Here’s What You Get When You Become An Autopian Member, And How It Will Make This The Greatest Car Website Ever

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The Autopian is a place for car-lovers. It was created after three people — Beau Boeckmann, Jason Torchinsky, and David Tracy — sat down in some microcars one day and scribbled down this motto: “The Autopian exists to serve the car enthusiast community by creating content that informs and entertains, while celebrating the unifying quality of automobiles.” We’ve upheld that motto for over eight months now, and many of you have rewarded us not only with your clicks, but with your excellent comments and frequent questions about how you can support this community more. We now have an answer: Become a member. Not only will it help us become the best version of the car website you’ve always wanted, but you’ll also get things and stuff and perhaps even goods out of the deal. Here’s a look at the details behind The Autopian’s Membership.

The Autopian came into being after hundreds of people kept messaging Jason and me — then writers at Jalopnik — asking us to do something. Readers were yearning for an easy-to-use website that championed car culture, and after a while, the calls became impossible to ignore. So Torch and I, two car-nuts who were just big enough dipshits to think we could pull this off, reached out to Jason’s friend and diehard car-person Beau Boeckmann (whom you’re going to see more of on this site soon!). An avid consumer of automotive media (and a media personality in his own right) and someone who had wanted to be involved in this business for years, Beau came out of the gate with a “Let’s do this thing” attitude. He’s affording us the freedom to do our thing; we hired Mercedes Streeter and Matt Hardigree, and recently we’ve got Patrick George hanging out with us to help build a more sustainable operation from the content-creation side. We’ve got some incredible contributors, an awesome video team, and so much fun stuff planned for the future.

We’ve built something here, and you all are the most important part of it. This community is something that we all plan to keep growing for years to come, and an important element of that longevity will be your support in the form of membership.

You may be familiar with the website Defector. It’s a product of a bunch of former Deadspin writers quitting and starting their own subscription-based, mostly-sports website. It works great, and the site is firing on all cylinders, providing readers with exactly the content they want. We like this concept, but feel that a completely paywalled site would in many ways thwart what we’re trying to do here, and that is: champion car culture. We think a car website should be accessible for everyone from every walk of life, so our membership is optional, though we will try to force your hand by bribing you with exclusive content and merchandise!

So let’s talk about those bribes, shall we? (For now, we’re only shipping to folks in North America, since shipping costs are so high; if you’re not in North America, we’ll offer another, more virtual tier at a future date!).

Autopian Vinyl

Vinyl Banner

  • What it is:
    • A way for you to get exclusive content and merchandise while supporting The Autopian’s mission.
    • Basically, this is you officially joining our cult. Because you can’t spell “car culture” without “car cult.”
  • What it costs:
  • Things you get:
    • A special, limited-edition Autopian shirt
    • An Autopian bumper sticker
  • Things you get (virtual)
    • Member’s only newsletter
    • Weekly wrenching open chat with Autopian writers/weekly open chat
    • A chance to be featured (if you want) in a weekly member rides post
    • Access to special content (extended cuts, early project car updates)
    • Early invites to Autopian events like car shows and parties
  • Things you get (emotional)
    • The warm feeling in your heart of supporting independent media at a time when a lot of your favorite car sites are going away…

Sign up here for Autopian Vinyl (Monthly)

Sign up here for Autopian Vinyl (Annual)

To gift an annual membership Click Here

Autopian Velour

Velour Banner

  • What it is:
    • A way for you to provide even more support to the site while also getting more opportunities to interact with the staff.
  • What it costs:
  • Things you get:
    • Everything in Vinyl plus:
      • A classy-as-hell grille badge
      • Random raffle prizes, including press swag from automakers.
  • Things you get (virtual)
    • Everything in Vinyl plus:
      • Invites to private quarterly Zoom/In-Person Automotive Trivia Nights
      • A drawing on your birthday from Jason of whatever car you want sent directly to your Atari
  • Things you get (emotional)
    • A powerful, pervasive feeling that you’re actually doing genuine good in the world, which will be expressed via powerful sex hormones that everyone around you will absolutely notice. Also, you’ll probably sleep better.

