefing before going off to drive the all-new Sonata. They didn’t use the old “evolution, not revolution” line. They used a basketball analogy. And the new Sonata was a “bounce pass.”

  Now, at this point, I had seen enough automotive PR speak that I knew not to question this. You just nod, move on, and hope that your driving partner isn’t some guy from the Mid-Alabama Times Pigskin, whose columns have personally influenced approximately two car-buying decisions and four aftermarket winch purchases in greater Dadeville, Alabama, since 1971. So I forgot about it, we finished the press briefing, and I went off to drive the car. Then came lunch.

  At lunch, I sat down next to a Hyundai PR guy and a crusty old journalist who looked like he was straight out of central casting for “old-school automotive journalist.” This guy was wrinkled, and bearded, and he had clearly indulged on a lot of free press-launch cuisine over the years, if you know what I mean. He had clearly had a few free automaker dinners, if you get what I’m saying. What I’m saying is, the guy looked like he may have eaten his young.

  Now, the thing about these old journalists is that they just don’t give a shit. They’ve been to five hundred press launches, their job is (inexplicably) secure, and they know they will outlast not only this Hyundai PR guy but also the next Hyundai PR guy, and the next Hyundai PR guy, and the next Hyundai PR guy, to the point where this crusty old journalist will probably be there at the press launch when they show off the very first flying Hyundai, which will take place on the moon. And he will complain about the food.

  So this old-school journalist turns to the Hyundai PR guy—a nice, middle-aged man who was engaging journalists about the Sonata and asking how we liked it during the morning drive—and he says in crusty, old-school, automotive journalist speak, at approximately the same volume you’d use if you had just missed last helicopter out of a war zone and you were trying to get the pilot to come back, “WELL, I WAS TRYIN’ TO FIGURE OUT WHETHER IT WAS A BOUNCE PASS, OR A CHEST PASS, OR AN OVER-THE-SHOULDER PASS, OR WHAT.”

  The PR guy, ever the professional and there to do his job, responded at a normal volume. “Oh! And what did you decide?”

  Now, picture the automotive journalist. This pot-bellied old guy on his ten-thousandth press launch, wrinkled skin and big beard, gobbling down his lunch.

  He looks up at the PR guy and replies: “I DECIDED IT’S ALL JUST A BUNCHA BULLSHIT.”

  My driving partner and I were seated at the other end of the table, and we instantly burst out laughing. I also instantly decided I never wanted to go into public relations.

  “Find a Niche”

  My favorite “fellow automotive journalist” story came when I went on the press launch for the new Kia Niro in Seoul, South Korea, in late 2015. This launch was limited to only a few top automotive media outlets, and I had gotten invited through my work at Autotrader. The other people there were representing big-name magazines like Car & Driver and Motor Trend, so I was a little intimidated.

  When it came time to split us up into driving partners to take the vehicles out on the road, Kia had chosen for us—and I was placed with an aging journalist from one of the major magazines. This guy had been in the business for years, for decades, and he knew everything. I know this because he told me. Repeatedly. Throughout the day.

  Now, the thing about these magazine guys is that they have absolutely no idea what’s happening on the Internet. Seriously. The Internet could be reporting the discovery of space aliens who use iPads for hands and wheels for propulsion and want to come down from planet Xerbus and go bowling with us, and these magazine guys wouldn’t know about it until weeks later, after it happened, when there was a recap of the incident in Time. Admittedly, they might also learn about it watching local TV news, whose average viewer age has now surpassed the typical lifespan of a giant redwood.

  So when I told him I also wrote for Jalopnik, he gave me a slightly knowing look. “Oh, yes, Jalopnik,” he said. “An online blog, right?”

  Yes, buddy, you got it. Jalopnik, with millions of visitors per month, with tens of thousands of registered commenters, with dozens of articles each day, is “an online blog, right?” I didn’t push him on it. There was no point. This guy was a print guy, and he was going to be a print guy right up until the day he died, when they would bury him in a coffin full of newspapers.

  Now, I don’t like to be immodest, but by late 2015 I was already getting fairly popular, and a surprisingly large portion of car enthusiasts seemed at least slightly familiar with my work. At least once every few weeks I could count on someone recognizing me on the street, and people always said hello every time I went to cars and coffee. This is unusual recognition for a car journalist, and it was largely due to Jalopnik—you know, the “online blog, right?” I was also doing well financially, and I was easily averaging over 80,000 views per column on Jalopnik and 300,000 views or more per YouTube video. In other words: things were going pretty well.

