Journalistic journeys in the Autosphere with Matt Stone & Preston Lerner

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Break Fix podcast is all about capturingthe living history of people from all
over the autos sphere, from wrench,turners, and racers to artists, authors,
designers, and everything in between.
Our goal is to inspire a newgeneration of Petrolhead that wonder.
How did they get that jobor become that person?
The Road to Success is paved by allof us because everyone has a story.

(00:27):
Welcome to a very special reunionepisode of Break Fix Podcast, where
automotive journalism meets memory lane.
Today we're bringing together two ofthe industry's most respected voices,
Matt Stone and Preston Lerner fora conversation that's equal parts
insightful, nostalgic, and fullthrottle fun with decades of experience.
Between them, Matt and Prestonhave chronicled some of the most

(00:50):
iconic moments, machines andpersonalities and car culture.
From glossy magazine pagesto bestselling books.
Their stories have shaped how we seethe automotive world so tune in as
they reflect on their journeys, tradetales from the road, and share what
still gets their engines revving today.
Joining us tonight is returningco-host Don Weiberg from Garage Style
Magazine, one of the many personalitieson the Motoring Podcast Network.

(01:12):
Welcome back, Don.
Thank you, Eric.
How are you this evening?
I'm good.
And with that, let's welcomePreston and Matt to break fix.
Nice to be here.
Great to be here, Eric.
Yeah, just what he said.
All right, guys.
This episode's gonna be a littledifferent than our Normal Road to Success.
Tell me your life story.
You know, were you a petrolheadsince you were a kid?
This comes to us by way of the I-M-R-R-Cbecause as a lot of our fans know, we do

(01:35):
remastering of content from them as partof our history of Motorsports series.
And I came across this wonderfullittle DVD four gt, how Ford silenced
the critics and humbled Ferrari andconquered Lamonts by Preston Lerner.
And inside this insightful DVD Prestontalks about working with Matt Stone, and
I'm like, wait, wait, hold on a second.
What a small world we live in,especially the automotive world.

(01:56):
So I wanted to talk about.
How did you guys meet?
And let's just start from there.
I have one remembrance of meeting press.
The first time was at a book signingfor his extremely definitive and
seminal book about the entire scarabscene, the race cars, the street cars,
LANs Rev Low, the whole scarab thing.

(02:18):
Now a lot of you out there will notknow what a scarab is other than a a
dung beetle, but a fabulous breed ofAmerican born and built race cars.
That are just fabulous and gorgeousand fast and noisy and all that.
Nobody had ever written much truth topower about Revit Low and his effort
and the guys who drove for him andwhere the cars went and blah, blah,

(02:40):
blah, and Preston decided here's astory to be told proper, and he did it.
I have this book.
I think, again, if my house was on fire,that would be one of the books that would
go out the door with me because it's sowell done on such an interesting story.
And it was a book signing, I believe,at the Auto books in Burbank.
And he was the guy behindthe table with the pen.
And I bought the book.

(03:01):
And I don't have the pen, but I havethe book and I have Preston as my pal.
So Preston, is that how you remember thestory going, or, uh, well, not exactly.
Funny thing is, is you neverknow what you're gonna have
behind you in your bookcase.
Only by coincidence.
I have Matt's Irock bookover here, right to my left.
It's just sitting there.
I wrote the SC book, and thatwas really a great experience.
It was wonderful to meet all thosepeople from the early Sports Card
days of the fifties and then intothe Formula One into the sixties.

(03:24):
But I remember Matt was, we wereboth freelancers at the time, and
I swear, Matt, you're pretty sureyou wrote an escape road, as I
recall what it was called wasn't theAuto Week would do the one Pagers.
It was the one page per issue.
Classic car section.
Yeah.
And you did one on the scab as I recall.
Okay.
It's coming back to me now.
Yeah.
That's my recollection of when we met.
We talked about the scabs, I believe.

(03:44):
Then I don't even remember doing a booksigning at Auto Books for the scab.
Well, maybe we just met there and Igot your book and you signed it for me.
I don't remember could, but I havevery distinct memories of you and I
together the first time at Auto Books.
Although we've met up there many, many,many more times over a lot of other books.
But I knew it was scarab related for sure.
So we're going back a few years yet.
Yeah, that's 91.
90, 91. Now, was that 1890 or 91?

(04:08):
It was one.
Dinosaurs, Rome theEarth, that's for sure.
But okay.
Long time ago, but of course I livedin Burbank and Matt at the time was in
Glendale, so we were neighbors as well.
And we would run into each otherperiodically at various events.
Well, since we're on that subject,Preston, why don't you bring the audience
up to speed on a little bit of your cv.
What magazines did youwrite for as a journalist?
So I started as a newspaperreporter in Dallas.

(04:29):
I was at the store Telegram, and thenthe uh, morning news never wrote for
the Times Herald started freelancingfor various magazines, moved up to
California and I was originally doingstuff for Sports Court International
and Road and Track Specials, whichwas, it was a whole division back then.
It was incredible.
They would put out 13issues a year, as I recall.
It was as big as the monthlymagazine, but eventually I caught on
with Automobile Magazine, which wasstill a going concern at the time.

(04:52):
Thanks to Jean.
She was then Jean Linde mood,but later Jean Jennings.
That's who I did most of my, uh,car riding for was for automobile.
You know, Matt actuallyended up over at MotorTrend.
So at the time we were competitors.
Eventually we were under thesame corporate ownership, but
that was further down the road.
So what was it like, you know, youknew Matt, you met Matt, now you're
competitors in the world of journalism.
What is that like?
So Matt, from your perspective, andmaybe tell us a little bit about your

(05:15):
journalism fame outside of MotorTrendand how it overlapped with Preston's,
but how did you guys feel as competitors?
From what I said, I mean it, itwas a totally friendly competition.
I mean, we all competed for the sameexclusive stories and the most juiciest
drive or most juiciest interview.
Certainly between Preston andI, only friendly competition.
But I would have to say our bosses.

(05:35):
Maybe not always because they werecompeting for the same newsstand
buyer and the same magazine dollarand the same advertiser dollars.
So it was very competitive.
And it was kind of funny because Roadand Track and Car and Driver were
under the same ownership for a whileas was automobile and MotorTrend.
We had in-house competitors andwe had down the road competitors.
And like I said, person to person, itwas more often than not very friendly.

(05:57):
If somebody from a competing magazinecalled and needed some help, I'd help 'em.
And I would like to say that therewere few times I made that same call
that they helped me, but again, foradvertising dollars, newsstand dollars,
and you know, those killer coverstories, it was pretty competitive.
It was pretty collegial Ithought, but I was not on staff.
So Matt was on staff and he hadto deal with the advertisers and
he had to deal with corporate.

(06:18):
Um, for me, I just would goout and do stories that were
assigned to me or, you know.
Or that I pitched in.
So speaking of Rodent Track, thisis the post John Bond period, right?
So this is whole new management.
Totally different regime, right?
It was a different regime, but itwas still, it was Matt Lorenzo was
doing it then, and it was, Mattmay remember better than not, but
I still think it was the same.
It was before it was bought byHearst and when they fired everybody

(06:38):
and they moved to To Ann Arbor?
Yeah, it was, it was MattDe Lorenzo and John Dinkle.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
Ron Sessions was running the specials.
That's the guy that I worked forwhen you were working for him too.
That was a lot of fun.
Yeah, that was great.
Yeah, that was way down thehighway from John and Elaine Bond
and the much more modern times.
And that company was bought and sold.
I don't know, CBS owned them andsomebody else owned them and then

(07:01):
somebody else owned them again and,and then most recently they turned
over their editorial and managementstaff, 48 different directions.
Nobody that I really stillknow there or do any work for.
The road track specials,which Ron Sessions ran at.
Andy Bhop was the second in command.
Andy was a, is a great guy andthey put out 13 one shots a year.
So they did two new cars issues andthey did two new trucks issues and

(07:23):
they did like a sports and GT car issueand, but I do remember like Road and
Track had an amazing library back then.
They were in, uh, Newport Beach at thetime was before they moved in Arbor,
they had a librarian which is likeincredible, a full-time librarian.
Otis Meyer.
Yep.
And when I wrote that SC book, theyallowed me to use a bunch of their photos
free and I was able to just go throughtheir archive, which was incredible.
They had just rolls and rolls and rollsof undeveloped film, of just stuff.

