MetaFilter posts tagged with thetruthaboutcars

Car Review: 2013 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead

lalochezia — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:09:57 -0800

This Roller is a chariot for the glittering Eloi, and if we’re not exactly Morlocks yet, that does seem to be the way things are going. TTAC previously on MeFi.

Automotive journalism: do the perks poison the product?

Dasein — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:15:29 -0800

The American Journalism Review asks, is automotive journalism fundamentally corrupt? Car manufacturers pay for lavish trips and grant extensive seat time in their most desirable cars – in exchange for good reviews. Journalists who write critical reviews are blacklisted. Among the worst offenders is Porsche, who blacklisted journalist Jack Baruth after lukewarm (or simply balanced) print and video reviews of the Porsche Panamera in 2009. Since then, Baruth, who owns three Porsches, has taken to compiling lists of Porsche’s deadly sins (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, but not 7), fabricating Porsche test drives, bashing fellow automotive journalists who he sees as being too soft on Porsche, and borrowing privately-owned cars in order to write reviews. Baruth writes mostly for The Truth About Cars, which guards the independence of its writers so fiercely that its reviews of the Prius, for instance, ranged from the unremittingly hostile to defensively positive to relatively balanced. But what about journalistic independence in mainstream outlets, which often rely on freelancers who simply don't have the funds to be functionally independent of car manufacturers, and which don't want to displease advertisers?

This is how you write a car review

SharQ — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 05:10:56 -0800

"At freeway speeds, the Toyota [Prius] is a near silent and comfortable cruiser, whereas the Audi [RS4] sounds and feels like a volcano making love to an avalanche." ... "you would swear the Audi is being launched from a trebuchet." ... "Let's say you're cruising at 80mph in sixth-gear and the engine is doing 3,000rpm, the mechanical equivalent of sipping a latte." ... "RS4 can blast sideways with such force that you will swear you are piloting violence."

Whether you are into cars or not, TTAC's Lieberman entertains. Not entirely unlike Jeremy Clarkson, but without the formulaic, wishy-washy introductions. Read the whole thing here.