It’s good news that Peter DeLorenzo is not going to retire after all. Last week an editor’s note suggested that his website, the Auto Extremist, might close (Word Girl, 2021). However, in his latest column DeLorenzo (2021b) says he is going to keep at it.
I am glad that DeLorenzo is sticking around because — for all of his quirks — he offers an unusually valuable take on the auto industry and media (go here, here and here for examples). I don’t see anyone else coming close to doing what he does.
Also see ‘Automotive News: ‘Go along to get along’ quality fuels groupthink’
And what exactly does he do? I had to think about that for a minute after realizing how I needed to first separate the sizzle from the steak. DeLorenzo comes out of the advertising and marketing biz, so it makes sense that he’s been quite good at the whole branding thing.
Back in 2007 Ray Wert, then Jalopnik‘s editor, told National Public Radio that DeLorenzo is “kind of like a columnist” and “an insider looking in on the industry” (Beaubien, 2007). This is helpful framing because it captures how DeLorenzo doesn’t usually report. He pontificates. Often by pounding the table (although he seems to have mellowed a bit in recent years).
The Auto Extremist markets itself as the “bare-knuckled, unvarnished, high-octane truth.” I suspect that anyone who has read even a few of DeLorenzo’s self-described “rants” would agree that he is a rhetorical street fighter. His aggressiveness really stands out due to the blandness of U.S. automotive punditry. Yet even DeLorenzo has his limits.
A street fighter with a soft spot for U.S. automakers
The journalist who has most closely matched DeLorenzo’s swashbuckling persona was Robert Farago, the founder and former editor of The Truth About Cars. His controversial “GM Death Watch” stories were prescient in predicting the automaker’s bankruptcy.
DeLorenzo was certainly critical of GM during that time period, but Autowriters.com editor Glenn F. Campbell (2008) described him as “the loyal opposition” who was “possibly” used to “leak and thereby condition the public at a much slower pace to the inevitable blows that came rapidly once the company turned to Washington for help.”
While noting that DeLorenzo chronicled Detroit’s dysfunctions in a similar fashion as Brock Yates (1983), Farago presented a DeLorenzo quote that illustrated how he dismissed critics of U.S. automakers — apparently including The Truth About Cars:
“Unbeknownst to the legions of people out there in ‘fractured’ America, the ones who fill the Internet with bile and who project such a level of viciousness and unbridled glee at the thought of the collapse of our domestic automobile industry as if it were – amazingly enough – some warped opportunity for celebration, there are countless towns, big and small, scattered all across this nation that have grown up with GM as their main employer and the main source of income for thousands of American families” (Farago, 2008).
After Farago left The Truth About Cars, his successor Edward Niedermeyer (2009) described DeLorenzo as “the quintessential insider’s outsider: as a former marketing and ad man, the Auto Extremist is always in the Detroit tent . . . the only question week-to-week is whether he’s going to be pissing out or pissing in.”
Niedermeyer (2009) noted that The Truth About Cars “has often taken the pioneering car blogger to task for inconsistencies (especially during bailout mania).”
DeLorenzo does the auto pundit two-step dance
I am not surprised by DeLorenzo’s seemingly inconsistent stances. As discussed in a previous post (go here), pundits who heavily criticize automakers can feel the need to show that they are still part of the tribe by being a strong advocate in some way. Given DeLorenzo’s deep roots in the industry, that clearly has not been difficult for him. As a case in point, he has railed against “our touchy-feely friends out in California and the anti-car, anti-Detroit ‘intelligentsia’ in the national media” (DeLorenzo, 2011a; p. 158).
This kind of schtick can look decidedly retrograde outside of Detroit’s insular culture, but it may have also helped insulate DeLorenzo from blowback when he has embarked on yet another rant against an auto executive.
Consider DeLorenzo’s (2014) attacks against former GM head Dan “Captain Queeg” Akerson. “You remember him, don’t you? That Unctuous Prick extraordinare (sic) who was GM’s incredibly tone-deaf and relentlessly ill-equipped ‘Accidental Tourist’ of a CEO? The one who bludgeoned and blustered his way through a depressingly exhaustive tenure that will go down in automotive history as one of the most maliciously calculated scam jobs of all time? Yes, that Unctuous Prick.”
The above quote displays DeLorenzo’s argumentative style, which can be much more heavily steeped in colorful language rather than the marshaling of facts. “Triumph the Insult Dog” would feel right at home working for the Auto Extremist.
Self-aggrandizement undercuts DeLorenzo’s acuity
I get that every media outlet needs to present itself in a positive light, but DeLorenzo (2021b) takes it too far — particularly for a website that regularly calls out egotistical auto executives. For example, he noted that Detroit was once “a place that was used to existing in a ‘bubble’ of rote press release regurgitation and endless softball stories passing for ‘coverage’ of the auto industry. Everyone was walking around in a blissfully unaware stupor – that is, until we came along.”
The Auto Extremist does deserve credit for helping to shake up a complacent automotive media. But so do others, such as Dan Neil and Robert Farago. Indeed, Campbell (2008) suggested that both of these journalists have paid a heavier price for their critiques than has DeLorenzo.
Also see ‘Automotive News backtracks on shift to electric vehicles’
One could also argue that DeLorenzo’s analysis has sometimes been colored by a nostalgic yearning for the good-old days. I grew up in the 1960s, so I find his essays about youthful experiences with cars and auto industry leaders to be fascinating. That said, the Auto Extremist has thus far struck me as too “old school” to fully acknowledge the social and environmental problems caused by the auto industry. Does DeLorenzo have the capacity to change with the times?
I hold out hope that he does. For example, DeLorenzo has recently offered a refreshingly clear-eyed perspective on the shift to EVs (2021a). I frankly did not expect this from a pundit who has defended the U.S. auto industry’s consistently weak track record in addressing climate change, which reaches all the way back to the 1960s (go here for further discussion).
Yes, let’s celebrate the Auto Extremist’s 22th birthday — and be thankful that DeLorenzo is not retiring. His voice is important. Add a bit of humility to the mix and — paradoxically — his analysis could become even more important in the years ahead.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Beaubien, Jason; 2007. “‘Autoextremist’ Offers Insider’s View of Detroit.” National Public Radio. Posted July 10.
- Campbell, Glenn F.; 2008. “I Told You So.” Autowriters.com. published December.
- DeLorenzo, Peter; 2008. “Rants #427.” Auto Extremist. Posted Jan. 13.
- ——; 2011a. Witch Hunt. Janice J. Putman, editor. Octane Press.
- ——; 2011b. “Volt hysteria: Why image and perception are everything.” Auto Extremist. Posted Dec. 7.
- ——; 2014. “We May Never Pass this Way Again. GM At A Crossroads.” Auto Extremist. Posted April 4.
- ——; 2021a. “Doubt.” Auto Extremist. Posted Feb. 16.
- ——; 2021b. “I’m Not Finished.” Auto Extremist. Posted June 1.
- Farago, Robert; 2008. “Autoextremist Hates TTAC– With a Vengeance!” The Truth About Cars. Posted Nov. 12.
- Niedermeyer, Edward; 2009. “Autoextremist: GM Is Screwed After All.” The Truth About Cars. Posted Dec. 9.
- Word Girl; 2021. “Watching the Wheels editor’s note.” Auto Extremist. Posted May 25.
- Yates, Brock; 1983. The Decline And Fall of the American Automobile Industry. Empire Books. New York, NY.
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In the caption for the Bolt, DeLorenzo is identified as DeLorean.
Fixed; thank you.