(07:46):
It was all archived and you couldfind stuff, but they didn't print
any, the unprinted stuff out for me.
I mean they had all thepress kits and everything.
It was really incredible.
And I mean, I don't know how they didit putting out between the monthly
and this specialist 25 issues a year.
Those were the fat days of printjournalism, that's for sure.
That brings up a really goodquestion about the daily grind.
As an automotive journalist, myexperience was somewhat different 'cause

(08:06):
I wasn't on staff, so I only workedon specific stories that typically.
About half of them that I pitchedand half of them that were assigned
to me and kind of at automobile,I became, for lack of anybody else
there, kind of their racing experts.
So when they wanted to do aracing story, I usually did 'em.
I didn't do as many of the presstrips for new car launches.
I typically didn't get assigned to those.
I did some of them and they werefun, but for me it was, it was

(08:27):
kind of a different experience.
And I was also freelancing for othermagazines, non-car magazines as well.
So.
My experience is a little differentthan someone who would be on staff,
although Matt was a freelancer for manyyears before going on staff, but I guess
he would've a better perspective kindof from the two different viewpoints.
You know, generally it was a lot of fun.
I mean, there were some fabulous days.
There were a lot of great and gooddays and a few tough days, but it was

(08:48):
a lot of fun because you're surroundedby working with guys and gals that
love cars and love to drive andlove to do all that kind of stuff.
I was sort of the cultural imperativeand history guy, so when it was something
to do with history, cultural imperative,personalities, whatever, that was a
lot of in my bucket, and that's whereI got to meet a guy named Don Weiberg.
Uh oh.
I am happy to say these 4,000 yearslater, we are still friends and like

(09:12):
I said, some of the days were reallyfun and some of the days were just
long and some were long and fun.
One of the things that I so enjoyed iswhen we would go out on a staff road
test, okay, we're gonna take these fourcars and we're gonna go to New Mexico
and shoot a feature and do a a road test.
And we'd sit around every night at dinnerand talk about how we felt about driving

(09:32):
this car and that car, Hey, the seats onthat one as good as this one or whatever.
And the dinner conversation was a blast.
Everybody came from a differentperspective and of course has
different physicality and differenttastes in how they like to drive
front, drive, rear drive, all drive,VH, turbos, whatever Matt's words
painted this imaginary picture ofwhat we all see on a top gear special.

(09:54):
Is there any truth to those, you know,behind the scenes when you see like a
top gear special and they've gone outand they've tested the cars and you see
the crews and they're sitting at dinner.
I mean, is it very much likethat or is that more dramatized?
The life that you led as a journalist,Eric, I bring to your table of lesson
Met Stone teach me long time ago.
We admit to nothing when therecording devices don't work.

(10:17):
You'll live in mystery.
I'll answer that a little more.
What the top gear guys have created isquite amazing, and those guys are all
personalities and, and I have respectfor them and affection for them.
That's a little spiced up.
Okay?
That doesn't mean it's lies.
Or untruthful, but it isdefinitely seasoned for tv.
I enjoyed going out on the roadtrip with the guys and gals.

(10:40):
That was a lot of fun, a lot of work,long days, but it was really, to me, one
of the sweet spots of doing this kindof work was bonding with a great team,
and I had those most years, not everyyear or all the time, but most years.
Really good teams.
We worked hard and we had a blast andwe did photo shoots until dark and
plus hopefully put it all togetherin a good story when we got back.

(11:03):
That was very satisfying.
Eric, now you see why I've alwaysspoken kind of highly of Matt
Stone, having worked for him,having been his whipping boy.
He was fun to work for.
He really was.
He was never short of words.
He would always had an opinionabout something, but he was always
really, really good at guiding youwhen you asked kind of questions,
when you had straight up ideas.

(11:24):
He had a a really greatway of guiding you.
And I'll tell you, Iremember a couple of those.
I mean, I never took the NewMexico vacations or anything like
that with you guys, boondoggles.
Yeah.
But I do remember a couple of longroad trips where they were stuck
with me because they needed a bodyto drive the vehicle to the location.
And a couple of those were with Matt.
Yeah, I gotta say, I wouldonly occasionally get called

(11:46):
in for some of the campos.
You know, you get fouror five cars and needed.
Like Don was saying, you needed bodies,you know, even if you weren't gonna
be writing the story, you neededsomebody to drive the cars, get
'em from A to B and B2C, and so on.
And I found those to be the longestassignments because photography had to
be done either very early or very late.
'cause they wanted the golden light.
And really the storieswere driven by photography.
I mean, because the photographeronly had one bite at the apple.

(12:06):
So the photographers needed to get whatthey needed to get and they needed to
get it whenever they needed to get it.
And even though as a writer, you know,even when you were writing the story,
and a lot of times I wasn't writing thestory, you'd think, oh, you spent all this
time driving the car and getting dynamicfeedback and, and so on and so forth.
And no, you were mostly standing aroundwaiting for the photographer to take
interiors and, and do beauty shots.
And for the high speeds thing, that wouldrig the suction cup card of the camera.

(12:27):
It was going two miles an hour.
It looks like it's going 180.
So I found those to be a little tiresome.
To be honest.
They were long days.
I like going out on feature stories.
I was by myself occasionally.
I had a photographer with meand I sort of set my own agenda.
That was a lot more pleasant for me.
I do remember Matt a couple oftimes watching you work with the
other senior editors, includingthe man in the corner office, and I

(12:48):
remember it was always impressive.
They always kinda look to you.
Something I never understood, by the way.
Right.
You were just playing it.
Right.
You were just going with it.
You know?
They want my opinion.
I'll give it to 'em.
I was doing my thing.
Yeah, it was always fun working with you.
It really was.
Except for that time, he slapped me acrossthe face, but I guess I deserved it.
Okay then.
Now that is a Jeremy Clark's moment.

(13:10):
We worked hard and learned a lot andwent great and marvelous places, and made
many, many friends all over this world.
I mean.
And I've heard Matt say it a bunchof times before, there's a difference
between a writer and a journalist.
So I want you guys to expand upon thatfor our audience, and this is no knock
on you, tiktoks and Facebookers and all,well, maybe it's 40 characters and a

(13:33):
crappy photo is not great journalism.
In my humble opinion.
It may or may not even be journalism.
I mean, I guess if you got the onephoto of somebody very, very important,
running naked down through TimesSquare, maybe that's journalism.
So when I was a kid, theycalled those tabloids.
I just wanna throw that outthere, what you described, right?

(13:54):
Social media and all that.
Content creator.
Yeah, content creators, tabloids.
But there's no analysis in that.
It's, it's a crappyphoto in 40 characters.
I never have, nor do I now wantanything to do with that scene.
I don't do that stuff.
Good luck to those who do.
And if you make money goodon you, and you have fun and
you're providing good content.
I love that you have tobe a content creator.

(14:15):
Now, you used to be able to be awriter or a journalist, and now
you have to be a content creator.
Well, I'm not sure there's really,uh, a tremendous difference.
I mean, I, I kind of came tothe game through newspapers.
I didn't come through it as a car loverfirst, so I think I brought a little bit
more of that kind of granular stuff to it.
The thing is, is marginalism was a thingyou really needed expertise in cars.

(14:36):
More than journalism.
I mean, if you weren't, if you didn't knowcars, you could be a great journalist,
but you know, you didn't know the nittygritty about how cars worked and how
they were supposed to handle and perform.
You were kind of worthless, I think.
I think you needed to really haveboth skills needed to be there.
I would agree with that.
I would say that not every writer is agreat journalist, and not every journalist
is a great writer, but there are poets.
Poets can be fabulous writers.

(14:57):
They may not know orunderstand the tenets.
Journalist.
The ideal quinella is when bothof them meet in the middle in one
individual with a singular writingvoice and a singular mind that really
understands the job, the topic, thestory, and the results, and then really
knows how to put it down in writing.
And that guy's name is Preston Lerner,as far as I'm concerned, in the world

(15:19):
of automotive journalism, the goat,that's the greatest of all time.
Is that still Brock Yates oris there somebody else that
you guys look up to and say?
He was one of the greatestautomotive writers of all time.
Brock Yates, the assassin, justfinished a manuscript for a book
on racing from 64 to 73 pro racing.
And so I. Went through all the literaturemagazines back in the day, and I

(15:40):
gotta say, Yates was unbelievable.
He was the most opinionated.
If you agree with him, he was the best.
If you disagree with him, you'dprobably want to kill him.
But I think he was probably themost influential journalist I know.
He went beyond journalism, you know,cannonball stuff and safety and I
mean, he was on TV as a broadcaster.
I never really thought about who would bethe goat, but I think he was the biggest
name, best known outside of the field.
I mean, he wrote novels.
He was really something.

(16:00):
I didn't know him verywell, unfortunately.
'cause I never worked for Car And Driverwas never back in the Michigan area.
I'd say he would be thefirst one that comes to mind.
Yeah, and he absolutely had the chops.
He had the chops and the receipts.
Could I conclusively?
Undoubtedly unequivocallyname, name him the goat.
I'd have to think longer and harder.
But with Preston, he was right up there.

(16:22):
Right up there.
I knew him late in his life.
What a fascinating guyto sit and talk with.
Yeah.
What do you, would you say Mattis the key differentiator between
a writer and a journalist?
They, again, can be the sameperson and can be acting.
In a duality, but the tenets of journalismabout, you know, corroborating evidence
and doing good reporting and all of thestuff that goes with journalism, that's

(16:44):
something not every writer understands.
You know, in terms of attribution, ofinformation, of quoting, of credits,
of backup, of second sources, ofall the things that make a great
journalist may or may not have anythingto do with being a great writer.
Ideally, you want both usingautomobile as a, an example, David
E. Davis, PJ O'Rourke, gene, I mean.
They weren't really journalists.

