David E. Davis, Jr.

David E. Davis, Jr.

David E. Davis, Jr., a towering scion of automotive journalism, died this past March 27.
He was 80 years old, recuperating from cancer surgery.
One-by-one the icons who set my life course are passing away or retiring.
Replaced by the bubbling inanity of Facebook, where words are limited, yet gigundo video-files aren’t.
Davis was head-honcho of Car & Driver magazine when I first subscribed during the middle ‘60s.
I discovered Car & Driver.
An issue had been discarded in the Houghton laundromat, Houghton being where I went to college.
Car & Driver was the new kid on the block, a resurrection of Sports Cars Illustrated, which had failed.
There were other magazines biased toward sports cars, like Sports Car Graphic, allied with Motor Trend Magazine, and Road & Track.
I eventually subscribed to Car & Driver, primarily because -a) it was a superior read, and -b) it wasn’t biased against Detroit, which had fielded the fabulous Small-Block Chevy, almost European in character.
(I eventually subscribed to all three.)
Sports Car Graphic and Road & Track acted like Detroit was anathema, only fielding flaccid turkeys.
Yet sports car racers were fitting Detroit V8s into their cars — particularly the Small-Block Chevy.
I earlier had subscribed to Hot Rod Magazine, but it was pedestrian. Aimed at teenagers and the unwashed.
Hot-rodding had appeal, but Car & Driver had much better writing.
My first laundromat issue is after the infamous issue where Car & Driver made its mark, saying the Pontiac G-T-O was better than the Ferrari G-T-O.
Which it was for American conditions, pillar-to-post and straight-line acceleration.
Throw a curve at it and the Pontiac would spin into the weeds.
Same with asking it to stop.
On challenging pavement the Ferrari reigned supreme.
But wake up a Ferrari for the daily commute to work.
That’s the preserve of the Pontiac.
Leave it to Davis to come up with this comparison.
The other magazines were too anti-Detroit. (Sports car elitism.)
Davis was head-honcho at Car & Driver for a while when I first subscribed.
But he quit and was replaced by someone whose name I forget.
I recall thinking Davis was a pompous blowhard.
But apparently he set the direction of Car & Driver; everyone else there worked for him.
I’ve subscribed to Car & Driver all my life; I left Road & Track and Sports Car Graphic some time ago.
Some became like Car & Driver, and eventually Sports Car Graphic failed.
Now Motor Trend is the Car & Driver wannabee.
Davis founded a new magazine, Automobile, but eventually that failed.
He had since come back to Car & Driver as a columnist.
German car-manufacturer BMW can credit its success in the American Market to Car & Driver magazine.
I’ll let Davis do the honors:
“Nobody believes it, until I suck their headlights out. But nobody doubts it, once that nearly silent, unobtrusive little car has disappeared down the road and around the next bend, still accelerating-without a sign of the brake lights.
I learn not to tangle with the kids in their big hot Mothers with the 500-horsepower engines unless I can get them into a tight place demanding agility, brakes, and the raw courage that is built into the BMW driver’s seat as a no-cost extra.
What you like to look for are Triumphs and Porsches and such. Them you can slaughter, no matter how hard they try. They really believe all that jazz about their highly tuned, super-sophisticated sports machines, and the first couple drubbings at the hands of the 2002 make them think they’re off on a head trip or something. But then they learn the awful truth, and they begin to hang back at traffic signals, pretending that they weren’t really racing at all. Ha! Grovel, Morgan. Slink home with your tail between your legs, MG-B. Hide in the garage when you see a BMW coming. If you have to race with something, pick a sick kid on a bicycle.”

BMW 2002.

The BMW 2002 was introduced in 1966 (the year I graduated college), and was apparently a great car.
Car & Driver recognized this, and trumpeted its virtues.
Like independent rear-suspension, and MacPherson strut front suspension, all of which made it handle much better than Detroit-iron.
Fling a musclecar onto torturous pavement, and it rewards you with a spin into the boonies.
About the only way Detroit-iron could excel was in a straight line on smooth pavement.
On torturous pavement the 2002 left Detroit-iron in its dust.
The 2002 was the climax of BMW’s 1500 cubic-centimeter model that debuted in 1962. The 2002 engine was two liters.
They usually handled better than megabuck Porsches (“poor-SHA”) and the British sports cars, which lacked independent rear suspension (IRS). (The Porsche was IRS.)
Independent-rear-suspension is the opposite of the Model-T tractor layout, in use since time immemorial.
MGs and Triumphs were tractor-layout.
The tractor layout has two major disadvantages when it comes to handling:
—1) The heavy center differential is part of the sprung mass of the rear axle, exerting momentum, and
—2) Since both rear wheels are connected to each other at the ends of a solid rear-axle, a bump to one side also effects the other side.
Independent-rear-suspension negates these two detriments by:
—A) Mounting the center-differential to the car chassis, instead of as part of the rear axle (it’s no longer part of the sprung mass), and
—B) Disconnecting the wheels from each other, so that they’re sprung independently.
The tractor layout can be made to handle pretty well, especially if substantially located. —It’s what NASCAR uses.
But state-of-the art racecars are independent-rear-suspension, and have been for years.
So here was a great little car with independent-rear-suspension; it could make mincemeat of the British sports cars.
And Porsches were not as well balanced, with their engine out behind the rear axle. —I drove a rear-engined car, a Corvair. It felt like a dumbbell; like its rear weight-bias would make it swap ends at the drop of a hat.
NO WAY could a Porsche stay with a 2002, and were it not for Car & Driver, BMW might have become just another obscure auto-manufacturer to fail in the American market.

Brock Yates.

I have this horrible feeling next may be Brock Yates, a native Western New Yorker who worked as an editor with Davis at Car & Driver, and who continued to do so long after Davis left. (He was eventually fired, as too expensive.)
Yates is older than me; probably in his mid-seventies by now. (I’m 67.)
Yates is the only Car & Driver employee I’ve ever met; he still lives in Western New York in a restored mansion in nearby Wyoming County.
His automotive proclivities are pretty much the same as mine.
Yates is the guy who I write like most, although not by intent.
We both are shoot-from-the-hip writers.
But it’s not like I mimic him; I just happen to write that way.
Yates and I are far apart; he a Conservative and me a Liberal (dread!).
Yates has written some pretty outrageous stuff, but after reading his treatment of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, I respect that he remained objective despite being hornswoggled by the Harley mystique (which he walked away from).
So now Davis is gone; a pompous blowhard that resurrected the car-magazine.
But for him car-magazines might be a boring waste of time.

• “Houghton” (“HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “how” or “who”) is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first to 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block. It was made in various larger displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. The “Big-Block” could be immensely powerful, and the “Small-Block” was revolutionary in its time.
• RE: “Liberal (dread!)......” — All my siblings are tub-thumping worshippers of Rush Limbaugh, and “Liberals” are of-the-Devil.