To be a medical doctor, it is necessary to know anatomy. To be an electrician, it is necessary to know circuitry. But it is possible to pose as a car journalist without knowing even basic things about cars. Here is a case in point, courtesy of Jalopnik – which poses as a site for people interested in cars. It was written by Daniel Golson, self-described as “your favorite gay car person.” Of course. It follows. As does this:
“The most controversial car of 2024 isn’t the Tesla Cybertruck or whatever cool new BMW you think is ugly, it’s the Dodge Charger Daytona EV. This electric muscle car is so plagued by anti-woke culture bullshit that it had to be saddled with a gas engine option while the EV seems a bit doomed to fail. Still, after seeing it at the Los Angeles Auto Show I’m stoked to drive the electric Charger and couldn’t really care less about what the gas one is like. The prospect of an electric muscle car is exciting to me, and I think think the Charger’s design is a home run.”
Italics added.
Gay or straight, if a person does not know that a muscle car is defined by the presence of an engine (and a particular kind of engine) under its hood, then he is not a “car person.” Or – rather – is someone who has as much business writing about cars as an electrician has performing surgery.
I’ve been a car journalist for a long damned time. Long enough to remember when someone like Golson would have been laughed out of the room for writing what he wrote about “this electric muscle car.”
Him liking it is beside the point. Anyone can and ought to be free to like whatever they like. But it is egregious to not know what you’re talking about when you presume to be competent to write about it.
If the device Dodge is calling “Charger” is a “muscle car” then by inference so is a Tesla S Plaid – and so is any device that has powerful electric motors that enable it to accelerate very quickly. Thus, a Ford Lightning pick-up is also a “muscle car.”
And he is a “she,” too.
Golson betrays his ignorance about muscle cars by defining them as anything that can accelerate very quickly. This is silly. Or – more finely – it is without meaning. Almost literally every EV that is available is quicker than almost every muscle car that was ever made when the term was coined back in the 1960s. The archetype of the class being Pontiac’s GTO – which came out in 1964. It was a medium-sized car (by the standards of the time) that was made into a muscle car by fitting it with a full-sized car’s larger V8 engine.
This made it quick – for the era – and audacious.
The quickness alone wasn’t “it.” What made it what it – and the others that emulated it – what it (and they) was the bigness of the V8 that rumbled under its hood. This bigness made the muscle car the threatening beast it was. Seeing what was under the hood was kind of like seeing the 18 inch biceps on a big, angry-looking dude. A robot without the big biceps can be made much stronger – but the thing ain’t the same. Visualize Arnold in his prime flexing next to Elon’s Optimus.
There is nothing under the “Charger” device’s hood. Nor the Tesla S Plaid’s, either. Other than an empty hole. This is the “frunk” you hear EV people coo admiringly about. Try to visualize a Tesla S Plaid parked next to a “Charger” device that’s parked next to a Lightning and so on down the line, all with their hoods popped and nothing to see underneath but a place to throw a small gym bag.
Now go to an old car show and have a look at the muscle cars lined up in a row. Look at what’s under their hoods. It is one of the main draws of an old car show, to see what’s under the hood. Each one has a big V8 – and each V8 is different from the others. Some have big four barrels. Some have triple two barrels. A few have two big four barrels. But all have eight cylinders – big ones – like the big guns a battleship has. It would be laughable to refer to a ship without those big guns as a “battleship.” For the same essential reason it is laughable to refer to a man who lacks the essential attributes as a “woman.”
Such fine distinctions are lost on Daniel Golson. His bio is explanatory:
“I jumped into the world of automotive journalism in 2016, as a copy editor and then staff writer for Car and Driver. In 2019 I moved to CNET/Roadshow, where I managed all of the automotive social media platforms and regularly wrote reviews, news stories and features.”
“Jumped” is right. Because competent he isn’t.
Oy meets vey. And they ask me why I drink.
. . .
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Motor Trend is just as bad. I saw their “Editor” or someone on tv still saying that “EVs are inevitable” or some other bs at the LA Auto Show. What a useless, woke, liberal troll….
They are systematically killing off the real car guys.
Motortrend sold, and the new owners cancelled all of the hotrod shows.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/roadkill-is-finished-as-motortrend-productions-reportedly-shuts-down
The Roadkill guys are the ones responsible for me buying and daily driving a car from the 70’s. Such a bad influence on society will not be tolerated!
Banning of old cars within the next 5 – 10 years, guaranteed.
Loved the article on it’s face but I think you inadvertently glossed over one of the main reasons muscle cars gained traction (so to speak) – affordability.
Shoehorn the biggest engine you had in the parts catalog into a light weight car and slap a price sticker on it that any store clerk, plumber or factory working 20-something stiff could save in a couple of years.
It’s a recipe that you have to go out of your way to screw up.
And guess what, they did.
Thanks, Norm!