(17:05):
I mean, they weren't out thereinterviewing engineers and typically
their reporters notebooks, like Iwas, you know, laying down specs.
And that wasn't their job.
I mean, they were there to reflecttheir larger than life personalities
and tell great narratives, and,and they were great writers.
You know, they had stuffthat I couldn't do.
I mean, no one was gonna mistakeme for David e and, and when you
were at a dinner, I mean, Davide and Gene would just hold court.
Matt too.
That's not what, what I was, butthe skills are somewhat different,

(17:27):
but they're not antithetical.
I think, like Matt said, if you could doboth of 'em, that's better and better.
So Preston, would you say then,for writers that are listening to
this right now, we're just gonnause that term to not split hairs.
If you're in the realm of non-fiction,do you think the transition to
journalism is a little easierthan a straight fiction writer?
Or to Matt's point, a poet orsomebody that's writing prose?
I mean, I think it'spretty straightforward.

(17:48):
I mean, if you're doing a piece whereyou need to do real reporting, I mean
there, there is some experience youneed or expertise and, but I think
it's pretty easy to, you know, youask people questions that you're,
you're all of a sudden, you'rea journalist, you're a reporter.
I think you can learn that on the job.
You know, the point is, sometimesI, I feel like when you watch,
you know, the influencers, I mean,they're not asking questions.
Their stock and tradeis their own opinion.
That's not what a journalist is.
A journalist is not outthere to give your opinion.

(18:10):
You're out there to get what otherpeople have to say about a subject,
sort of pass that information along.
So I think you can certainly do it,but I, a lot of people, they rather
talk about their own opinions than theywould get somebody else's opinions.
That I find a littleoff-putting sometimes.
But you know, I'm a littlebit old school that way.
And we could probably debatethe difference when we bring in
historians into this as well.
Or we're recounting facts andfigures just like as journalists

(18:32):
would, but it's in more academic,you know, those kinds of things.
But we'll put a pin in that for now.
So, Don, do you wanna weigh in here?
As we transition?
I want to take you boys back to NewMexico and some of those road trips
where we grind the hell outta the Audisand wonder if the Mercedes will survive.
What were some of the more memorablestories, the more memorable
assignments that you worked on,either together or separately, that

(18:56):
still stand out in your head today?
It's a great question, Don.
I can name a couple from my ownexperience and I'm sure press has his too.
Something we did at MotorTrend everyyear was a annual top speed shootout
and we would go to a proving groundin Arizona on New Mexico that had a
five mile banked oval Indianapolismotor speed bay, but twice the size.

(19:17):
And we would bring a race driver dejour with us to take whatever car
that was and ring them out to VM Max.
On this five mile track, we hadJustin Bell one time, Danica Patrick
one time, and one I particularlyremember who was the ice?
Cool, wonderful professional, Brian Herda.

(19:38):
Oh, and we, and we broughtbig weapons that time.
We had the four gt, the first one,the five four supercharge V eight, and
we had a Porsche Carrera gt the V 10.
I'm trying to remember at theminute what the third one was,
but we had that strata of cars.
We're having a little meetingbefore, you know, photographers are
snapping around a little and the testequipment guys are rigging up cars.

(20:01):
And so Herta comes to me,he says, top speed, right?
I said, yep.
He says, you know, it could takeme one or two laps to get to that.
Take all the time you need.
We're looking for the biggestnumber you can ring out of
this car and stay in one piece.
Boy, if he didn't do it too,Brian was the coolest guy, an
extremely competent racing driver.
He got in every car, and I think all threecars, if I remember, cracked 200 that day.

(20:26):
And for a street streetcargranted of an exotic, very high,
powerful one, that was impressive.
And, and we have the picturesand the timing slips to prove it.
Danica Patrick also dida very good job for us.
She drove extremely professionally andlistened to us and gave great feedback
of what the car was doing in a corner,banked at whatever angle and mean.
She was a complete proand did a wonderful job.

(20:49):
But those events were wonderful.
Sometimes we had three or fourcars, sometimes we'd bring 10.
Another one I particularly remember,of course, uh, Preston and I have
many of the same heroes, but onein particular, and this was my idea
for a story, is, uh, Mario Andrettiused to have a winery in Napa.
And there were a whole bunch ofgreat hot convertibles that had

(21:10):
just roadsters and spiders thathad come out about the same time.
The Mercedes SL 55 A-M-G-A-V 12,Aston Martin DB seven, the BMWZ eight.
So we thought, you know, let's justbring those things up to Napa, take
pictures and we'll have Mario drivethem, make him the road tester, putting
Mario Andretti in a race car andsaying, tell us about this race car

(21:31):
that's not new ground to evaluate highperformance and exotic cars on the street.
Okay, Mario, we're out heredriving in the backyards of Napa.
What are you feeling?
And I'm gonna tell you, I'llnever forget that day, the last
sign up in my brain when I die.
We'll be thinking about thatstory and spending two days with
him out just driving and talking.

(21:52):
I'm pleased to say thathe's still my hero.
He's become my friend.
I'll never forget that one.
Anytime soon.
There were others.
But I've talked enough.
Preston, I'm curious, was that beforethe Newman book or after the Newman book?
Before.
Cool.
That's great.
So back in again, the days when therewere really elaborate press trips,
Chrysler was doing a deal for, um, thesecond gen Viper had just come out.
Remember the GTS coop with theblue with the white stripes?

(22:13):
You mean second generation Daytona Coop.
That's my favorite.
Viper.
I love that car.
Tom Kaki was the, uh, legendaryPR guy for Chrysler at the time.
Put together this trip wherewe went with these vipers.
We went to the berg ring, we went tospa and we went to Ram, or Reem, or
however you pronounce it, in France.
The plan was to go thento drive from France.
We were supposed to go to theArctic Reon and all these vipers

(22:34):
would be there at the Arctic Reon.
But it was really as incredible.
So along for this trip to givelike presentations at night where
Phil Hill and Jesse Alexander.
So it was really cool.
I knew Phil Little and Jesse wasa friend, and that was great.
At any rate, what happened was the leg ofthe trip was like three days or something.
We were going to the Arctic Dream.
I was paired up with Phil for some reason.
I don't know why.
I mean, Phil Hill is like a, you know, ahero and I'm mostly asking him questions

(22:56):
and he's talking, you know, I'm askingabout various races and this and that.
I'm supposed to be doing the navigating.
Well, I wasn't paying any attention tothe navigating, and I got us totally lost.
So we're supposed to be at theYork Triumph at a certain hour
and we're nowhere close to there.
We're lost in the middle of Parisand Phil had this reputation,
justifiably for being very high strung.
He was going insane becausewe were lost in Paris.
You know, we were supposedto be at this thing.
And I was like, you are Phil Hill.

(23:17):
Who cares?
You know, we don't need to be there.
We, we've got our own Viper, you know,we made to the York Triumph after they'd
done the big photo shoot and we missed it.
And Phil was peeing the whole timeat me, but I got a great story
about, it's why I really didn't care.
And like I had Phil to myselffor like two and a half hours or
whatever it was, in a Viper GTS.
It was cool.
And Phil was driving.
I was just.
Navigating or not navigating it.
Again, those are the kind of press trips.
I don't think they do anymore.

(23:37):
I mean, it was like a three or four days.
And I mean, they didn't even needto sell the viper to the media.
Everyone in the media lovedthat car anyway, right?
Mm-hmm.
But that was, that was a great thrill.
I mean, I, there's so many, whenyou ask the question, so many pinch
me moments that I've had mm-hmm.
Through this field.
I mean, I'm just, I feel lucky tohave been able to do what I've been
able to do, and I never would'vebeen able to do it otherwise.
So just have to thank the powers that befor letting me have these opportunities.

(23:59):
Preston is a very competent,road racer, good racing driver.
But when you ride withPhil Hill, Mario Andretti.
Any of those drivers that any of ushave ever ridden with, you realize
what a crap slow driver you are.
I mean, it's uncanny.
These folks have talents in theirfingernails that you can't dream of.

(24:21):
They're just talking and driving likeit's a taxi rolling through a residential
neighborhood at 25 miles an hour,except they're going 150 or whatever,
and they're looking at you and talking.
But they're also looking there too.
It's I, you know, I don't know.
They have talents andsenses and calibrated ass.
That just like normal people don'thave, I call that a speedometer.
I like that.

(24:41):
I'm gonna order one ofthose, but it's just true.
I, anytime I've ever ridden witha world class racer like that,
it just reminds me how slow I am.
You talked about racing, youtalked about meeting Mario
Andretti and all those people.
What about meeting autoindustry executives?
Have you guys spent muchtime with those people?
Matt, I know you have.
I know you got some great stories.

(25:02):
Good, bad, indifferent.
I would say most times good.
And I met a lot of them, and Iparticularly enjoyed the designers.
The automotive designers or nowthe independent ones who designed
great cars and went on theirown, founded their own company.
I knew Tom Char very, very well.
I think Gito Gito, he's the goat,Giro is the goat of all ever and ever.

