Automotive Journalists Have Lost the Plot
Added 2026-01-13 01:34:22 +0000 UTCAutomotive journalists and content creators have been out of touch with their audience for a while now. In this episode of Fuel for Thought, I present my theory for why.
Comments
Keep finding joy! It's been my favorite part of RCR over the years. Regular, Car Reviews. Reviewing cars through the lenses of regular guys with cars, all your friends shitboxes is enough experience and renown for me. Thank you The Roman, looking forward to the next story.
BlueBlazer
2026-01-16 04:42:27 +0000 UTCI first found RCR when searching for reviews of base model cars!
Christopher
2026-01-14 21:37:16 +0000 UTCHonestly, if RCR were to re-brand itself, they could do worse than "thirteen-year old car and lower-middle-class driver". Have you checked out the HubNut channel on the tube of you? That's sort of what he is, but British, and calls the pursuit "bangernomics".
Robert Kirchner
2026-01-14 17:37:19 +0000 UTCAbout car journalists never having to experience long-term car ownership: I'm far more concerned with this impact on the car companies upper design staff. Aside from being isolated from most consumers' experience by their vastly higher incomes, getting new vehicles constantly and having them maintained by the company leaves them blissfully unaware of the consequences their design choices on their customers. Sometimes an executive will make an effort. Lee Iacocca drove a minivan. I wonder if Mary Barra still owns her 2017 Bolt?
Robert Kirchner
2026-01-14 17:05:49 +0000 UTCAs someone whose first tow vehicle was a Geo Metro, I'm all about the "practical applications beyond its apparent function". They are getting harder and harder to find. It doesn't matter what I'm looking at, I want to know how many 2x4x8s it can carry. The metro could hold 16 with the hatch closed. My current Ionic 5 can carry four.
Robert Kirchner
2026-01-14 17:00:52 +0000 UTCOk but on an unrelated note... https://www.reddit.com/r/SipsTea/s/Q4ANS7oc5V
Christopher Barnes
2026-01-14 12:35:57 +0000 UTCWhat do these pills do?
Wes W
2026-01-13 22:33:12 +0000 UTCA couple thoughts: 1. Congratulations on finally realizing what the rest of us already knew: You're good at this. Like, REALLY good. You and Brian may have attracted an initial audience through weirdness and cynicism, but you've stuck around because underneath it all you're honest and you're always looking for a reason to say "yeah, it's a good car, and here's why." The Race to the Bottom is one of the very few serials where I watch each new episode as soon as I learn about it, and you're one of a literal handful of YouTubers who can even get me to *consider* watching a video of theirs that's longer than an hour, because I know if you're the one making the video, it won't be padded and stretched. 2. There is only one good reason to do any kind of creative work, and that is because you can't *not* do it. 3. Algorithms suck at curating content and TikTok has broken people's brains in ways from which we may not recover. 4. There's a genre of YouTube channels I call "four-word head channels." You click on their page and every thumbnail is the host's head with some sort of eye-catching expression on their face, and two to four words. These channels are an abomination and it's been painful to see some really good YouTubers morph into four-word head channels. I assume they've lost the love of the game and are now just trying to cashmax. But if everybody does the same thing to make their videos stand out, their videos don't stand out. 5. As to the actual topic of this video: I think most people who consume automotive journalism do so critically. As in, I think most of us realize the gaps and reality-warps inherent in the system. You can't know what it's like to own an Equinox for eight years without actually owning an Equinox for eight years, and there is no such magazine as Thirteen-Year-Old Car and Lower-Middle Class Driver. Even outlets that do long-term testing of vehicles usually stop after, say, a year, or 40,000 miles. My newest vehicle is ten years old and has 117,000 miles. My daily is twenty-two years old and is one Sam's Club trip from 250,000. There isn't media covering the experience of owning vehicles like these. But RCR occasionally gives me a glimpse of my people.
Mark Hasty
2026-01-13 14:33:48 +0000 UTCOne of the biggest reasons why I always come back to RCR isn't because of its production value. Throttle House, as good reviewers that they are, can sometimes be too much. It's extroversion at its peak outside of vlogs that I think mainly exist because people want to show off. RCR has great writing. It finds that nugget of truth to talk about the personalities that surround a car and then does a video game reference that I never thought I was going to hear. It goes deeper than just the surface that I see a lot of reviewers do. A good thing about the amount of reviewers is that there's a ton of different perspectives that you'll gravitate toward depending on your situation. Why the fuck would I go to Motorweek for a Volvo XC30 review (where all they do is just talk about how it drives) when there's a video of two parents, who live like me, talk all about the nitty gritty details of actually *living with* the XC30?
Not Alain
2026-01-13 13:54:59 +0000 UTChttps://open.substack.com/pub/addictedtosliding/p/is-motoring-journalism-now-a-hobby?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=3hptsb this article links to what you're saying I think. Car journos in Australia get long term (6 months) loan cars from manufacturers too. They do learn the ins and outs. But they prefer to take an m3 to do that. It does put them out of touch and it's more of a hobby now. Jason I relate to as he does work himself. Just like Brian. And I love your work Nick even if I don't relate to your love of boring Camrys.
Alex Isaac
2026-01-13 03:06:56 +0000 UTCPart of why I like RCR is I think your (Nick's) capability with introspection balances out whatever Brian's over there doing. The ones I always distrusted were those giveaways a few years ago, though I must say I enjoyed the SRT-10. I think the newer ones seem a bit more out of love (whether true or not).
Hunter
2026-01-13 02:50:04 +0000 UTC