And – you’re right. The original muscle car idea was about affordable performance, so that young people (young guys, chiefly) could afford the cars. Thus, most did not have AC or an automatic or power windows. Maybe a radio. That kept costs down. The original ’64 GTO was just a Tempest with a 389 and a heavy duty suspension.
I know little 4 cylinder econ-boxes don’t get as much love here as the V8 muscle cars. I’m hip to that. I’m old, a Gen-X who loves the GTO and Fury SS and Galaxy 500.
But the modern interpretation in the hot hatches and stuff fuel that testosterone poisoned young man desire for the same cheapskate reasons. I wish the world were different but I’d support any kid who wants to make his (or her, I love the grease monkey-ettes too) car go faster.
It’s no different. Back then we had our dad’s old Plymouth and and now it’s a handed down Civic. I see these as probably more genuine to the ethic than buying a fancy new Charger or Mustang.
Enzo Ferrari said…on buying a Ferrari…. you are paying for the engine…the rest of the car is free….Italians sold emotion…
Ferrari still has some V12’s but is heading towards V6 turbo hybrids…not worth buying…no great sound track…and no stick shift…don’t buy one….
American V8 muscle cars…the same thing….the engine is the prime motivator to buy one….a huge V8….a great sound track…and lots of power…..emotion….
With an EV you don’t even get an engine…just a washing machine motor….no sound, no emotion….dead….
He Just Didn’t Get It
IN a not unexpected development, Tavares walks the plank:
‘The chief executive of the automaker Stellantis, Carlos Tavares, has resigned, the company said on Sunday, amid a decline in profits and slumping sales in its key North America region.
‘Mr. Tavares spearheaded the creation of the company in a 2021 merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and France’s Peugeot SA. The company is one of the largest automakers in the world, producing vehicles under an array of brand names including Chrysler, Jeep, Ram, Dodge, Fiat, Peugeot, Opel and Maserati.
‘Mr. Tavares’s resignation takes effect immediately. [Stellantis] was slow to match rivals’ price reductions and sales incentives, and dealer inventories rose. In October, Stellantis issued a profit warning, saying the cost of fixing its U.S. operations would dent its bottom line.’ — New York Slimes
https://archive.ph/oP3nG#selection-895.66-899.121
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Mr T. It tolls for thee — and soon, for your fellow EeeVee Kool-Aid drinkers Lightning Jim Farley and EeeVee Mary Barra. What a shocker! /snark
Hi Jim,
Yes, but he will leave with riches almost beyond the imagination of working people. Tens of millions annually – generational wealth – for presiding over the ruin of several once-successful brands.
STLA shares are down 7.5% in early New York trading.
Sell, Mortimer, sell!
Tavares went long STLA put options before the announcement…
I know a good number of janitors, maintenance men, cleaning ladies, factory hands, and the like who are FAR more deserving of that kind of salary. They’ll never see it in this lifetime though. So it goes.
And she said, “dipstick, you got a greasy rod?”
Where it is all at where you are on Gasoline Alley.
Time to get real in the real world.
Golson is a real dip shit…I bet he can`t drive stick.
Oh he can drive a stick, all right. Operating a manual transmission, on the other hand…
Daniel drives his stick into another guy’s shit…. literally !
Unlke the old commercial, “you put your chocolate into my peanut butter!”, which was mildly funny, this kind of gender ID’d product promotion, for an EV, is just so “fake & gay”, like Daniel, it needs to be “broke”….hard.
Because it’s all “woke”….and ultimately, a complete joke!!!
Now we should start seeing crazy cheap prices for Nissan, and Stellantis products, right? Almost low enough to consider buying….hmmmm
Faggot and car journalist…
Two things that really don’t go together.
A few decades ago, even if you worked at the “corporate” level, you generally didn’t change industries during your career. If you worked in the car biz, you generally would stay with the car biz, even if you changed jobs (a lot of times you didn’t). You got experience of your industry, not just the general business or “marketing” that corporate people today have.
But things changed. Loyalty from employers disappeared overnight it seemed. MBA’s became the “in” thing to do.
Now you jump from industry to industry. It’s not good for either employees or business IMHO. Just look at what happened with Apple back in the 80’s when Steve Jobs hired John Sculley from Pepsi. As Jobs would say it, do you want to change the world or continue to sell sugar water? Well, Sculley should have stuck to the sugar water, as he nearly destroyed Apple. Because Sculley had no business working for a tech firm. Most companies don’t make a miraculous recovery like Apple did. Most are bankrupted by arrogant morons that don’t know what they are doing, because they have no industry experience in the business they are in.
Companies are ruined by lawyers and marketing people running things. It’s been especially bad for the car business as it is a huge industry (or it was).