(25:26):
I mean, just go through his rosterof cars and you'll just go, this came
outta one head from one guy's pencil.
What's with, how did that happen?
I really enjoyed hanging and banging withthe designers, especially at an auto show.
I used to go walking around withTom or others and we'd walk up
to whatever concept car and theywould talk and I would listen and

(25:46):
occasionally they'd ask my opinion.
I thought, well that was reallynice, but they don't care 'cause
I wanna know their opinion.
So the designers were terrific.
I'll give you one example of, oftwo guys coincidentally that worked
for the same company for a while.
They would be Robert.
Lutz.
Oh, Bob Lutz and Chairman Lido, a AA Coka.

(26:08):
Mm. Those guys as car company executives,they could smell it in the air.
They had this nose, whether it was atrend or impending doom or whatever,
they could just smelled the car businessin the air, and they just had instinct.
Now, did they make mistakes?
Of course they did, but they also eachachieved great things and saved companies.

(26:33):
Those guys were fascinating just to sitand talk with Lotts, and he goes on and
on about what's right and wrong withthe car business or this car company.
He smelled it in the air or thewater, or in the blood or whatever.
And Mr. Iaccoca too, I mean, youknow, not every Iaccoca car was great.
A whole lot of 'em were successfuleither as machines or as sales.

(26:53):
Most of them were pretty smart guys andgals, some, not all the racing drivers
'cause of our need for speed and all that.
That's one thing and, and because ofcourse how great they can all drive.
But I enjoyed the designers.
The senior most car executives that Icould get FaceTime with, Luca Cordero
de Montelo, he chairman of Ferrari fora number of years, positively brilliant

(27:18):
guy, and has so much heat and somuch enthusiasm for the car business.
You, you can't believe it.
And he would be the first one to tellyou that when he took over all the
things that were wrong with Ferrari andthen he proceeded to go like a target
shooter and fix them one at a time.
Those guys are fascinating.
Yeah, of course there's, there's guysthat tanked and went nowhere and were

(27:39):
supposed to be the great saviors ofwhatever company and did nothing.
There were those two, butgenerally some pretty interesting.
And smartphone, I will say.
I mean, the ones that I met, theywere all impressive and it's, you
know, outsiders can always criticizeand say, oh, what a stupid idea.
The solstice or whatever.
The Aztec, we can all agree the Aztec,there you go, someone messed up.
But I mean, by and large, thepeople I met were all really bright.

(28:01):
They were really committed.
They were real, mostly car people.
I mean, I didn't meet that manywho were just bean counters.
I'm sure they were there, butit's just that I think cars
is a, it's a tough business.
It became a lot tougher when youhad a lot more foreign competition.
Margins are small and it's a hardway to make a living, and so no
one gets a ride all the time.
Cut people a lot more slackthan some of the critics do.
I will also say the smartest,perhaps, of all of them that I

(28:23):
have ever met and spoken to Roger sPenske, I've heard that quite now.
That is one smart dude.
He's too smart to be president,but he'd make a great president.
But you know, he runs a global businessemploying like 70,000 people and you
know, race teams that have been there, wonthat, and again, car dealership groups.

(28:44):
As a guy who owns a big car dealershipgroup, he is so influential he
can and has convinced various carmakers to do or not do something.
Because his brain operates at adifferent level than mere mortals.
I have nothing but immense respectand affection for Roger Penske as

(29:04):
a truly brilliant and nice man whojust really gets the car business.
Was there a story that got away,something still that you wanna write
about, someone you wanted to interview?
I used to do a lot of stories about youngguys before they had really succeeded or
also some women, 'cause I also did DanicaPatrick just sort of getting started
out and I was gonna do something on,uh, Jeff Gordon and he had just moved
up to Cup and they were going to do thefirst Brickyard 400, I believe it was 94.

(29:28):
And I pitched the story toautomobile about follow Jeff Gordon.
He's going back to do, uh, indie,which he originally wanted to do Indie
as Indy car guy, but you know, endedup being shunted over to to NASCAR
because there was no future for Midgetand Sprint car drivers in, in, in car.
And so I saw this story to automobile andGene Jennings Green lit the whole thing.
I set everything up and at the lastsecond, David e gave the assignment
to offend of his, to just do a generalstory on first Brick yard four.

(29:52):
So I didn't get to the storyand Jeff Gordon won the race.
And it was actually, it would'vebeen like my greatest story ever.
And Jean never forgot Ididn't get that story in.
She treated me.
Uh, she gave me assignmentsthat I shouldn't have
gotten for years after that.
Just to say I was sorryfor not giving me that.
That for me was the story that got away.
I don't know that I have any of thosetales, that too much that got away.
I didn't, didn't miss much.
But I bet you fall victim to theadage, never meet your heroes.

(30:15):
So was there one story that wasdisappointing that didn't turn out the
way you wanted it to, or it sort ofbroke the glass ceiling for you and
you're like completely disillusioned?
No, not that I, I met my heroesand never regretted one of them.
Everyone that I would've put in thehero category that I ultimately met.
I'm glad I did.
And they were still myhero when we were done.
And many became friends in that sense.

(30:36):
No.
Major mega disappointments.
And I would love Preston'sopinion on this too.
When you get in whatever car, andit's supposed to be something that's
supposed to be pretty good and youwant the cars to be good, but you're
disappointed when they're not.
And that's happened.
I'm not avoiding naming a suspect,but I'm trying to think of a car I
would name, but I remember cars thatjust, it was hyped and noise and you

(30:59):
wanted it to be good and it wasn't.
It just fell flat.
And that's disappointing.
But you know, you, you have towrite that story and you have
to point those things out.
And I always did.
Always and why.
Yeah, that's happened a few times.
But anyway, press go ahead.
How about you Again, I didn'tdo as much of the new car stuff
somewhere better than those.
I mean, I always felt thrilled toget in a Ferrari or get in those.
Never disappointed for sure,but to get a little bit jaded.

(31:22):
'cause you got in allthe really great cars.
So when you were in kind of astandard family sedan, it was hard
to work up too much enthusiasm.
Back to Eric's point a little, did youever have that interview that you're
just waiting to kill it with somebodyThat's really important, and you sat
with that person an hour later and said.
I got nothing.
I did have a taperecorder fail on me once.
Clearly some guys were better than othersand, and Mario was the all time great.

(31:44):
Mario was the best racing interview ever.
Ever.
Yeah.
I mean he managed to convey hisenthusiasm and he had great stories
and I would, maybe not a lot, butcertainly a substantial portion
of racers were not race fans.
They didn't succeed on the trekbecause they knew that N won the German
Grand Prix and you know, beat theSilverados, but they were just fast.
Um, sometimes it was disappointingto talk to people who didn't know
the history or didn't really havea perspective on what was going on.

(32:06):
And, you know, someguys were better noters.
Mario was tremendous.
The only guy who was really myhero growing up, Emerson Fitted Pol
and meeting him after he went Indyfor the first time was a thrill.
He is the only guy who wasautographed I ever got.
He was great.
Uh, a lot of fun.
There were, a lot of them were great.
The Hobbes, the Redmonds, they'reall great storytellers and, and
it's always fun to talk to him.
Some not quite so good, especiallythe younger drivers not as interested

(32:27):
in the history of the sport.
Yeah.
The ones who have perspectiveand are mega talents.
Those are pretty well, always good talks,always good stories, always good interview
because they bring so much to the table.
But you're right, if they're justtoo young and and haven't really done
big things, they have very littleinstitutional memory, not necessarily
crazy great successes to talk about yet.

(32:48):
Those can be a little disappointing.
But generally, uh, the ones who haveperspective and mega talent, they're
gonna give you a good interview.
I'm glad Matt, you brought up thecars 'cause that was next on my list.
I wanna share with you guys, just asan aside, and I know it's gonna ruffle
Don's feathers, fellow journalist,I'm gonna put 'em in that category.
John Davis from Motor Week was on theshow many seasons ago and I asked him

(33:10):
a similar question, you know, 'cause hereviews cars all the time and he said
his favorite car, he got to drive aFerrari Enzo, much like Preston, right?
He's like, oh, Ferrari, that's awesome.
And so I turned the question around.
I said, the car that you were hypedto test drive and to review for the
show and was a complete letdown.
And he said the DeLorean.
And he also added that he was reallyexcited to buy one and because

(33:31):
of the test drive, he didn't.
And he ended up buying a Panerainstead, which he's known for having
a Panera for a very, very long time.
So there you go.
Well, on that note, Preston, if you'renot up to speed, I am a DeLorean junkie.
Oh, okay.
Have more crap rattling aroundin his head about DeLorean than
anybody has a right to know about.
I love the cars.
Yes, I know they're not very quick,but when compared to everything

(33:55):
else in 1981, they weren't too bad.
But I do remember going back to Roadand Track when the car came out.
Calm Bryant, he wrote, I rememberyou opened the magazine and
there was this double truckand the DeLorean didn't slide.
I mean, it's a reallyexciting looking picture.
And I remember at some point inthat article he writes that he
really wanted to like the DeLorean.

