Stories about the death of long-time automotive journalist Brock Yates quite rightly emphasized his most popular exploits. For example, his creation of the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash illustrated Yates’ flare for publicity stunts at Car and Driver magazine, where he was a fixture for 40 years.
Alex Roy (2016) of The Drive went so far as to call Yates “the most important person in American automotive history who never ran a car company. If you have to ask why, then, like jazz. . . . You’ll never know.” Hmm. Even more important than Automotive News’ long-time leader, Keith Crain? Or Ralph Nader?
Steph Willems (2016) summed up Yates’ journalistic persona thusly: “No subject was off the table, and Yates carried the flag for a less corporate, less bureaucratic America. His free-wheeling vision of a life unburdened by red tape and regulations came across loud and clear in his writing, earning him the scorn of some environmentalists and safety advocates. It also won him a legion of loyal readers.”
Yates’ critique of Detroit given less attention
An all-too-brief Car and Driver obituary by Don Sherman (2016) described Yates as the “Assassin,” pointing to his “1968 exposé of Detroit’s intransigence titled ‘The Grosse Pointe Myopians,’ which accurately forecast the rise of Japanese-made cars in America.”
Sherman hinted at Yates’ most important contribution to American automotive journalism by mentioning a Car and Driver article that morphed into the book, The Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry (1983). Here Yates offered a surprisingly subtle and even-handed critique of both the auto industry and government for someone employed by a buff magazine.
Matt Schudel (2016) of the Washington Post offered the most extensive discussion of Decline and Fall. In the book Yates “argued that Detroit had watered down the quality of its cars, abandoning well-crafted, responsive machines in favor of bland, bloated forms of transport distinguished only by annual cosmetic changes.”
Yates’ writing style became a model for auto writers
Steven Cole Smith (2016) of Automobile magazine suggested that Yates had a “talent for writing that only comes along once in a great while.” Smith acknowledged that “not every one of the thousands of words Brock Yates typed were golden,” but no specifics were offered.
I have yet to come across a Yates’ obituary that criticized how his cantankerously anti-regulatory stances — including staunch opposition to climate change regulations (Yates, 2003). That side of his writing was mostly sidestepped in obituaries, although Jeff Spevak (2016) reported without comment that Yates “was cavalier about the use of seat belts” and viewed regulating cars as “the same as outlawing bathtubs because people slipped in them and hit their heads.”
Yates’ militant, “boys-with-toys” mentality toward automobiles is worth noting because he became a model for successive generations of automotive journalists. As discussed here, Jack Baruth has doubled down on some of the less admirable qualities of Yates.
If Yates was part of a golden era, where did it go?
One of the most frequent comments in Yates’ obituaries is how he was part of a golden era at Car and Driver magazine. For example, Joe Martino commented in an Autoblog post (2016):
“As a young teenager, I couldn’t wait for the next issue of Car&Driver so I could flip to his column in the front of the magazine and catch his latest commentary. I never…and I mean never…..missed an issue. I once was out of the country for three months and one of the first things I did when I got back was to track down the issues of the magazine I missed…..just so I could read his column. I already loved cars, but Yates taught me to appreciate good writing, to enjoy his special brand of irreverence, and, to be inspired by his passionate perspective on life via the world of automobiles. All this by the age of 15. Thank you Brock!!!”
It’s all but inevitable that we may wax nostalgic about the high points of our youth. Even so, comments such as Martino’s can also be read as implicit criticism of today’s automotive journalism. Car and Driver was very clear about what it stood for in the 1960s and 70s. What does it — or any other automotive buff magazine — stand for today?
To put it more bluntly: Are there any spiritual heirs to Yates in his reformist prime? Or have the auto buff media become a vast wasteland of industry groupthink? Go here for further discussion.
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