Michael SimariCar and Driver
From the April 2022 issue of Car and Driver.
At age six, I found Car and Driver, or maybe Car and Driver found me. At a supermarket newsstand in suburban Detroit, my life changed when I picked out the June 1981 issue. I asked if I could have it. Sometimes I wonder what my life would look like if the answer had been no.
Once home, I pored over spy shots of a C4 Corvette and color photos of the Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer. Most of it might as well have been in Chinese, but there was something there that even a first grader could grasp. The people in that magazine—David E. Davis Jr., Don Sherman, Patrick Bedard, Csaba Csere, Jean Lindamood, Rich Ceppos—were having an insane amount of fun and getting paid for it. Adults playing with full-scale toys and telling stories about them. Life rarely presents loopholes; a job writing about cars is one.
I read every issue over and over, committing horsepower numbers and acceleration times to memory. Ed.’s responses in the letters section helped shape my twisted sense of humor. Every month I waited excitedly for the magazine’s arrival to see what the band of maniacs had done to the world.
An English degree attained in hopes of landing a car-writing gig and a half-ass attempt at getting into medical school brought me to adulthood. Then, thanks to the incredible Eddie Alterman, I got my foot in the door as a motor gopher at Jean (Lindamood) Jennings’s Automobile magazine. When I wasn’t buying toilet paper for the office or vacuuming toenail clippings out of a PT Cruiser, I immersed myself in press kits and back issues. I moved up to scheduling cars. When Alterman left to start a new mag, I took his spot as David E.’s lunch consort. I worked with Sherman, a mischievous genius who loves this place as much as I do. He introduced me to the brilliant Csere, who made my C/D dream come true 18 years ago this month. There have been many offers to go elsewhere, but working alongside giants such as Bedard, Brock Yates, and John Phillips is something only a fool would leave.
This magazine has been my world for 41 years, and now I’m editor-in-chief, the keeper of the flame. As such, I promise to occasionally dump gas on that flame to see what happens.
We’ve turned a corner—prepare for wide-open throttle.
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Source: www.caranddriver.com