(34:17):
I mean, it literally just says, Ireally wanted to like the de DeLorean.
I remember reading that.
That always stuck with me and hekind of smooths it out over time.
He does say things about, maybeit's not as quick as it looks,
and maybe it doesn't do things.
We would hope it would,but the DNA is there.
You can feel it.
You know, this car can bemore in its next iterations.

(34:39):
I always appreciated that about him,that he didn't quite slam the car.
I've gone so far 'cause I haveall these magazines from back
in the day when the car is new.
And I remember the one particularjournalist who will remain
nameless for his own health, whowrote a really scathing review
of DeLorean way back in 81.
Fast forward to, I don'tknow, 2000, somewhere in there

(35:00):
when DeLorean popularity wasjust starting to come around.
Younger people were startingto get more interested in them.
And all of a sudden time was the greatforgiver time, was making them a good car.
And of course, back to thefuture had a ton to do with that.
That same writer wrote an articleabout DeLorean saying what a great car
they were, how wonderful they were,how ahead of their time they were.

(35:21):
And I thought to myself in1981, you tell everybody what
a piece of junk this car is.
Now here we are 20 some odd yearslater and you've got the gall to
come out and say, oh no, this car wasahead of its time and it's terrific.
So I found the originalmagazine where he bashed it.
I found his little article and I putthem together and I wrote a letter to him
and I sent it to him and I asked him toplease justify what he was trying to say.

(35:46):
Never heard back from him.
And then fast forward a couple yearslater, LA Aldo show, press days,
pop up and guess who I run into?
And there he is.
Yeah, I shook his hand.
I said, hi, I am Don Weiberg, how are you?
And he is kind of looking atme like, I know that name.
And I said, yeah, I loveyour review of the DeLorean.
Gave him that deadpan stare.

(36:08):
The look.
I've never seen a facego white so quickly.
And I'm just like, oh my God,this is actually a lot of fun.
Now mind you, what I was not prepared for?
How old was I?
25, 26. Matt.
He was like, your age.
Okay.
So I'm looking at him like, oh,he's supposed to be my boss or
something, and here I am basicallytelling him off because he

(36:28):
doesn't know anything about cars.
And that was the fact.
Over time I've learned that that guyactually knew very little about how cars,
it was who he knew in the publishingindustry that he kept getting these
jobs and for some reason he kept gettingthrown into the automotive circle.
It was really, really weird.
For the record, I was not that journalist.
I just want that on the record.
I know I looked you up.

(36:50):
I know of what you wroteabout Zaka You Okay.
In my book, did that interviewyou for his book, by the way?
Yes, he did.
I go novan.
So I know I opened Pandora's boxby bringing this up, but actually
we stepped backwards into a reallyimportant final point about the day in
the life of an automotive journalist,which is the risk you take about
what you write and what you publish.

(37:11):
Can you keep track of everythingyou've written over, let's
say a career 20, 30 years?
And just like Don's anecdote, did thatguy even remember what he said in 1981?
Was he thinking that far,you know, 20 some years ago?
So has that ever happened to either ofyou guys where you've had to, you know,
recant what you've done or gone back or,you know, the letter to the editor was
specifically pointed at something thatyou wrote, and how did you handle that?

(37:32):
There's some things I've written thatI wish I had written differently.
The most embarrassing moment ever wasan email I sent, which was not for
publication, and it somehow got published.
And then I heard from, uh, LeoLevine, the author of the Dustin, the
Glory Great Ford Book, which I love.
It was one of the great books ever.
And he then wrote a second, theDustin Glory two, which, or that's
not what it was called, but it was,it picked up the story after 67 and

(37:52):
it was not as great as the first book.
And that's what I'd said in my email.
To an editor who shall remain nameless.
And he published that.
And I got a call immediately from Leo.
What, what?
What did you like about the book?
And that was, that was bad.
But I have to think back fora while to see if there's
anything I wanted to recant.
Nothing comes immediately to mind, but I'msure there was some, I'm sure there are
many things I got wrong over the years.
I can identify offhand something that Iwould absolutely recant because it was

(38:15):
terribly wrong, factually incorrect.
Awful, awful, awful.
We're humans.
We make mistakes.
You have opinions thatother people disagree with.
That's fair game.
And there were times when Ihad to answer those letters,
and some of 'em I did answer.
I mean, if somebody came to mewith a well reasoned objection.
I'd be happy to engage them and I did.
If they're just, you know, out there,pure bashers who know nothing bashing

(38:40):
me, the magazine, the story, and yourmother and your, you know, all of
that, I don't have time for that, forthat ignorant explosion kind of thing.
I could care less That person's an idiot.
Or at least acting like one.
But if somebody will engage meprofessionally and courteously
with a disagreement, sure, I'llhave that conversation anytime.
Sometimes there's some group think isinevitable, you get a lot of guys together

(39:01):
and something comes up and sometimes someopinions become sort of standard issue,
even though they probably shouldn't.
I remember Finity andAlexis came out in 89.
A lot of the, the sports carguys liked the Infinity more.
The Q 45 was, you know,a much more dynamically
interesting car than the LS 400.
And so we thought, oh, thisis gonna be the killer car.
Well, of course seems like Q 45 ended upbeing a bit of a disaster and the LS 400
reshaped the entire luxury car industry.

(39:23):
So yeah, I'm sure I was guiltythere of getting that one wrong.
I'm sure there's a bunch of stufflike that, but I don't recall
ever being confronted like by Donor anybody, anybody like that.
So I better take note of maybe after theysee this episode I'll be in more trouble.
Yeah, it's okay.
Preston, I'm doing a littleresearch now on your work and I'm
gonna have to call you after this.
I'd like to have a few words.
I do wanna know who thejournalist was though.

(39:44):
Maybe after.
We'll do that when thered light's off, right?
For me, I wanted to be an auto journalist.
That was what I wanted to do.
I, you know, you guys are talkingabout the racing cars guys as
your heroes, the Andrettis, andyou know Matt Preston, you guys.
Or my hero, you were the ones that I wouldpick up a road and track a MotorTrend car
and driver and auto week, any of 'em, andread those stories about the new cars,

(40:06):
about the classic cars, and to a young guyraised around cars, but looking to learn
his own voice in the auto dom Auto sphere.
Auto sphere.
Very good.
Yeah.
You guys were the ones who gave methe knowledge to develop my voice.
You were the ones who gave me thethought processes as to, gee Don,
why is it you started liking Corvettea little better than nine 11?

(40:28):
What happened there?
Well.
Reading about it and youguys putting it into words.
So me, I took an internship, I wrotea letter to MotorTrend editor Steve
Van Toon, who graciously calledme, said, please come to my office.
I'd like to meet with you.
Let's have a conversation about whatyou're doing and what you wanna do.
The guy was fantastic,absolutely incredible.
And that was where I met Matt.
That's where I met everybody else.

(40:49):
But that was how you did it.
In the old days.
You wrote to somebodyyou wanted to be part of.
You saw them as the authority,you wanted to learn from them.
So that's where I went.
Now that being said, sowe're gonna switch gears.
Talk about books.
We've interviewed plenty of authors onthis show, and I always kind of ask them,
Matt included the journey of 80,000 words.
Where do you start blinkingcursor on the screen?

(41:11):
It's a lot different than writingan article or something like that.
It's more serialized to makethings more complicated.
When you're writing your own book,it's your voice, your opinion, your
story, your fiction, whatever it is.
And you're working with an editor, butyou two have co-authored some books.
How do you come to agreement?
How do you write it in such away that it's seamless and how

(41:31):
does that work with editors?
Can you explain the process ofco-authoring a book together?
The first book we did together,it was Matt's project.
It was a Paul Newman book.
Matt had me come in towards theend to help out with some of the
racing portion of it, specific'cause Matt had done a great job
with, uh, especially the attainment,the movie winning and the cars.
That was a great chapteron the, uh, the movie cars.
And I was doing kind of moresort of the inter nuts and

(41:52):
bolts kind of, uh, racing side.
We each wrote our own material andthen we vetted each other's material.
So it worked out really well.
'cause these days there are no realeditors in the book publishing world.
I mean, there, there's copy editors.
It's not, you're getting first edit peoplegiving you good ideas about what to do.
So we were fortunately able, we were bothwriters, we've both done some editing,
so we're able to look at each other'swork, I think, and make it better.

(42:13):
I think the voices sound pretty.
I mean, I, I don't know, peoplecould tell the difference
between what we wrote or not.
I think it was pretty seamless.
And so we handed in somethingthat we were happy with, get
my perspective on this as well.
But I was happy with, anyway,what, what we handed in.
So it didn't really need to be editedand we actually probably didn't really
want it to be edited 'cause we werehappy with the product that we submitted.
Does it get even morecomplicated though, when we bring

(42:35):
self-publishing into the equation?
Something like an Amazon where youreally have to do your own work.
Have you guys ventureddown that path at all?
I've never done that, but I, I alsowrite a. Fiction and first book I sold.
The only novel I soldso far, unfortunately.
I mean, there was a New York editor who,he went through the copy page by page and
he had thoughts on what needed to be done.
You know, all the books I'vedone, I haven't done as many as
Matt, but done seven or eight now.

