Interview with Jack B

Writer, Racer and So Much More

Jack B in situ.

Don't miss Jack's articles in Road & Track.

K2: Where did you grow up and how did it influence your love of cars?

JB: I grew up in about fifteen cities on the East Coast, from Brooklyn to Columbia, MD, before moving to Ohio. I was lucky enough to live in a lot of suburban neighborhoods chock-full of weekend-use MG Midgets, somber Oldsmobile Ninety-Eights, and humpbacked Saabs.

K2: That's a lot of moving. Were you a military brat? Who got you interested in cars or did you find them on your own? Which drew your young eye more, foreign or domestic? Were you the kind of kid that had Revell models and car posters on your bedroom walls?

JB: My father got promoted all the time. Then he'd get angry at not being promoted quickly enough and quit his job for another job at which he'd also get promoted. So I think that's why we were always moving. I also was never in one place long enough to actually have posters on my bedroom walls. I had a lot of Matchbox cars, including a metallic green 930 Turbo Carrera in the super-sized, rubber-tired variant that they made during the Seventies.

K2: That must have been hard on you as a kid, it's very difficult to make friends moving around like that. What sort of cars did your parents have and did that influence you one way or the other in your adult life? Many folks are so down on brands that their parents had negative experiences with that they won't even consider them to this very day...even 20 to 60 years ago...I've heard more than one car enthusiast state something like, "Back in the late 70s, my folks had a Ford and it was a piece of junk. I'd never buy one!"

JB: I don't think there's room in this interview to talk about all the cars my parents had --- everything from a '69 Camaro to a Jag XJ6. I learned how to drive in my father's stick-shift BMW 733i and my mother's Nissan 4x4 King Cab stick-shift --- two very different vehicles! I used to sit in Dad's '79 MG Midget as a ten-year-old and pretend to drive it. The only brand prejudice I inherited was probably an anti-Ford bias. Dad always got a GM company car when he could. He didn't like Fords. I went on to work for Ford Motor Credit and sell cars at a Ford dealer, so you can say that I overcame that.

K2: Ha! Either that, or it made it worse...? What was your first car? I know you're a rider, so what was your first motorcycle, too.

JB: My first car was a 1983 Datsun/Nissan (it had both badges) 200SX. The first time I drove it without my parents, I tried to do a 50mph second-gear drift around a turn. It was going well until I hit a car that was parked on the outside of the turn. My first bike was a 1986 Kawasaki Ninja 600; I bought it when I was twenty-two years old and selling cars for a living.

Photos: Jack Baruth

K2: Neat car, the Silvia. Was your Ninja an R? At least you were in your car, not your motorcycle, when that particular incident happened. So you were a car salesman. Was it for a brand dealer or a lot where they sold all sorts of cars? 

JB: All of the '86 Ninja 600s they sold in this country were technically Ninja 600Rs. This distinction only became important when the aluminum-frame bikes, known as the 600RX, and the perimeter-frame ZX-6 started showing up. Sorry. My motorcycle Asperger's is showing.

I sold for an Infiniti and a Ford dealership. Both of them pretty small shops, with fewer than fifteen salespeople on staff. I don't know how I would have done at a mega-dealer. Probably remarkably poorly. I've never been good at working within a particular system.

K2: Interesting. I've only ever had one Kawasaki and it wasn't a Ninja but I always thought they were super bikes. An Infiniti and a Ford dealership?!? What a weird combo, "Would you care for an drop top M30 or an Aspire, Mr. Grape?" So how did you get into writing professionally?

JB: My fault for explaining poorly: I worked for an Infiniti dealer and THEN I worked for a Ford dealer. My first professional writing gig was for Bicycles Today magazine in 1990. I was a junior-class Pro BMX racer. I walked into the offices of the magazine to have lunch with a friend who worked there and I saw that the editor-in-chief had a copy of the new John Updike book, "Rabbit, Run", on her desk. We struck up a conversation. I should have asked her on a date, but I was nineteen years old and very shy. Instead, I asked her for a job.

