Journalist Bruce McCall (2002) once called Detroit a “self-isolated world” that “matches that of any West Virginia hollow for insularity.” I was reminded of his quip when reading Car and Driver magazine’s endorsement of Dan Gurney for president in 1964. The opinion piece by Editor-in-Chief David E. Davis Jr. was reposted recently at Dean’s Garage (Davis, 2023).
The Henry Ford (2023) museum summed up Car and Driver’s endorsement as “tongue-in-cheek.” However, the magazine did put some effort into supporting the race car driver for president. “Throughout that summer and fall, ‘Dan Gurney for President’ editorials and advertisements appeared in each issue and, for $1, readers could mail-order Gurney bumper stickers and buttons.”
As you can see in the banner image, the September 1964 issue’s cover even included a campaign button-like graphic that stated, “Car and Driver Candidate Gurney for President.”
Of course, this was back in the day when Car and Driver liked to pull publicity stunts, such as its iconic match up between a Pontiac and Ferrari GTO in the March 1964 issue. Don Sherman (1984) later described that as “the moment when Car and Driver became a real grown-up magazine.”
If this was indeed the case, did Sherman think the endorsement of Gurney represented Car and Driver becoming an elder statesman?
Car and Driver didn’t bother with real journalism
Davis (2023) didn’t try very hard to argue that Gurney would be a good president from a “purely political, non-automotive standpoint.” The reader was supposed to get all excited about how the race-car driver’s full name — Daniel Sexton Gurney — sounded presidential.
Where Davis (2023) seemed to think that Gurney could make the most difference as president was by sweeping “old ladies and small town speed traps from the highways” and restricting “winding two-lane roads to drivers of proved enthusiasm and skills. All drivers will have to pass through something like Carroll Shelby’s school at Riverside, or one of the good English or European driving schools — the failures to be banished to public transportation.”
I get the value of improving driver education and licensing requirements, but Davis’s specific ideas were as realistic as the high-school student government presidential candidate who promised soda pop in the drinking fountains.
Car and Driver could have plausibly had more of a policy impact if it had shown some journalistic seriousness. Like discussing what levels of government driver education and licensing requirements were being made, which parts of the country had the best regulations, what specific improvements had the greatest likelihood of gaining approval, and how could car enthusiasts get involved?
Instead, Car and Driver encouraged its readers to throw their votes away on a joke candidate in an election cycle where the person elected president would weigh in on issues such as highway funding and auto-safety regulations — and there were unusually big ideological differences between the leading candidates.
Digging into policy details would have required stepping beyond the narrow confines of the buff magazine’s usual “boys with toys” banter. That, in turn, would have required readers to think about something real grown up. David E. David instead seemed to assume that he had to talk down to readers in order to sell lots of magazines. Was he right?
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Davis, David E. Jr.; 2023. “The Gurney For President Campaign.” Dean’s Garage. Reposted Sept. 1 from Car and Driver May 1964 issue.
- McCall, Bruce; 2002. “Hogs on Wheels.” The New York Times (subscription required). Posted Oct. 6.
- Sherman, Don; 1984. “Tested: GTO vs. GTO—Two Icons of the Past Face Off.” Car and Driver. April issue.
- The Henry Ford; 2023. “Dan Gurney, Car and Driver Candidate for President, 1964.” Accessed Sept. 3.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcarbrochures.org: Pontiac GTO (1964)
Taking the “Dan Gurney for President” by C&D as anything more than a tongue-in-check/irreverent editorial game is being way too serious. One should see this as a fanciful detachment from the real 1964 campaign between Goldwater and LBJ.
If it was just one opinion piece that would be one thing, but it was an effort waged for months in a pretty high-profile way. That went well beyond a “joke.”
I disagree. While Road & Track tried to be the tweedy cap Eurocentric magazine, Car & Driver was the New York City magazine that made a point of being irreverent. My take is if they could have fun and tweak a few noses then they were all in.
My beef with Davis is that he cultivated the narrative that car buffs were overgrown boys with toys who were too cool to take public-policy discussions seriously. The problem with that is . . . democracy is, at the end of the day, a serious business. And when you vote for clowns, you get a circus.