(42:57):
And I mean, there's really not much inputfrom the editors at the publishing houses.
I mean, they give you, you know, you.
Talk about what you're gonna doahead of time and then you pretty
much deliver the product and thenit is copy edited and proofread.
What about like fact checking?
Is that part of the editing process?
Does the publishing house go into thator do they pretty much just trust you
to turn in a book that's ready to go?

(43:19):
Uh, you know, Matt, you justrecently wrote the DeLorean
book, and how did that go?
You turned it in, did they go through itand make sure all the facts are correct?
Is there somebody at thepublishing house that does that,
in that particular instance, Don?
Yes.
The commissioning editor, the guy whoI reported to, so to speak, at motor
books on this project, he normallycould have and would've done it himself,

(43:41):
but he was very, very, very busyat the time with numerous projects.
He hired a woman to do a, acopy, edit and proof, and she
just did marvelous research.
She would come up, she said, well, Ifound this here, and you said this.
Are you comfortable that you'reright, or is this guy perhaps right?
Or is everybody right?
And, and her attitude and style toPresident's Point made it better.

(44:04):
Mm-hmm.
Now, you, you, you can get somebodywho just, they're stuck in Wikipedia.
I mean, I use Wikipedia, but is it myonly source for everything I ever write?
No, of course not.
That'd be foolish.
Mm-hmm.
I want that.
I want it to be good.
I want it to be right and accurate,and that process, as Preston
said, makes you better and makesthe work better if it's good.

(44:26):
Right.
If it's somebody who's justanxious to make a name for
themselves and steal your project.
That's very dissatisfying.
I think only one time have I everhad that, and it was a project that
Preston and I also worked on together.
Oh right.
That was, you remember who that was?
I do, isn't it?
I don't think is there anymore, is it?
I don't think so.
I think that person who shallremain quite nameless isn't there.

(44:47):
But yeah, when it's bad, it's awful.
'cause then you startquestioning yourself, right?
And then you got a negotiationwith this person of authority.
Well, he's the editorhe's supposed to know.
Wait a minute, I did the homework.
I know, and you get feeling likethat sometimes, but if it's a good
collaborative thing, you're all onthe same page, you understand kind
of what the book's gonna be, andyou do your homework, it's fine.

(45:09):
How do you justify your answers?
In other words, in that, in thatscenario where that lady walked
up to you and said, well, I havethis guy here saying A, you said E.
Do you have notes on the situation?
How do you say to that person?
Well, this is how I came to my conclusion.
When I'm doing a book project, I havebanker's boxes next to my desk, and

(45:30):
I keep every stitch of anything thathas to do with that book, whether
that's a screen print, an interview,a magazine article, a book, whatever.
I build my own personal internetby the pound, and it depends
on the quality of the source.
And in some cases it's the source period.
It's a direct quote fromso-and-so who invented the thing.

(45:50):
And I have his SAE paper or hisinterview right here in front of me.
Miss copy editor, or who are you quoting?
I keep everything handy until it's done.
And again, sometimes there's a littlebit of a negotiation and if you
can't agree, there's nothing wrongwith saying historical sources or
authorities do not agree on this issue.
Here's the two viewpoints, andI've done that and it sounds like

(46:12):
a cop out, but it's like, wait aminute, I wasn't sitting there.
Lightning doesn't strike with the answer.
So if their source is credible andhonest and was well founded and
mine is a good solid direct source,I'll say, well, here's two opinions.
Here's from the guy that designed it andhere's from the engineer that built it.
Nothing wrong with that.
I mean, I love fact checkers.
I wish they had more of 'em.
Maybe it's some publishing houses.

(46:33):
They devote more to that.
I do know that automobile, Imean they had a part of the copy
editing process was fact checkingand they were really vigilant.
You know, sometimes it was frustrating.
You don't wanna haveeverything questioned.
But I think it was good.
I mean, it was rarely a timewhere Randy Blackwell was there.
He went to Car driver.
I think he still had car driver, but Imean, rarely he didn't catch something or
at least something that we had to discuss.
And I think that's,that's really important.

(46:53):
You know, to Matt's point, sometimes thesources don't agree and sometimes you'll
find sources disagree with the historical,what was written back in the day.
And you have to sort of make ajudgment call about, you know,
what's right or what's wrong.
But, you know, it's the famous NewYorker article about fact checkers,
where one of the stories is, it wasabout the invention of the, uh, vibrator.
The guy who invented it said it was'cause his wife was frigid and the wife

(47:14):
said it was 'cause he was impotent.
And the poor fact checker hadto like talk to the two people
on asked which, which was it.
And I guess they sort ofdidn't get that one resolved.
But I mean, fact checkershave a tough job.
So I, I like to, uh.
Help them out as much as I could.
At the end of the day though,it's my opinion that great
editing makes you better.
If it's really great work.

(47:34):
Somebody who's not out to be a hero andput their voice into what you wrote, you
know, if somebody's editing without egoand and is just really good on facts and
style and the root tenets of journalismand all that kind of stuff, great.
Editing makes my work better.
I want that.
Have you guys, either one ofyou individually or together as
a team, have you ever worked onmore than one book at a time?

(47:55):
I have.
I have done it.
It can be tough.
You have to be really smart and hopefullykg and good about, I don't want to be
working on two projects that have thesame deadline or on the same schedule.
If I'm finishing up this andI'm just starting to wanna chase
something new, that's okay.
I'll start gathering information, mightdo some interviews, maybe do a little

(48:16):
writing, but I want book A to be well downthe river and on its way to the press.
Before I get too far into book B, but Ihad a collision one time and it was hell.
I'll be honest, it was verydifficult for me to make that
separation in my head comfortably.
I did it, got away with it.
It was fine, but it was tough.
Yeah, I've never done, I mean, I wouldalways do freelance work while I was

(48:37):
writing, so sometimes you had to becauseyou had to make a living, you juggle.
Yeah.
There's not a lot of money in carbooks, especially racing books.
I mean, they're not laborers of love.
Exactly.
But magazine work just pays so muchbetter that that's what would pay the
bills, and so I had to make sure I wasleft time to do those assignments and
did the books as time permitted, oryou know, after dinner or something.
It's nice to be able to stretch outon a project, you know, instead of

(48:57):
doing, you know, a feature storyof 2,003,000 words or 5,000 words
is a really long feature story.
By modern standards and book you get towrite 50, 70, a hundred thousand words.
It's fun to be able tostretch out like that.
It's great to have thatopportunity because you can't
do that in a magazine story.
You just just don't have the space.
You know, you guys have written so much.
You've spent your whole careers writing.
Are there any stories that you feel.

(49:18):
Are underrated or overlooked in automotivehistory that maybe deserve more attention,
a little bit more light shined on them.
What's really good, you mentioned Amazonand self-publishing, which once upon a
time had a really terrible reputation.
Vanity Publishing was what it wascalled and and people look down upon
it and what's happened is, is nowbecause the economics have changed
and the software has changed, there'snow the ability to write books on
subjects that never would've beenpublished because you couldn't make

(49:40):
money writing a book about Lloyd Ruby.
I mean, that would'vebeen really borderline.
Well, now you can do that.
I mean, you can, you know, you cando that with desktop publishing.
Makes it possible.
So I think a lot of subjects thatwere too obscure to get through the
mainstream media and really get outthere in the world because they didn't
pencil out financially, I think now areplausible when you go to auto books.
This is the bookstore here in Burbank,pretty well known all over the world.

(50:02):
I mean, there were just hundreds ofbooks that I would happily buy if I could
afford to buy all of 'em about subjectsthat, you know, they would've been an
article, a 2000 word article, and nowit's this 80,000 word book on Eddie Sachs.
That would not have been done, you know,a generation ago, or even a decade ago,
because no publisher would take that on.
How could you possibly make it work?
So I, I do think that's a greatthing that's available now,
and I'm, I'm happy to see that.

(50:23):
Tell you one, Eric, that I wouldlove to see researched and written
by a relentless team of Wall StreetJournal level investigative reporters.
And I'm not a conspiracy theorist, butthere's too much meat on this bones.
I'd really love to know, did thebig three put Preston Tucker down?
Ooh, that would be good.
I wanna know for sure.