  None of this stopped the magazine journalist from turning to me, in the middle of our drive, and announcing: “Well, I have some advice for you.”

  Oh, boy.

  “If you just find a niche,” he told me, “you just might make it.”

  Then he continued: “Anyone can write about cars. But if you want to write about cars, you’ll have to find a niche, like I did.”

  I wanted to lay it all out for him. I have twenty-five thousand Twitter followers. Seventeen million YouTube plays. Eighty thousand subscribers. Added together, my online work gets two million views a month. People stop me on the street and ask about my CarMax Range Rover. I got seven thousand responses when I asked my readers what car I should buy next. And you’re telling me that if I find a niche, I “just might” make it?

  I wanted to give him all of this information, right then and there, but I knew it wouldn’t matter. For him, success in the field wasn’t based on readership, or popularity, or name recognition, or even writing quality. Success was measured in one way and one way alone: Do you work for a print magazine?

  Realizing I would never be successful by his definition, I thanked him for the advice.

  “Thank
you,” I said. “Maybe someday I’ll find my niche.”

  The Best Press Launch Ever

  Although I’m portraying press events as tedious and difficult, the truth is that I’ve been lucky enough to go on a few press trips that have been truly fantastic. I’ve also been on a few press trips with Volkswagen.

  Ha ha! I’m just kidding. I love Volkswagen and all of their cars, largely because I do not currently own one. Otherwise, I would be a little disappointed that the check engine light provides more consistent illumination than the headlights.

  In fact, one of the very best press launches I ever attended was about four days after the Volkswagen emissions scandal broke, when Volkswagen showed off the “new” 2016 Passat for the very first time. I had been invited to the event months earlier, and they said Lenny Kravitz would be performing. When I was invited, I thought Lenny would be the highlight. As it turned out, I was wrong: Lenny didn’t even make the top ten. The actual highlight came when Volkswagen’s U.S. chief executive, Michael Horn, reminded the media, “Remember, we could’ve cancelled this event.” Ah, yes, Michael. You’re a saint.

  But the very best press launch I ever attended was a Chrysler event held sometime in the middle of 2013.

  Now, when you’re Chrysler, you’re just trying to get people to like you. When you’re Lexus or Honda, you can have these complex press launches with all these detailed technical descriptions of the car, and people will pay close attention, because their readers are probably interested. But when you’re Chrysler and you start rattling off technical details, journalists will begin shooting rubber bands at one another, or focusing on their iPads, or licking the manufacturer-provided USB stick. You have to do something memorable—and I mean memorable in a good way, which means you can’t just announce the J.D. Power scores. (“This year, we finished first in every category. Assuming you turn the chart upside down.”)

  So they announced that they were doing a “full-line drive” at the Chrysler Proving Grounds. I had no idea what this was, but my editors directed me to go, so I accepted the invitation.

  As it turned out, it was Chrysler heaven.

  Here’s what happened: I arrived with dozens of other journalists in a large bus at the Chrysler Proving Grounds, which is this large complex of racetracks, off-road venues, and associated items—like a skidpad, a slalom course, and a rough road simulation area. Also present was every single Chrysler currently on sale, all sitting with the keys inside.

  Like I said: Chrysler heaven.

  That day, I drove an all-electric Fiat 500 on an oval racetrack. I drove a Dodge Charger with full police regalia—including a working light bar and megaphone—over one hundred miles per hour. I took a Dodge Ram 3500 dump truck on a skidpad. Then I did it again with the dump truck part entirely in the air. I drove everything from a fleet-spec Chrysler 200 to a Fiat 500 Abarth; from a Jeep Wrangler to a Dodge Journey. And when I was tired of one car, I just jumped in another one, sort of like a real-life Grand Theft Auto, except with only Chryslers.

  At the end of the day, I was having so much fun that I forgot I was supposed to be leaving to get on a plane to go home. The Chrysler PR people had to call me and remind me.

  “Doug DeMuro?” they said.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “Your ride to the airport is here,” they told me.

  “Oh. Just a minute.”

  I was doing a lap in the Dodge Charger police car. And I had just figured out how to work the spotlight.

  The Canadian Border Story

  And then there was the time I was detained at the Canadian border.

