Curbside Classic Celebrates Its 15th Birthday – My Cup Of Appreciation Runneth Over

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It was a dark and stormy night 15 years when I impulsively pulled the trigger on Curbside Classic. I had no idea what it would amount to; maybe just a little hobby site for a few loyal readers who followed me from the old site. I could not have imagined the success we’ve had. No, we’re not really huge, but we have managed to carve out a decent-sized niche for ourselves in this ever-more crowded online space. Big enough to be self-sustaining, which was the goal. And a reputation that Google recognizes and others envy.

The two most important element to our success and longevity is the fact that 1.) so many other contributors joined the CC party. The result is that as of this moment, CC has published 24,202 posts! And 2.) You, our readers, keep coming back to read them, and often leave comments, all 905,63 of them. I’ve read literally just about every one, from which I have learned as much or more than from the posts. Thank you!

Now to thank our contributors in greater detail:

Part of me is a bit reluctant to list our many superb contributors by the number of posts but I was a bit amazed myself how many some of them have published. So here’s a list of all of them that have posted more than 100, which still leaves a huge list of those below that cutoff. But it’s way too long to post them all, so here goes:

Rich Baron:  1,320

Tatra87:  1,039

Tom Klockau:  884

Jason Shafer:  695

Johannes Dutch:  657

Joseph Dennis:  619

William Stopford:  615

Jim Klein:  549

Brendan Saur:  547

Jim Cavanaugh:  490

Roger Carr:  414

David Saunders:  389

Aaron65:  358

Aaron Severson:  272

Jim Brophy:  266

Ed Snitkoff:  264

Ed Stembridge:  257

Jim Grey:  242

Perry Shoar:  234

Tom Halter:  230

Jon Stephenson:  190

Don Andreina:  188

GN:  184

Dave Skinner:  181

Robert Kim:  181

Daniel Stern:  178

Eric703:  177

Stephen Pellegrino:  176

John875:  148

Kevin Martin (RIP):  114

dman:  109

I really hope I didn’t miss someone. My deep appreciation for all of you and every other contributor is difficult to express in words. I’m feeling a bit emotional… Thank you all in your making this possible; it was the key ingredient to sustaining me and the site. I have learned more from all of your posts than I could ever have dreamed possible. What makes CC unique is all the different voices and takes; we’re not just an automotive Wikipedia.

At the risk of leaving someone out, I would like to recognize a few for their exceptional support and contributions: JPC, Jason, Ed, Tom, and Dave for being the first to step up in the very early days of 2011. That was critical to keep me from burning out totally and giving up.  And Dave has been our vital tech guy for many years now. Brendan Saur and William Stopford have moved on to bigger things, but both of them cranked out huge numbers of posts for years. Perry Shoar and Jim Klein covered for me during two essential breaks. Don Andreina’s deep dives in design were mind-expanding. Tatra87’s coverage from Tokyo has been a little CC of its own. Daniel Stern’s, Jim Klein’s and RPlaut’s COAL series were standouts.  I need to stop, because I could go on about each and every one. Thank you all.

But I do need to express my deep appreciation to those primarily keeping CC going in my so-called retirement: Rich Baron, Executive Editor, and Aaron Severson, Senior Editor . They make a wonderfully complementary pair. Aaron65, Patrick Bell and Stephen Pellegrino are our staff contributors. It’s very gratifying to see CC in such good hands.

Since we’re doing the numbers: How many have come to CC to read our august pages? Google has cut off their stats before 2020, so since that year it’s been some 11.4 million of you; a rough guess since 2011 would be well over 20 million. Many of those may have come once or twice or a few times, thanks to a Google search or now more likely via Google Discover. But we have a very loyal cadre of regulars who come daily or every few days. Total pageviews? Another rough guess of about 50 million. And 2025 was another record high for CC.

And of course ultimately it’s you, the readers, especially the regular ones, that have made this possible. That’s what we do this for, to share something of ourselves with you and hope that you like it. I realize commenting is not as common as it once was, but every so often I will read a comment from someone I haven’t heard from in years; that is deeply moving, knowing you’re mostly all still out there. Thanks, and I love you all!