So it’s no surprise that industry hopping happens in lower level jobs now a days too. Journalists didn’t jump from crime reporting to car or movie reviewing. Of course Jalopnik doesn’t care if you have experience, because it doesn’t want to PAY for that experience. You don’t even have to put together a sentence sometimes it seems.
Hi Rich,
Yup. It was the case when I was starting out that a guy who wanted to cover any beat had to have experience, which formed the basis for more than superficial coverage. This Gay Car Guy would have been saved from much embarrassment had he learned something about cars before he was put in the position of publicly humiliating himself by displaying he does not know basic things about cars.
No. most companies were ruined by forcing women and others, like the example in the article, into inappropriate positions of authority.
We now see the result of such a forced mistake..
Some of us, thank god.
My kid got her business management degree and decided to change course before being placed in a position to ruin everything she didnt understand.
Smart kid, no baggage now just family.
Nice job ladies.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/zero-emissions-vehicle-mandate-skewing-100000815.html
Ev house of cards in uk
Speaking as a former owner of an MGA, long ago, if the new MGs are anything like the old MGs, it is problematic if they ever get out of the garage. Just sayin’…
MG = Mostly Garaged, i.e. down for repairs. And their Lucas “electrics” were notorious for not drawing any current, Hence the moniker: Lucas, Prince of Darkness.
Lovely experience, standing in a foot of water in good clothes with the bonnet raised, drying the points and distributor contacts with a rag, in the rain.
All true but still a great visceral machine. Never had an MGA, but sat in a junked one in an alley many times on my way home from school. But the MGB was the first real sports car I got to drive and wrench on. Unreliable they were, but then so is a pretty girl. An experience to be enjoyed and remembered.
> so is a pretty girl. An experience to be enjoyed and remembered.
LOL. 10-4 on that one. 🙂
I had a girl in the summertime
With summer colored skin…
etc.
—-Joni Mitchell, Urge for Going
I humbly submit that this new transportation appliance with the Dodge logos on it should be christened the…
Wait for it…
DISCHARGER!
A beautiful picture of a wonderful car/era.
GM didn’t want this vehicle produced.
John DeLorean fought the GM bureaucracy by
offering the GTO as an option, not a model.
Ronny and the Daytonas “G.T.O.” January 1, 1964.
“Little GTO
You’re really lookin’ fine
Three deuces and a four-speed
And a three-eighty-nine
Listen to her tachin’ up now
Listen to her whine
C’mon and turn it on, wind it up, blow it out, GTO”
Wah wah wahhh,
Wahwahwah
Wah wah wah.
All together, now. 🙂
Any wonder they are losing the narrative?
These know nothings are what the corporations and their self proclaimed engineers of society owners want doing the writing and product mixes for what they control.
Why? The mission is to destroy the past. Doesn’t matter if it’s muscle cars or Star Trek. Their mission is to destroy the past. Break what things mean. Not create their own new things but destroy the old and existing things. Poison them, salt the land so they cannot grow.
It’s how Marxism is implemented. No part of the culture is safe.
That’s why they can’t create a new BEV Dodge with some new model name. They have to destroy the Charger instead. (not that Dodge didn’t do that back in the 1970s with their Cordoba based version followed by that sub-compact thing, but besides those which people forgot)
True. The former forest around this town is a good example.
Nearly destroyed completely by a succession of gubmint grifting projects sold to the duped as “forest health”
Every molecule of biomass systematically being slashed burnt or removed for sale right down to the UV scorched dirt.
What healthy forest exists when all of its nutrient base is removed?
Of course the town mentioned is a nest of joo know whos. . .
They turn everything to usery profit, dust, rubble or desert.
The enemy of humanity coming to a casa blanco near you.
So true about the bastards wanting to destroy the past. And they are doing a good job of it. Talk to a current young person, and you quickly realize that they view the wonderful 60’s and 70’s in which I grew up to be horrible oppressive times! -And that the “world is so much better today”. And you can’t convince them otherwise, because TV and the gay twenty-something year-old babysitter at the public school say it was so.
OOoooo-oooo! You wouldn’t want to go back to those dangerous, dirty cars, and child abuse and face-to-face communication, and autonomy, and 5 TV stations, would you????!!!!!!
Well, little Daniel The Doody-Pusher probably has a hard-on for the old Ford Probe or the Mazda Meatus?
The “automotive press” has destroyed itself. All the old magazines are either dead, or have lost any credibility and appeal if they still exist. Anything you read or see in the MSM related to cars just makes you shake your head and move on. The car manufacturers are going the same way. The EV agenda has worked, in that it is destroying the average person’s ability to drive, and leaving us with no functional alternative.
It’s scary to realize how far down the path to destruction we are, as all of these corporations have been infiltrated by destroyers who neither know nor care about their product (Whether that product be cars or information, etc.), but who are just there to destroy the status-quo.
