David E. Davis dead at 80.

DED did come across as a pompous so and so most of the time (which is the kind of person I generally try not to be anywhere near), but I tempered that when I read the story of the accident which tore him up so bad. Despite that accident he never lost his love for fast cars, meaning he was definitely a car guy. He could write, too.

Sorry to hear the ultimate curmudgeon Yates has Alzheimer's. Damn.

I'm very sorry to hear this. I loved reading his articles. I loved his sense of pomp and how silly some of his articles just seemed ridiculous.

Big deal-he was pompous(he could back every bit of it up, BTW). Sheesh, if that's the worst you can say about a legend, I'd say 'ol DED did pretty well. R.I.P., there will never be another. No offense to the modern scribes, but they can't hold DED's masthead. Also, very sorry to hear about Brock-another icon.

I always enjoyed his design anaylsis in Automobile when I was in high school. I can't say it was the only thing that brought me to a career in product design, but reading something intelligent about why a car looked good, or didn't, got me to think critically about the aesthetic qualities of things around me.

Mental wrote: PJ O'Rouke's lates is a great book, in typical PJ fashion. I never realized that David E. Davis had such a deformaty after an accident. I remember when Automobile premiered, I was 15. I had every issue, bought at the news stand since issue 1. That was where I discovered both PJ O'Rouke and Bob Judd. After a week long vacation just before my Senior year my compulsive Momma decide to trash my collection of car mags (I never through any away). I lost them all. At least I still have GRMs from when I discovered them some years later.

IIRC from reading DED's columns back then, he'd actually had a skull fracture from crashing a T-series MG in an SCCA race during the 1950s.

I remember when he launched Automobile..he defended the lack of testing cars by saying he intended the magazine to look at cars as "art" and enthusiasm for them as a "lifestyle", much like a wine taster samples a bottle of wine. He took Lindamood with him when he left C&D, didn't he? I've always enjoyed her writing as well-at least in the day when I actually cared about street cars. I went racing a few years afterwards, and just found myself not caring much about street cars anymore, as long as I enjoyed whatever POS I ran on the street. Of course, now that autoX is the only competition I can afford..I'm not so disinterested.

DED played auctioneer at the Carroll Shelby Hall of Fame induction – all proceeds of which went to Shelby's charity for children with heart disease. I had a piece of art in the auction... hearing DED mention me and my artwork ranks up there as one of the biggest pinch-me moments of my life. I loved reading him, and when I say he was a pompous windbag, it's with affection. There are very few auto scribes that are gifted storytellers, DED, Peter Egan and John Phillips were my faves. He'll be missed.

The main thing I remember about the launch of Automobile was DED on a television commercial saying, "No Boring Cars!"

T.J. wrote: Simple gearhead silliness?

I think that's a compliment. GRM is pretty good at remembering that the point of cars as a hobby is to have fun. The articles have a very different tone from many other magazines - I can't think of anywhere else that would have used "natural male enhancement" as a point of comparison for brake upgrades like Angry P did once. And "simple gearhead silliness" is a pretty good summary of the Challenge, with its bizarre engine swaps, over the top theme cars, a professional clown...

The Automobile website is running a retrospective on DED's best columns.Today's entry is art.

That one actually isn't terrible if you can get past the initial multiple paragraphs of name dropping for no apparent reason and the fact that 50 or so of his closest friends died without him taking much notice.

I just couldn't relate to him. He knew rich people and he drank expensive wine and he liked to brag about it. OK. But I'd rather hear more about cars.

I have to confess until this thread I had never heard of the man. From what I've read on the thread so far, I'm ok with that.