K2: There's an allegory right there, I think. So what was the journey from Bicycles Today to Road & Track?

JB: I quit racing bikes in 2003 and switched to racing cars. I'd already done a few trackdays at that point. It wasn't something I did willingly --- I had a knee surgery that was supposed to give me a few more years on the bike but it didn't work out. So I started racing cars and commenting on various forums. Zerin Dube, who had a site called Dubspeed Driven, offered me a "job" in 2007, writing for his site. I say "job" in quotes because neither of us made any money. In 2008 I moved from Dubspeed to Autofiends, and from there to TheTruthAboutCars. In 2012, Road & Track reached out to me and I started working with them.

K2: What's something people would be surprised to learn about professional automotive writers?

JB: Most of them would be absolutely dead last place in an SCCA regional autocross.

K2: What advice would you give to somebody who is looking to work towards becoming a professional automotive writer?

JB: Try to get a reputation for delivering work on time. That's hugely important for print publications, which have immutable deadlines.

K2: What are the best and worst things about being an automotive writer?

JB: The best thing is getting to drive on various race tracks for free. The worst thing is the dinners with all the other media people the night before every new car press event.

K2: What's the one new car that would cause you to cringe if you were asked to review it? Why?

JB: I think there's something interesting about every new car, but in general I try to avoid crossovers and any vehicle with more than five inches of ground clearance.

K2: Which make and model do you most wish they'd bring back, just as it was originally?

JB: The 1988 BMW M5. I'd buy two.

K2: Do you believe print will survive the digital age, specifically the car magazines?

JB: Absolutely. What's happening is that print is going upscale. It's mostly being sold in airports, high-end bookstores. It's a luxury now to be able to hold a magazine. So if you look in R&T you'll see that the advertisements are for progressively more expensive stuff.

K2: How did you get involved with one of the biggest car blogs, how did you end up running it and do you believe it's possible to profitably monetize that sort of content in that format?

JB: TTAC hired me at the suggestion of Jonny Lieberman, who was leaving the site to work for Jalopnik. When Robert Farago left, he gave me his blessing to stay and work with Ed Niedermeyer, who then abdicated in favor of Bertel Schmitt. As you may know, Bertel had some emotional and mental issues that led him to write some fairly insane and repugnant stuff. He fired me, but then he was fired and I was asked to replace him on very short notice.

Jack is also a musician, but that's a conversation for another day!

K2: What are your thoughts on the interactivity with readers that's now available to writers who publish online? Do you view that as a negative or a positive thing?

JB: Absolutely. The readers keep you honest. Before the Internet, the only feedback most print writers got was from the PR staffs at the automakers. Needless to say, that's not a good thing. It distorts what you write.

K2: As a lover of lifted vehicles, how do you explain the recent rise of Jeep? What do you think will ultimately happen to FCA (acquisition, bankruptcy...?) and have you had a chance to drive the new Giulia?

JB: Jeep is doing well because people have all sorts of irrational anxiety about needing their cars to go off-road and carry a bunch of cargo at a moment's notice. 99.9% of all the miles driven in all the Jeeps around the world could have also been accomplished in a Honda CR-Z, but you can't tell people that because they'll freak out. FCA will be fine; they have two national governments who don't want them to fail. Haven't driven the new Giulia yet. I hope it's decent.

K2: Throwing caution to the wind, what pie in the sky, hair brained idea do you see actually and surprisingly coming true in the next 5-10 years?

JB: Continuously variable transmissions in supercars. Why not? Millennials can't use a clutch anyway. Just kidding. But not kidding.

K2: I could see that happening. I can also preemptively hear the howling from the enthusiasts. Thank you so much for your time and sharing with us your viewpoint on all things JB and automotive at the moment. We'll keep reading whatever you write, wherever you write it!

JB: Thank you!

Read more about the adventures of Jack Baruth on his blog, Riverside Green.