(50:44):
I have a feeling that there's alot that people know that hasn't
been said, although a whole lot of'em are probably dead by now too.
I don't know.
Was Preston Tucker promoter andmaybe a, a bit of a huckster and
a this, that and the other thing?
Yeah, maybe.
But boy did he come up withone outrageously fabulous car.
It was right at, you know, the end ofthe World War and car companies were

(51:06):
scrambling for dollars, and I do know thatwithin the halls of certain car makers,
they saw that car and went, holy crap.
That I do know.
I've read interviews to that effect,but nobody has ever said for sure
that some faction of the big threeput him down or absolutely did not.
There's several books out on Tucker andeverybody talks some about it and did the

(51:29):
SEC, the securities exchange violations.
We've got all that, but did somebodyjust make sure that he didn't make it?
I'd love to know.
Okay.
Let's dive right into it.
Journalism, how has it changedsince you began your careers?
Where do you see it going?
Join me.
I'm Phil Donahue.
What do we see from where you've beento where you are to where it's going?
If I were the smartest guy, I wouldknow that, but I'm not, so I don't.

(51:54):
Preston, please backme or jack me on this.
The whole internet and connectivityand anti-social media and all that kind
of stuff changed it immeasurably andirreparably in a whole lot of ways.
That's where I think thebiggest paradigm changes came.
Where is it gonna go?
I wish I knew that.
But there are countries, Englandparticularly, that still seem to

(52:16):
be able to turn out these beautifullong form magazines with long form
stories and lavish photography andfabulous magazines, and sell 'em for
10 or 12 bucks, which nobody herein America seems to be able to do.
So where's it gonna go?
I don't know, but that to me was theparadigm shift, the mysterious interwebs.
I started getting journalism and Igot a journalism degree, got a job.

(52:38):
My first job with Don, you'll appreciatethis, was out in Abilene, Texas,
about three hours west of Dallas.
And at the time that they had notjust one, but two daily newspapers,
they had an afternoon edition.
In the morning edition.
I'd say about half the people whoworked there were people like me,
the young guys and girls who wantedto go on to bigger jobs, and we
wanted to get to the big city.
And the other half weregonna stay in Abilene.
And they raised a family on it,being a newspaper reporter editor

(52:59):
or working in the back shop.
There was a back shop back thenbecause you actually had to
physically put a paper together.
You didn't just do it allon the, on the computer.
And, um, you kind of thought thatthat was gonna be something you do for
the rest of your life and you retire.
And that was it.
And in our lifetime, thatjust completely disappeared.
I mean, Craigslist destroyed theclassified, you know, the internet
changed the reading habits.
I mean, I'm not saying anything new.
We were obviously, but, and clearly thatcame on to effect the card journalism.

(53:21):
Moral as well.
I mean, again, when Matt andI started four or five of
these, it was more than that.
But I mean, there was a bunch of Alist andBlist magazines that were great magazines
that looked like that was somethingyou would do for the rest of your life.
You know, they've like all disappeared.
It's, it's a really sad thing.
And I don't know if I would go intodrizzling now if I was starting out
because it's, it's a different field.
I don't know how you sell yourself.
I think Substack is an interestingfuture, and I do think that's
a way you can make a living.

(53:43):
But I think you're more of acommentator, you're more of a
pundit and you are a reporter.
And for people who wanted to bestraightforward journalist, I don't know
where you really do that anymore because.
Even we're out here in la.
I mean the LA Times is a shadow ofwhat it used to be, and it's like the
third biggest paper in the country.
It's a very, very sad to watchcar journalism, especially
because of the internet.
And now you have so many influencersand you know, people doing car reviews
so-called where they're getting acar from, not more manufacturer even,

(54:05):
which, I mean, there was always, youknow, some sort of questions about,
you know, how objective you would be.
I, I think we were objective, butthere's always been, you know,
people question it, but if you'regetting a call from manufacturer.
People now get 'em just from acar dealer, you know, and you're
doing the review right there.
And how honest can you beunder those circumstances?
Completely different field.
And I wish that it were doingbetter and I wish I could be a
little more optimistic, but I'mnot that sanguine about the future.

(54:26):
I'm a little bit in thesame boat with Preston.
I mean, telling somebody how to learnand train and make a living as an
automotive writer, I'm not sure that'san answerable question from where I sit.
It would be a, a shortspeech or a long boring one.
I'm not sure which.
One instance I just heard from a publicrelations person for one of the car
companies was telling me that they had anevent and they, and they had, I guess some

(54:47):
of these folks were on liners and some of'em were influencers and this and that.
They paired up driver and aride along to go drive this
vehicle wherever, like 30 miles.
And I mean, we used to do roadtests a lot longer than 30 miles.
Can I get an initialimpression in 30 miles?
Yeah, probably.
But what she told me is thisone particular outlet person.

(55:09):
Did not have a driver's license.
So the person he or she was teamedup with in the car drove the car.
So this writer, editor, influencerperson took the pictures with a
phone and all seemed to care aboutwas the technology in the car.
If I paired it with my phone,what could I make it do?
How good was the audiosystem, the nav system?

(55:30):
All the infotainment and was it smooth?
It didn't break down.
Yeah, it drove, it went good.
That's all he cared about.
'cause that's from the right seatwithout knowing how to drive,
that's all he could talk about.
So that was a little bit of a,A brain shaker to me, definitely
shows a different direction.
That's actually really amazing.
Let me, let me throw this one out therebecause one thing I've observed over

(55:51):
the years, you know, I came as kind of ahybrid when I started interning with Matt.
Yeah.
The internet was just starting toget a little bit of traction, just
starting to kind of get going.
I was classically trained inall the print journalism, so
I was going after that genre.
One thing I see now compared to backthen, thanks to technology or technology

(56:11):
be damned, however you wanna look atit, it's so much easier for anyone
to be an automotive journalist or aninfluencer, however you want to say it.
The question is the quality.
Can you trust this person?
What does this person bring to the game?
Why are you listening to this personwhen you're wanting to know more
about the Mazda Miata or the Ferrari3 0 8 or whatever, and here's this

(56:32):
one person you always go to orthese two people you always go to.
You almost have to figureout who's more trustworthy.
I guess where I'm going with thisis I wonder if your younger chances
are you grew up with this stuff.
You know how to run the camera onthe phone, you know how to edit.
Do you guys think, as you know, ashaving been there, done that, seeing
the future where you were as to whereit came, do you think that'd be a good

(56:52):
place for a young person to start?
Is just to dive in the pool?
If you think you've got what ittakes to be an automotive journalist,
do you make those little videos?
Do you make those commentaries?
What advice would you give tosomebody who wants to do this?
What do you think?
I don't, I don't know Don.
'cause I didn't come up thatway, so I'm not sure exactly.
I think one of the other things whichPreston touched on a little earlier is,

(57:14):
you know, back not too too many yearsago, you know, working at a magazine or
a newspaper was the way to make a living.
Yeah.
Posting to your blog may ormay not be Joe Bob's cool car
site without an income stream.
You can mechanically do all that, butis it from your grandma's basement?
Do you make a living?
Are you professional at that?
I think that's a bit of the missinglink in the equation of your question

(57:36):
and, and what does the person wannaaccomplish if they wanna make a living?
I think it's a hell of a challenge now.
Or do they not need to make a living?
I don't know.
This is Blackwater for me and I, I don'tknow that I have a credible opinion.
I'm not saying no, or that I don't know.
I'm not saying no, but I'm saying I don'tknow, sort of listen to myself speaking.
I kind of feel like I'm sortof a parody of the Boomer
complaining about everything,and I don't wanna sound that way.

(57:56):
I, it just meant it's, it's tough.
But I do think, and I actually didhave lunch with somebody, a young
guy who was trying to get startedand he was making his own videos.
But I still think it's importantsomehow to have some sort of journeyman
status where you, you're either anintern or you're, you start at the
bottom or you start at a smaller placewhere you kind of learn the ropes.
It's sort of hard toget into the business.
Fully formed.
You know, again, I was, there weresmall magazines that I started working

(58:17):
at where, you know, the pay wasn't verygood and writing for them, and kind
of that's how I learned to do things.
And I was sort of mentoredby other people, and I hope
that people can still do that.
I'm sure that there'sstill ways to do that.
I guess I like mad.
I'm a little bit don't really knowthe social media world, and so I
don't really watch any YouTube videos.
I don't know exactly how that works,but I do think somehow you wanna be
able to find somebody to help youalong so that you're not on your own.

(58:39):
So you have somebody sort of givingyou some tips and helping you make
progress if you can do it withoutsomebody's help or more power to you.
It's just, it seems like a prettytough road to hoe I, if I were starting
out, I would try to find some otherpeople who are doing what I want
to be doing and somehow approachthem and see if you could get them
to help you or something like that.
A mentor who understands allsides of the coin, you know, I

(58:59):
don't understand developing theseincome streams for somebody that
needs to do this, earn a living.
Is that part of the equation?
Probably is.
But how does all that get developed?
I couldn't tell somebody.
To Preston's point, if they're gonnabe somebody who's gonna be tutored,
mentored, big brothered, whatever,they really ought to have some grasp
of all sides of all facets of the rock.

(59:21):
Because without that, okay, you canoperate your video camera and you can
say, oh, this is a cool car goes fast.
But how does that provide you a living?
You're both talking aboutthe new generation, the old
generation, how they work together.
Here, I'm gonna hit the bullthat I'm staring at and I don't
know if you guys see it or not.
Artificial intelligence.
You said go find a mentor, gofind somebody you look up to.