Autopian Rich Corinthian Leather

Rcl Banner

  • What it is:
    • The ultimate in Autopian membership.
    • A chance to be treated like a king by a bunch of car-loving dirtbags.
  • What it costs:
  • Things you get (physical):
    • Everything in Velour plus:
      • An annual private tour (potentially with other members) of Beau’s personal collection in LA, the Petersen Museum, The Crawford Museum, or the Lane Museum led by a staffer or friend of the site. If you come to Beau’s collection you’ll also get lunch at the famous Horseless Carriage restaurant in Galpin Ford
      • Limited-edition Autopian merch every quarter
      • Reserve parking at any Autopian event (where possible)
  • Things you get (virtual)
    • Everything in Velour plus:
      • A video from David or Jason to a person of your choosing that encourages them to buy a specific car OR allow you to buy a car (or just a birthday video) 
  • Things you get (emotional)
    • David will send you a signed vial of rust flakes from one of his project cars. Place this vial in your garage as a reminder that, as bad as things are going with your own project car, things could be worse. Legend has it that if you rub this vial three times, it will give you good luck with loosening stubborn bolts. (Use of a breaker bar to remove a tiny 1/4-inch (or 6mm) bolt voids warranty; also, there is no warranty).
  • Sign up here for Rich Corinthian Leather
  • Give the gift of Rich Corinthian Leather by Clicking Here

The Autopian Wrenching/Road Tripping Experience

Dttrip

  • What it is:
    • Hanging out with DT, wrenching all day, living the dream.
  • What it costs:
  • Things you get:
    • Everything in Rich Corinthian Leather plus:
      • David Tracy, whom we’d prefer you not murder and store in your basement freezer, will spend at least three full days helping you wrench on your car. He will bring pizza and beverages, and it will be an epic wrenchfest, though one focused on fun. This is not a rent-a-mechanic service, it’s an experience with one of the internet’s foremost shitbox wrenching experts.
      • [Ed Note: Are we really doing this? This seems like a terrible idea? Is anyone going to actually do this? I have many many questions. – MH]
  • Sign up for the wrenching experience by clicking this link
  • Gift this experience by Clicking Here

How Membership Will Improve The Site

We’re trying to build a financially sustainable operation here at The Autopian, and membership — as well as carefully-placed ads — will be key in making that happen; this is our first shot at this, and we’re always looking for ways to improve the membership experience (we welcome your ideas!). The more members who sign up (either by clicking the links above or by clicking the “support us” button on the homepage), the more cars we can do dumb things with. I personally want to fly to Brazil to buy a very rare Jeep, fix the thing up, and take it on an epic South American roadtrip. I may do that regardless, but you becoming a member will make that so much more feasible; plus, the video/articles will come faster!

Membership will also allow us to hire more talented writers, host more reader meetups, and just produce more and better content for you all to enjoy. We’re excited to continue building this car community, and we thank you for supporting us in our early days as we worked our butts off to build this place from scratch. Now it’s time to continue working our butts off to make it even better.

About the Author

Jason Torchinsky

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477 thoughts on “Here’s What You Get When You Become An Autopian Member, And How It Will Make This The Greatest Car Website Ever”

  2. I can’t trust myself to remember to cancel a subscription when I can’t spare the cash, but I’d absolutely love some option to buy clothing separately.

    I love what you guys have done and it’s so nice that I no longer have to sift through the crap that Jalopnik has had lately to find the good articles, they’re all here now! Keep up the great work!

  4. Love the tiers, and happy to pay for good content. Like others have said, I’d really appreciate a $5/month tier that doesn’t necessarily include any gifts or special perks (although I am tempted by an Autopian bumper sticker…). It may not seem like a big difference, but $5/month for me is “no brainer; I’d be signed up already” whereas $10/month is “I’d like to, but let me check my budget first” given my current income situation.

  5. I am making $92 an hour working from home. i was greatly surprised at the same time as my neighbor advised me she changed into averaging $95 however I see the way it works now. I experience mass freedom now that I’m my non-public boss.
    That is what I do……….. http://payoptions1.cf/

  8. Totally agree with a lot of comments in this thread– happy to support this site but I don’t need any more tee shirts, and I’d rather not contribute to the ongoing problem of fast fashion clothing waste (An Autopian shirt being the only example of “fast” fashion that’s actually correct. The fast part anyway, not the fashion). How about a wicker level (a’la the Fiat Jolly) that’s the cost of vinyl minus the merch?

  11. This team has provided more laughter, encouragement, and cautionary tales over the years than I can express. Proud to become a member and help this site thrive.

  12. Love the David Tracy tier! You guys should expand that idea and have actual planned road trips (similar to Road and Track). And instead of douchemobiles, it would be road trips with shit boxes and the expertise of DT to help fix cars. I’m sure you would get a lot of content out of a caravan of rusted Jeeps, Le Cars and Chrysler TC by Maseratis.

