The media is full of tributes to David E. Davis today. Most automobile writers (and readers) of a certain age will credit their early influence to his tenures at C&D, especially his classic second stint which started in the mid seventies. But unwittingly, I was deeply influenced by his earlier (and anonymous) work as a copywriter for Chevrolet ads, especially Corvette ones.
This was a time when ad copy was just as important as the picture, or more so. People (and young kids like me) read them, and were never quite the same; well at least that applies to me. It wasn’t only because I was entranced by the 1962 Corvette itself just then; the sales magic Davis wove in that series of ads shaped a myth for me that were as much a cultural milestone as anything else that later shaped my susceptible youthful self during the sixties. He was a consummate salesmen; a spinner of dreams and aspirations; a Mad Man extraordinaire. And he made aficionados of millions of us, even if not necessarily of him.
(copy of ad and a couple more follows)
Aficionados are made, not born. Corvette enthusiasm, like manhood, is a condition that develops slowly and requires the tempering influence of experience. It begins when you’re urging your faithful family sedan along some twisty bit of road and a Corvette slips by like you were just another bend in the highway. It reaches its peak with your checkbook in hand, savoring the view from the driver’s seat of that wondrous automobile and imagining yourself expertly answering the challenge of an Alpine pass. You can shorten the process considerably: see your Chevrolet dealer and drive a ’62 Corvette. It’s a car worth driving. It runs like all-get-out because it has a might 327 cubic inch V8 engine. It stops, it changes direction with the speed and ease of a gazelle because of its knife-edge balance and great, huge brakes. It’s a car to make driving enthusiasts of us all…
[knife-edge balance and great huge (drum) brakes indeed! Even as an nine-year old, I was starting to realize those were not exactly the ‘Vette’s strengths ]
Corvette owners are not necessarily the most carefree people in the world, but there are moments when every Corvette driver must think himself thrice blest. Here’s a car, more than any other, that has an uncanny ability to erase the day’s cares and woes and whisk its driver far, far away. Turn on the key, engage first gear and step on it: Good-bye office, hello better things in life. We’ll make an attempt to analyze the chemistry of such a phenomenon: it’s all blurred by things like the feeling of wind in your face, the sound of the Corvette exhaust, the cyclone urge of a truly great V8 engine. We will be more than happy, however, to direct you to your nearest Chevrolet dealer to sample a Corvette. Look at it, sit in it, drive it and you’ll find that we haven’t exaggerated a bit. We couldn’t exaggerate these things if we tried. [Ed: of course not]
There’s a cult of sports-car -type people who spread the myth that one needs vast knowledge of things mechanical to own a sports car. Be not deceived! This may be true of some machines, but not the Corvette. Any Corvette, however equipped, will give unruffled, unfussy driving pleasure while outperforming cars that cost three times as much and require the full time attention of a bilingual mechanic. No, friends; if you yearn to spend long hours lying on cold cement, covered with grease, shop elsewhere. Corvettes are for driving; fill them with gas and people and point them down the road. That’s the way to enjoy this automobile! Of course, if you simply must do something, we don’t mind if you wash it yourself.
As I said on TTAC today, I never really cared for the guy, OTOH…
I read his very last column when my C&D appeared in the mail today. Not bad at all, but then again, I like Sergio (who was part of the subject of his column.)
I for one admried David E. Davis as I was a long-time (still am) reader of Car and Driver and did subscribe to Automobile as well. I remember when he stood that mag up, he took Jean Lindamood with him (first female auto journalist for a big magazine I remember – I think she came on the scene in ’81).
Since first introduced to DED in the mid sixties, my then developing automotve mind was immediately and permanently altered. After Automibile magazine, it was falsely assumed by me that he was now living the life he always wrote about. Only after returning to C&D recently did the ugly truth become clear: An anachronism in today’s “tuner” automotive culture, broke, in poor health, and living on memories. It saddened me greatly for he had been my idol and my idol was a has-been. His most recent columns in C&D saddened me in that this not the man that was the icon of automotive journalism and it reminded me of how mortal we are no matter what level of achievent we reach in our lives. I’m not feeling well right now. It’s like watching your once rugged and mighty father having to go into a nursing home, then to hospice, and finally sayiing goodbye at his funeral. I’ll miss him. I’m sure P.J. Rourke is not feeling too good right now either.
Thanks for the insight. Curiously enough, or perhaps not, it seems it’s not uncommon for the spinners of dreams to experience difficulties in actually living out their dreams. A precautionary tale, perhaps.
And how much does the BBC pay Clarkson?
I read of DED’s death on TTAC yesterday morning. A lot of the commentary seemed to be that Davis was a pompous poseur and snob. I never met the man, so I can’t say that he wasn’t pompous or a snob. But he sure wasn’t a poseur.
In 1955 he piled up an MGTD on a track in California and suffered severe facial injuries. He mentioned it in one of his recent columns; something about leaving a chunk of his palate out on the track. He was a racer in a time when safety systems were a lap belt, lightning reflexes, and two fingers tightly crossed. And yet he never lost his enthusiasm for racing, for cars, for the life of the automotive enthusiast.
I wonder how many people, even racers, that sat in judgment upon him yesterday, will be able to look back at the end of their run and have done better, or even as well.
Years ago, Davis (or someone in C/D) wrote about the MG accident. The article said that after he awoke in the hospital and saw what remained of his face in a mirror, he tried to tear it off the wall, and the plastic surgery is the reason his face appeared waxy in places.
The end of an era.
It was David E. who introduced me to “gonzo” journalism as applied to autos and also as practiced by writers driven by wit, not intoxicants. I discovered Car and Driver at nineteen, unsure of my future. It was Davis who gave me the dream, still not realized, of being smarmy and cracking wise – in print, for money.
The dream has not materialized, and David E. has gone the way of all flesh. One needs no more reminding of mortality than to watch his heroes slowly sicken and fall..
(cue Alan Parsons Project, “Time”)
Interesting article- reminded me of LJK Setright an English motor journalist who passed away a few years ago and seems rather forgotten. He seemed to polarise opinion in a similar way. An article on him would be great.