(59:42):
Okay, well I had a trillionof 'em in the autom.
Is artificial intelligence, the newmentor, is that where young people
can go and type in a question?
Dear Mr. Chet, GTP, I want tobe an automotive journalist.
How do I do it?
That's a good question.
For certain types of information,AI can be extremely helpful.
As a clearing center isthe rounding up stuff.

(01:00:04):
I would say going back a little moreto what you said earlier, find and
listen to voices that speak to you,and if there's a way to communicate,
Hey, I like your stuff, you know?
Mm-hmm.
How do I do what you do?
Well, you tell me.
Will you share that to me?
Not knowing Sounds likeit could even be viable.
I bet if you ask.
GTP how to do that.

(01:00:25):
The answer ain't gonnamake a lot of sense.
It might say, oh, you need to go tojournalism school and then go to this.
And I don't know, I'm lookingat Eric's picture thinking,
Eric, can you do this right now?
Real quick, five seconds.
Yeah.
Don brings up a very valid point,you know, coming from the tech world
to hear the argument all the timeabout how artificial intelligence
is gonna make all our lives better.
It's the foreshadowing of Skynet.
And I wonder though, if writers willbe replaced by bots, you know, bots

(01:00:50):
being the chat gpt of the world andyou know, all those kinds of things.
So Preston, what's your thoughton this kind of looking at it?
I'm really worried about AI and, andthe future that I'll have for writing.
I mean, I think AI can definitelytake over a lot of the stuff like,
remember you, you know, the new carguides were like a staple of the
industry for years and years and years.
They were big money makers.
You know, you'd write like120 words on each model in the

(01:01:11):
GMC lineup, whatever it was.
Well, geez, AI can do that in a heartbeat.
There's no reason why itwon't be able to do that.
You know, I kind of felt likeI was sort of insulated because
to do a profile of a race cardriver, well, how's it gonna do it?
You have to interview the guy.
I mean, AI can't do that.
I mean, I guess there probably isa way I could do it, but I, I kind
of felt a little bit insulated.
And also I'm kind of aging outI think, at the right time.

(01:01:31):
But yeah, I do think it's gonna takea lot of the entry level stuff out.
I mean, a lot of the press kit material,which used to be a big deal for the
people on the PR side, you know,someone had to write those press kits.
Well, I think the AI can will be ableto knock those out in a heartbeat.
What's missing from that partof the equation is the voice
ua, the perpetual voice.
If you ask Chad GTB, what's it likeracing a Camaro in the TransAm series?

(01:01:55):
You ain't gonna get a piece thatsounds like Brock Yates, I promise you.
To me, that's a great clearinghouse forfacts and numbers and wheel bases and all
that, but opinion, analysis and voice.
I don't think we know that yet.
Preston brings up a really good pointabout aging out of the industry and
Matt, you've moved on to being anauthor now and as you look back over
your careers as automotive journalists,what would you say outside of meeting

(01:02:20):
your heroes and driving fantastic carswas the most rewarding aspect about
telling stories in the automotive world?
I mean, it's been a great ride, not justsince I got to do interesting things
and meet interesting people, but becauseas you say, you gotta tell stories.
You got to relate stories to,uh, readers, at least editors.
I don't know if the readerswere reading the stories or not.
It is still really rewarding to do that.

(01:02:41):
There are stories that, that are untoldor that haven't been told properly.
The ability to sort of set thingsstraight, explain what really happened.
I still find that to be a very satisfyingexperience and I enjoy the ability to talk
to guys and women who have sort of maybegotten their do you know, to tell their
story is also something that I reallyappreciate the ability to be able to do.

(01:03:02):
That's the one good thing aboutjournalism is you do get to.
Tell other people's stories.
You're not, it's always,not always about you or me.
And, uh, I do appreciatethe opportunity to do that.
Yeah, me too.
That's still very satisfying.
There's a compelling kernel of astory and you turn it into a bigger
story and it's a good story and it'sinteresting and people read it and
like it, and, and they're informedabout it instead of being misinformed.

(01:03:24):
That's very satisfying asa basically a storyteller.
I find value in that for sure, andI feel bad just 'cause I'm, I always
say this, I'm a lot better in printthan I am in person, and so I'm not
probably articulating this the way Iought to, but like telling a story,
I'm in the Delta Wing, which is oneof my all time favorite projects.
Even though it was an hideous, ugly car,I remember being able to tell that story.
It was a thrill to be able to sort ofpass along what went into that project

(01:03:45):
and to sort of tell the backstoryto people who maybe didn't want to
hear it and didn't like the car anddidn't like the people behind it.
But that was really an enjoyableexperience to be able to.
Watch that car develop and thensee it being tested for the first
time and going to LA Mile watchingit race there and actually got to
drive that car later on myself.
You dug.
That was really a great, great experience.
Um, never in a million yearsthought I would ever have that

(01:04:07):
opportunity when I got started.
You know, writing stories aboutcity council meetings and school
board meetings and stuff like that.
Yeah.
I think we're all kind of wondering, guy.
Both have books under your belt.
We all love them.
Any new books on the horizon?
What's next for Matt and Prestonother than lunch at Bob's Big Boy?
Yeah, we got that, but I got abook that's not gonna be out for,
I think till 2027, unfortunately.
But debell Pro Racing from 1964 to 73.

(01:04:29):
Safety is the overarching theme, but it'salso about, this is the era when racing
becomes really much more professionalthanks to, uh, television and sponsorship
and money promotes r and d that createsslick tires, wings and turbocharging and
all these things we now take for granted.
I had a lot of fun writing that one.
I don't know if anyone reallycares about it, but it's a subject
that's very dear to my heart.
I will await my copy 'cause I careand that's when I first started

(01:04:51):
really, really getting to knowand paying attention to racing.
Was that era that you justnamed so Yeah, for sure.
I have one coming out that's atthe binder right now and will be
released in September called TheGreatest Icons of the Silver Screen.
It's about great or awful movie cars.
Some are great, some are awful.

(01:05:11):
Not only the cars themselves, but how theygot cast and costumed in into that movie.
But I work with a another guy who's kindof a cultural, IM Imperativeness guy
and he wrote the capsule about the film.
I was the car guy.
And we also have interviews with folksthat build picture cars and how cars get
selected and you know, stuff like that.
And you will be happy to know DonWeiberg that the Back to the Future

(01:05:35):
DeLorean Time machine is on cover.
Oh, got the cover.
I love it.
Yeah, so anyway, that's one.
And I also have been workingwith the Bachman family.
They of Galpin Motors, GalpinFord, Galpin, everything else to do
their family and company history.
The rumor is we're gonna printit before the end of the year.

(01:05:55):
Very cool.
That's been a wild ride.
I don't know if you're familiar withGalpin at all in any way, but very
large and influential dealer groupout here in Southern California.
Very successful and has, I don'tknow, 10 or 11 brands now and
dealerships all over the place.
And I walked into a conference room.
Full of bankers boxes, full of vintagephotos going back to the 1940s.

(01:06:20):
That's where we started.
So anyway, uh, Gallin Motors willbe out ostensibly early next year.
We're grinding down the final editright now, and they said, we'll,
we'll print before the holidays,so that'll be out next year.
And I have a couple of proposals indevelopment, which I cannot speak about,
but Stony done yet, unless nobody buysthem, whether you're a longtime reader

(01:06:41):
of their work or just discoveringtheir impact, we hope this conversation
sparked your own nostalgia and curiosity.
We want to thank you for joiningus on this very special reunion
episode featuring the legendaryvoices of automotive journalists,
Matt Stone and Preston Lerner.
It's not every day we get to sit downwith two storytellers who lived and
wrote about the highs and horsepowerof car culture across some of the best

(01:07:04):
decades from tales behind the wheel,to insights from behind the keyboard.
Their shared journey remindsus why cars are so much more
than machines, their memories,milestones, and moving histories.
And with that, Matt and Preston,I can't thank you enough for
coming on Break Fix yet againand sharing your stories with us.
And I, I look forward to seeing youboth next time I'm out in California.
Thanks, Don.

(01:07:25):
Thanks, Eric.
You, you guys have been great.
It's really, yeah, it's good fun.
Thank you being on here.
Thanks for taking all this time andletting us talk and pontificate at great
length, but there's no big boy comboin french fries here in front of us.
What next time guys?
We, we gotta make that happen.
We all gotta get together at the Bobs.
We, we should recordone of these at Bob's.
That'd be fun.
That'd be awesome.
Keep driving it and keep reading please.

(01:07:51):
We hope you enjoyed another awesomeepisode of Break Fix Podcasts, brought
to you by Grand Tour Motorsports.
If you'd like to be a guest onthe show or get involved, be sure
to follow us on all social mediaplatforms at Grand Touring Motorsports.
And if you'd like to learn moreabout the content of this episode,
be sure to check out the followon article@gtmotorsports.org.

(01:08:12):
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