“Learn how to write, and then learn how to learn about everything else.”
Those 13 words, uttered by the immortal David E. Davis, Jr., as I began my internship at Car and Driver magazine, have served me well in the 30 years since. I was a student at the University of Michigan, thinking about a career in law when I was given the opportunity to hang out at the newly relocated offices of America’s most irreverent and influential car magazine. It was a dream job for a kid who grew up at the racetrack watching Mustangs, Firebirds, Camaros, and Javelins battle back in the glory days of the TransAm Championship, and taught myself to drive by “borrowing” my dad’s 1968 911.
Yes, it was mostly washing cars, filing photos, and some light proofreading, but occasionally I got to write. My first piece published in Car and Driver was a review of a 1980 Harley FLHS. Listed on the masthead as Road Warrior, I also had the opportunity to take some epic road trips, including an Ann Arbor to LA 36-hour solo drive in a Datsun 280ZX Turbo prototype that needed to be shuttled from the magazine’s offices on Hogback Road to Datsun’s Southern California headquarters. Unfortunately, when graduation time came, there wasn’t a full-time position available at the magazine. I was able to find a job writing about cars in the Detroit advertising industry.
After a 25-year detour in the ad business, I embarked on a freelance writing career and as luck would have it, one of my first assignments was for Mr. Davis at Winding Road, an e-magazine he was editing at the time. In the years since I’ve written for a number of online publications and last year founded my own automotive/travel website Rides & Drives. While this is my main focus, I still pen the occasional piece for others. So if you’re in need of a writer with a great deal of experience crafting automotive, travel, and lifestyle stories, you can email me at harvey@ridesanddrives.com.