‘CAR was punk and esoteric’
As we mark 700 issues, one of CAR’s most famous ex-columnists looks back – and ahead
All the best people suffer the indignity of being fired at least once, and TV’s James May – once of this ink-and-paper parish – is no exception. The manner of that dismissal from his job at Autocar, however, says more about him than ‘incorrect use of a forklift truck’ ever could.
‘I was working on a road-test yearbook,’ May recalls over a pint in his local. ‘It was immensely tedious. Each column began with a huge drop cap [capital letter], and I rewrote all of the intros so that the drop caps spelled out a message: ROAD TEST YEAR BOOK. SO YOU THINK IT’S REALLY GREAT BUT YOU SHOULD TRY MAKING THE BLOODY THING UP. IT’S A REAL PAIN IN THE ARSE. I was instantly dismissed, and had to walk home from Teddington to Kew.’
That’s just one brief interlude in a somewhat diverse career path that has seen May progress with quiet tenacity from music and history of science university graduate (‘quite interesting, but utterly useless’) – via work in a jewellery shop, a Volvo dealership (fired), a Gillette factory, the London Underground, the NHS, the civil service (‘utterly gruesome, like ’30s England’), The Engineer magazine, Autocar (fired) and Complete Car – to CAR columnist and, thence, the telly.
But May has not, in truth, ploughed as haphazard a furrow as first appearances would suggest. He learned basic computer skills with the NHS, and a deal about sub-editing and page layouts from a typesetter in the civil service. ‘As a result of which, I applied for a job on The Engineer, which I wasn’t qualified to do,’ says May. ‘But John Pullin, the editor – and one
of my heroes as a result – agreed to interview me, and gave me a job as a sub.’
Soon May was sub-editing at Autocar and subsequently, at Complete Car. ‘Bored on a couple occasions, I wrote a few columns – I didn’t know they were columns; they were just things I felt strongly about – and sent them to Gavin Green because Carweek [now also long gone, but edited initially by Gavin] was advertising for people. He gave me a column on CAR, so he’s my other hero after John Pullin.
‘That was great; being a columnist on CAR was a coveted thing at the time. You were with Llewellin and Setright and Bulgin. It used to keep me awake; I used to spend days writing a single column. What I realised working as a sub was that cars were a great excuse for writing; a great platform for having opinions and making jokes. It’s a vehicle for writing – a window on the human condition and all those other pretentious things I’ve said in the past.
‘And there was an element of truth lacking in other magazines,’ May adds. ‘I’ve never read a fashion magazine that says “This new dress is a bit shit and not sewn together very well”. But car mags used to say “The Escort Mk IV is a bit ropey”.
‘When I was reading it as a teenager, CAR was sort of punk and a bit esoteric, because it had Setright and was printed on bog roll. It was just a bit weird; a writerly magazine that just happened to be about cars. That’s incredibly dicult to do these days and I not sure that anybody would want it.
‘If the telly thing hadn’t happened, I’d have given up by now. I’d have just decided it’s too dicult. And I think it is too dicult now, for someone my age.’
Refreshingly, an insistence on a properly made cup of tea does not make May a Luddite. ‘I’m not as worried as most people about the death of the naturally-aspirated engine. Car enthusiasts do tend to be a bit stuckist I find. They go on about manual transmissions and American V8s. It’s nice, but it does smack of an inability to move on. I don’t think I’ll ever buy another internal combustion car… I don’t see why.
‘I’m quite into the new wave; I’ve got a Tesla and a Mirai. For me, the whole electric car thing is still at the level of a massive experiment. There are huge shortcomings with the electric car infrastructure, the mentality required to plan ahead, charging and all the rest of it. My hydrogen Mirai is very ordinary. It’s not an exciting car, but I find it exciting because of what it is.
‘Unless the battery tech improves, it will work for cars but not for things like ships and aeroplanes. But the hydrogen car is the first point of contact for an energy revolution that will actually pervade everything. I’m going to fly in a hydrogen aircraft in the next few weeks.
‘Trouble is, as a solution for the car, batteries make a lot of sense; those that don’t drive long distances but just go to the shops and commute 12 miles to work – yeah, it’s perfect. And that’s why it’s hard for hydrogen to gain any traction in the news and in the argument. But the bigger energy picture, I think, favours hydrogen. We’re at a point where the electric car isn’t ready for wholesale consumption because we cannot support it. It’s a great way to power cars, but electricity is a bastard.
‘But I’m quite happy with this,’ May concludes. ‘Because I think it’s the job of people who are able to embrace new technology to sort out the problems. It happened with the Sony Walkman and the digital camera, and the car itself.’ ANTHONY FFRENCH CONSTANT
‘I don’t think I’ll ever buy another internal combustion car’