  It was a few weeks after the aforementioned unveiling of the 2016 Volkswagen Passat, at the actual launch of the Passat, where they had us drive the car around rural northern Vermont for a few hours in a vain attempt to spot differences between the new model and the old one. (“While you’re driving, take notice of how we changed the clock font.”)

  The best part of this event was the “design briefing.” Usually, the designer takes you around the car for ten or fifteen minutes and explains all the major differences from the outgoing car, like new headlights, or a new side profile, or whatever. But since the “new” Passat was so similar to the old model, this particular design briefing was different. This particular design briefing started off with the designer highlighting how they had moved the rear reflectors from one spot on the bumper to another. I held back laughter. I wanted to ask if the new reflector location would help me start blending out.

  So then we took the cars for a drive, and I had a young driving partner about my age who—for some reason—had his passport on him. He was an American, he was coming from New York, but he had his passport. Maybe he just carries it around to impress other automotive journalists with a record of where he’s been. This wouldn’t surprise me, particularly if he does it while complaining about the asparagus.

  At some point during the day, we crossed into a small town in Vermont that claimed to be only three miles from the Canadian border.

  “Should we?” he asked.

  Now, just to be clear, one of my primary rules in life is: Don’t mess with stuff. I carry this tenet through every facet of my existence. You want to see what it’s like to ride a bike up an escalator? Don’t mess with stuff. You want to see what it’s like to do a Slip’N Slide into a lake? Don’t mess with stuff. Hospital emergency rooms and jails are loaded with people who wish someone had given them the don’t-mess-with-stuff talk, which goes like this: “Hey, you? Don’t mess with stuff.”

  I was trying to explain the don’t-mess-with-stuff philosophy to my driving partner, but he messed with stuff. He drove to the Canadian border, because he really wanted to see what it looked like. After all, he had his passport. But there was a problem: I didn’t have mine.

  Fortunately, I convinced him to turn around before we physically entered Canada. But we had already gone past the U.S. checkpoint, which meant we had to come back through the border station.

  WHAT I THOUGHT WOULD HAPPEN: Two sleepy Vermont border guards would wave us through and maybe laugh at our stupidity.

  WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: We were asked to step out of our car and placed in separate rooms for questioning.

  I am not kidding. Here we were, two guys wearing shorts and driving a Passat at a border post where—I swear this is true—not one single other vehicle went by during the entire thirty-minute period we were there, and they decided that we looked so suspicious we should be hauled inside and questioned about our “intents” at the border.

  Worse, as we were sitting there, stuck at the border, we were actually expected at the lunch stop. So the Volkswagen PR people probably figured we were off taking pictures of the car, or exploring some extra back roads, when in reality we were sitting inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection office trying to explain why we had Michigan “manufacturer” license plates and only one passport between two humans.

  Eventually, it became clear why they were detaining us: because earlier that year, I had taken a vacation with my girlfriend to Turkey. They had somehow found it in their computer system.

  “I see you went to Turkey,” said the border guard.

  “Yep!” I replied.

  “What were you there for?”

  “Oh, it was a vacation.”

  I will never forget the man’s tone as he uttered the next line. It was said with such contempt—the kind of contempt you’d have if you were obsessed with mathematics, a professor of mathematics, a lifelong mathematics fiend who published multiple mathematics textbooks, and you went out on a date with some guy who used his phone to calculate the tip.

  “You went to Turkey … for vacation?”

  I thought about explaining that Turkey is an excellent vacation spot; that Istanbul is among the top-rated travel destinations according to LonelyPlanet and TripAdvisor; that I had spoken to many friends who raved about their time in Istanbul; that Turkey offered beaches and mountains and beautiful cities and historic sites and world-class
shopping. But I figured the speech wouldn’t go over to well. I truncated it.

  “Yeah! Turkey isn’t so bad!” I said.

  Not to this guy. To this guy, Turkey was very bad.

  Then he moved along to the next question. I’ll never forget the next question, because it has made me seriously question our nation’s border safety, military capabilities, intelligence gathering prowess, and overall security strategy since the moment if left the border guard’s mouth.

  “You didn’t go to any ISIS camps or anything when you were over there, did you?”

  Yeah, buddy. The guy in the Passat with a Volkswagen notepad went to dozens of ISIS camps. And now that you have me here at the Canadian border, four miles from a town whose largest annual event is something called “Maple Syrup Week,” I’m going to break down and admit it after a casual question from a guy at a border checkpoint where the most suspicious foreigner ever to pass through was a Canadian raccoon chasing a field mouse.