It’s a shock to realise I’ve been writing for PistonHeads off and on for the majority of my professional life. I still remember when PH was shiny and fresh with that unmistakeable ‘new forum’ smell. Back in 2007 I was working for Autocar when news broke that our parent company had acquired what office gossip reckoned was a ‘TVR forum’ for a seven-figure sum. This caused some confused debate around the company’s water coolers; Autocar already had a forum, one with several dozen regular contributors. So why spend a sizeable chunk of money buying another?
It soon became apparent PH was on a massively different scale. As the editor of the Autocar website, I remember seeing a traffic spreadsheet and thinking that whoever had compiled it had messed up and put page views under uniques for PistonHeads. But they hadn’t. Even 17 years ago, PH was getting more clicks than any other automotive website in the UK at the time. It’s been growing steadily since.
PH’s different approach to life was soon reflected in the corporate car park in Teddington (this being, pleasingly, the same building where The Office had been filmed.) Autocar and What Car’s designated spaces were inevitably filled with gleaming new machinery wrangled for first drives and comparison tests. PH’s looked like the overflow parking from a ‘faded exotic’ auction house. Paul Garlick’s bargetastic Lexus LS400 was a constant presence, but there was also a rotating cast of oddballs including Matt ‘Riggers’ Rigby’s Nissan 200SX, various TVRs and a multitude of early, cheap 986 Boxsters. This was clearly a site aimed at people who loved cars for being cars, not for being new.
I wrote a couple of small reviews for PistonHeads while I was still working for Autocar, under the compellingly literal username mikeduff1, with these seemingly long-since memory-holed by the database. But my real involvement with the site only began seven years later after I finished a stint on staff at evo. Dan Trent was the man in charge of PH at the time, commissioning me to write on topics as diverse as train drifting YouTube videos and a drive to Mull to meet the Duffy brothers who regularly won the island’s fearsome eponymous rally in a mk2 Escort. He backed me too, standing by me when my review of the BMW X6M provoked an angry response from the company’s PR department, disgruntled at having flown me to Texas to give the car what hindsight would probably agree was a well-deserved shoeing. Thanks, Dan.
Writing for PH is a very different experience from working for anyone else thanks to feedback that is always fast, and sometimes furious. Any mistake in copy is guaranteed to be spotted and exposed by eagle-eyed commenters in short order. And in answer to the much-asked question, PH doesn’t have any word-polishing sub-editors. But I also learned quickly that taking sides on any topic would inevitably produce a crop of dissenting opinions and, likely enough, a below-the-line punch-up. Which is all part of the magic that makes PistonHeads PistonHeads, of course - but it’s certainly true to say you need a thick skin to write here. Conversely, the reward of a positive response comes more immediately than anywhere else.
Editorial stories are often jumping off points for bigger discussions and debates. My most-commented story from my time here seems to be the first drive of the INEOS Grenadier I did in January last year, and which has drawn 1333 comments and is still trucking. Even that post count makes it a minnow compared to some of the forum’s longer-running and more popular threads. Over the years these have brought me to both fall-off-chair laughter and, in the case of the ‘Rehoming a Dog’ thread - actual tears. Also a shout out to Tony Middlehurst for Shed of the Week, consistently the highlight of any given Friday, the finest source of automotive double entendres on the internet.
But what is really great about PH – and what I think really makes it unique – is the depth of discussion. When current editor Nic C was brave enough to commission me to write Brave Pill, originally as a tentative series of ten, ultimately 226 instalments, I quickly learned that even the most obscure car would inevitably unearth a former owner or a marque expert who knew vastly more than I did and who could add some much-needed perspective to my lowbrow humour. Ditto for my PH fleet updates on my Mercedes 190E 2.5-16, which is still gathering dust in the garage, and 987.2 Porsche Cayman S, with useful shortcuts and cost-cutting tips.
I’m profoundly grateful to have been able to write about so many amazing cars. Boring motors do get into PH occasionally, but the ratio of hit to *hit is better than almost anywhere else. Highlights? Most of ‘em, but if I had to choose one it would be the chance to drive a Jaguar XJ220 for the first and likely only time. (Actually, two XJ220s, after the first one caught fire.)
So why am I leaving such an online paradise? Because I’ve been offered what suddenly feels like an alarmingly grown-up job, as Director of Reviews for Road & Track in the U.S., a role that I’ll be doing from this side of the Atlantic. Meaning, in short, I won’t be able to write for PistonHeads any more. But I’ll definitely still be reading it.
1 / 7
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