We are on the precipice of a major crash. Everything seems to be coming together at once. 1929, but on an even larger scale, to the point where we can never return to what we once had, because society at-large has lost the practical knowledge that people used to posses.
The cause of the 1929 crash was the Federal Reserve. It is the Federal Reserve and monetary policy that drives this financialization of everything that results in people who don’t care about product running everything. It allows for the money to be created for financial types to take over companies that make things. Since all they know is finance the product to them is as irrelevant as it is to the economics professor in “Back to School”.
Just LMAO.
I love the stacked headlights on the goat. I had a lowly 65 LeMans when I was a yute that had them and it’s such a good design!
Who the hell is funding the car rags these days? All corporate media appears to be dying yet Jalopnik still exists. I have to believe that their ad revenue is somewhere between Jack and shit. It’s kind of sad to watch the decline of the automotive press.
Hi Yeti,
I don’t get it, either. Stellantis – I assume – paid this dude’s airfare and lodging to get him to the “Charger” reveal. Either that or the jalopnik budget did – which makes me wonder how it has one.
Charger reveal. What a joke. I guess it no longer matters whats under the hood, just what something/someone identifies as.
Yup, that’s pretty much it, Norman –
I’m glad I no longer travel to these events. I’d probably hit someone and end up in the clink.
Like its “cummin out”
Golson wrote, “The prospect of an electric muscle car is exciting to me”. And he’s “gay”. Geez Louise, the jokes write themselves.
“I especially like the electrodes you can pull out of the dash and attach to your nipples.” – Danny Boy Golson.
Sheesh. Jalopnik, The Dog Poop Casserole of automotive publications. [note, I didn’t call it journalism]
Him saying the car is “plagued by anti woke culture bullshit” makes me want to check it out. What a dildo.
I have always enjoyed watching footage of a battle ship firing its six to nine fifteen to sixteen inch guns. Destroyers firing missals, not so much. The same regarding muscle cars vs EVs.
Eric – as the kids say, that Charger is fake and gay – much like the writer
Anon
An “electric muscle car” is rather like a “convex vagina.” The latter may (?) describe the pseudo-sexual organ of a biological male who was “assigned female at birth.”
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/afab-and-amab-meaning
>the terms AFAB and AMAB are more gender-affirming than, for example, ‘born female’ or ‘biologically male,’” Kolega explains. “Those terms can be invalidating
“Assigned at birth.” By whom? Your drill sergeant? Right before he assigned you to clean the head, I suppose.
And of course,
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength.
Captured on LinkedIn from GO Media looking regarding qualifications for a Jalopnik writer (I refuse to call them journalists)
Qualifications
• Have 1-3 years of writing experience.
It’s not necessary to have worked as an automotive journalist, some of our best staffers have come from non-traditional
backgrounds
Let’s face it Eric being a real automotive journalist has to be aware of what the idiots at Jalopnik publish. All jobs have their downside.
Personally, I never visit Jalopnik and consider my life better for it.
Many thanks to Eric for taking one for the team so I don’t have to.
‘There is nothing under the “Charger” device’s hood. Nor the Tesla S Plaid’s, either. Other than an empty hole. This is the “frunk” you hear EV people coo admiringly about.’ — eric
Anatomically, an EeeVee’s frunk is its vagina. This ought to be a bit threatening to the likes of milk-mustached Daniel Golson — just a little too hetero for comfort. But he fantasizes that the Charger’s frunk is a rectum.
And maybe he’s right: EeeVees ARE gay, and a little gross too.
And dangerous AF as well. Walked out of a townhome the other morning for a ruck walk. The path out had buildings on both sides. No peripheral visual. As I stepped onto the asphalt, an electric MB SUV nearly clipped me. Never heard it coming.
Look at it this way, Eric. Jalopink and their favorite gay car person offer limitless fodder for you to ridicule & us to laugh at.
The Brits call it a boot…so a front boot is a froot….like that fake auto journalist…
He looks loke he appeared in the Jaguar ad.
RE: The “frunk.”
Form should follow function. What purpose does the front half of an EV serve? I guess it’s a massive crumple zone if there’s an impact. But why should there be anything up there? It’s wasted space.
Back in the 1980s Toyota made a minivan. It had no front hood to speak of because it was mid-engined. It made the most use of the space available by pushing the engine underneath the passenger area. Made it a PITA to work on I’m sure.
An EV has no front-mounted engine, yet the design is that of a traditional automobile. The F-150 Lightning looks exactly like a gasser F-150. Why? Imagine if the Lightning looked like a Corvair Rampside, with the cab over the front wheels, and all that space in the back for cargo. That might actually be a practical delivery vehicle, especially in cities. Not to mention the ease of making it into a van with some simple body panel changes.
But that would be too radical to contemplate.
Remember how old vans had a V8 between the two front seats with a plastic “cup heater” between driver and engine. Just enough hood for legroom I spose.