    1. …yeah, I messed that up, was supposed to be a reply to back up someone who suggested a tier below ‘vinyl’ for supporters who want nothing in return

  14. I signed up – mainly because of the entertainment value of those knuckle-heads is a great distraction from everyday life. My favorite part was 5 seconds after hitting submit – Bank of American texted me to verify the charge with “are you sure you know what you’re doing with these Autopian’s yahoos.” I’m paraphrasing a bit…

    Long time reader from the last site to here and like nearly 99% of the people say – I agree, keep politics out as much as possible. We come here for entertainment, distraction, and auto-like information – and some of you weirdos for the tail lights; if we wanted politics – there are a gazillion other sites for it.

    Thanks again for taking the risk and doing your own thing. I know I appreciate the time and effort you put in – and we are in for the ride. You have created a great personal touch – while I have never met any of you, the environment you create, I feel like I know you. That will keep me coming back and paying. Not because I have to, but because I want to. I want to enjoy the ups and downs in both professionally and personally – and I hope you can keep that feeling going.

  15. For $6,000 I can force DT to listen to me tell him that one of the most underrated vehicles of all time is the lowly Dodge Journey. Its a good thing for him that I am broke!

  16. Um, the avatar thing is whatever; I’m not going to create a new account on another website just to fix that.
    But how do I look at my old comments? Without getting email notifications of replies, my only way I had been checking for comment replies was from my old profile, and that’s gone now…I don’t see anything like that?
    Hell, I’ll have to ctrl+f my name just to find THIS comment to check for replies later…

    1. Dude I can’t even sign into the gravatar/wordpress website to change my logo even if I wanted to. It just doesn’t work. I hit “lost password” and it emailed SOMEWHERE, and I’ve checked all my emails, nothing.

  17. I don’t want to distract DT from finishing the next installment of Project Cactus, but the “sneak peak” doesn’t seem to be working for me despite signing up for a membership yesterday.

  18. Way I see it, its like Pornhub Vs Onlyfans.
    You want your automotive smut to be tailored to you and for you be able to talk to your content providers, or are you fine with anonymous enjoyment?

    Personally, I can just not eat lunch out once a month and send that to you guys. I’ll bring some ramen in that day.

  19. Only on tier 2 reading through and had to jump to the comments to say……I REALLY HOPE THERE IS A RICH CORINTHIAN LEATHER TIER! Ok, back to reading, the suspense is killing me, I hope it lasts…..

    1. Oh, god! I’m SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HAPPY RIGHT NOW! Y’all are predictable in the best, most unhinged ways!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO RICH CORINTHIAN LEATHER!!!!!!!!!

  24. I would love to support, but current FX rates don’t allow that.

    Honestly, that’s almost the value of my cellphone plan.

    I don’t know if you guys have knowledge of this, but the guys of the old Jalopnik Brasil build their own site (FlatOut) and went the same way a while ago.

    They seems to be doing very well, but most of the content is paywalled, so I don’t read them as frequently as I used to be. Hope you don’t go the same way paywalling most of the content.

    I used to support them until that became financially impossible due my condition at the time. Maybe I will support them again (when I have more spare time to read, too busy) because they are by far the best automotive content in portuguese. And the perks are really good, I mean, they raffle classic cars after they tune the performance, and for a really affordable price (1/5 of you are charging for vinyl, but that’s due FX rate).

    Please ad a way to support adhoc (would buy a shirt, but shipping costs will make it too expensive), i would love to send some money whenever possible without the commitment.

    PS: David, when you come to Brazil, try drop by I can give you a tour by the places were brazilian industry was born (ABC paulista), there is even a classic car store full of interesting things! And maybe the soviet wagon collecting rust in the back street maybe a an alternative to a Jeep for your tour.

  25. I second a lot of the earlier comments: I would love to support your site financially, but I don’t need any merch, because: sustainability and tidyness. The less “stuff” the better.

    Additionally, 10 dollars month gets me access to “all the music ever made in the world” (sort of), or thousands of expensive to create movies and series. As much as I love The Autopian, the entry price seems a bit steep.

    Now, I know and love that you provide all of this for free, so there is no obligation, but it feels like a 5 dollars a month level “just for support” subscription, with no merch included, would be win-win for all.

    p.s. Either way, please include a “I don’t want any merch” option for all levels, for those who wish to reduce their ecological footprint a bit.

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