{"id":37590,"date":"2011-03-28T10:16:16","date_gmt":"2011-03-28T14:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=37590"},"modified":"2011-03-28T13:30:01","modified_gmt":"2011-03-28T17:30:01","slug":"master-story-teller-david-e-davis-dead-at-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2011\/03\/master-story-teller-david-e-davis-dead-at-80\/","title":{"rendered":"Master Story-Teller, David E. Davis Dead at 80"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The "dean of automotive journalism," David E. Davis died during cancer surgery at 80.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Few have left such a legacy on the car world as David E. Davis.\u00a0 The knee-jerk response is to dub him the \u201cdean of automotive journalism.\u201d\u00a0 But knowing David for the entirety of my career I would assume that should this copy have fallen into his hands he\u2019d have quickly struck that out as clich\u00e9d.<\/p>\n

There will be plenty of words spoken about David E. Davis in the coming days.\u00a0 One cannot ignore the passing of a legend who had so much influence on the automotive world in his 80 years, right up to his death over the weekend.<\/p>\n

Yes, he has often been called the \u201cdean,\u201d and by no less than Time magazine.\u00a0 Elsewhere, it has been said, David \u201centirely and single-handedly defined\u2026automotive journalism in the post-Vietnam war era.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davis himself suggested that his skill was \u201chis ability to marry southern story-telling to big-city presentation.\u201d\u00a0 Journalists are, by definition, story tellers.\u00a0 But few could so effectively captivate and hold the attention of an audience, even those who cared little to naught about automobiles.\u00a0 Perhaps the closest I can think of with such a skill is Garrison Keillor, the host of NPR\u2019s Prairie Home Companion.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Stay Tuned In!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With the white beard \u2013 and girth — that sometimes rivaled St. Nick, eyes that alternately twinkled and pierced, and the trademark waxed moustache that added a touch of a smile even to the most cutting remark, Davis was one of those who seldom was lost in the crowd.<\/p>\n

I last saw him less than a month ago, at the black tie gala at the Amelia Island Concours d\u2019Elegance.\u00a0 David had lost a significant amount of weight as the result of the preliminary treatment he was receiving for bladder cancer.\u00a0 (He would ultimately succumb to complications following surgery for the disease.)\u00a0 He was a bit more mellow and reflective, but if he feared the possible dangers he kept it hidden, matter-of-factly discussing the doctor\u2019s prognosis as if it were another road test.\u00a0 Only David could make the risks seem almost humorous.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
David E. Davis, photo courtesy Martyn Goddard.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But that was his way with words.\u00a0 Some writers are succinct, some effusive.\u00a0 Others have a consistently memorable way of turning a phrase.\u00a0 In his own remembrance on Autoblog, Chris Paukert notes that David was likely to ask, \u201cIs your life a rich tapestry?\u201d rather than offering the simple and meaningless, \u201cHow are you?\u201d\u00a0 Paukert was one of the lucky ones to have begun his career under Davis and, in the process, learn that writing about cars could be an art, as well as a trade. (<\/em>Click Here<\/span><\/a> for Paukert’s tribute.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Davis taught that to readers, as well, through a number of media outlets he managed and occasionally created over the years.\u00a0 Those included all the major \u201cbuff books,\u201d as auto insiders like to call Car and Driver, Road & Track, Motor Trend and Automobile, the latter the magazine he founded two decades ago, against seemingly all odds.<\/p>\n

David E., as most called him, might have retired on the hefty paycheck he eventually received from Rupert Murdoch when he sold Automobile, but he had far too much to say and offer, and a curiosity that kept him going right through his final days.<\/p>\n

And where others from the golden era of automobile journalism fled in horror or fought vainly the ongoing emergence of digital media, David E. Davis embraced and explored, helping get Winding Road up-and-running.\u00a0 Most recently, though, he had returned to Car and Driver as a columnist.<\/p>\n

While David will be most well remembered as a journalist, he was a man of many hats and helmets.\u00a0 He spent much of his early career, in fact, in automotive advertising.\u00a0 For Campbell-Ewald, Chevrolet\u2019s long-time agency, he could claim credit for helping craft the long-running tagline, \u201cBaseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSophisticated\u201d and \u201cworldly\u201d are likely two words that will also show up in the inevitable tributes and obituaries of David E. Davis.\u00a0 Yet he began life like so many other migrants to the once-great Motor City.\u00a0 He was born on November 7, 1930 in a home in Burnside, Kentucky that didn\u2019t even have running water \u2013 his family moving north in search of the opportunities offered in Detroit during the days when it was the \u201carsenal of democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his early years, Davis took plenty of career detours, selling mens clothing, among other things, and only signing his first column for Car and Driver at the age of 32. “By that time, I had worked in four automobile factories, sold cars in three imported-car dealerships and one Packard showroom,” he recalled when he wrote his return column for C\/D in May 2009.\u00a0 He forgot to mention that, in his early years, his real passion was motor sports.\u00a0 And he was good, too.\u00a0 But in a race when he was 25, David E.\u2019s car flipped over, dragging him face first down the tarmac and leaving him horribly disfigured.<\/p>\n

Years later, he would recall, “I suddenly understood with great clarity that nothing in life \u2014 except death itself \u2014 was ever going to kill me. No meeting could ever go that badly. No client would ever be that angry. No business error would ever bring me as close to the brink as I had already been.”<\/p>\n

David knew well the odds as he battled serious cancer for the second time, but perhaps knowing the extra days he had been given he went on with his life and work, as always, with a flair and a flourish that few could come close to matching.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There will be many words spoken in tribute to David E. Davis, who passed, at 80, after cancer surgery over the weekend, but few will be said with the eloquence and skill that defined his works for more than half a century. TheDetroitBureau.com has this tribute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37590"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37590"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=37590"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=37590"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=37590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}