It’s Been A While, Let’s Talk About The Autopian! How Are You Feeling?

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We are coming up on two years of The Autopian, if you can even believe it. It’s been one hell of a ride and we’ve been making a lot of improvements (we hope) along the way. We’ve also learned a ton and grown to over 1,100 paying members, which is quite an achievement, especially when you consider that the average membership transaction is over $100 per person.

You may have noticed Lewin Day around here lately. He’s going to be a regular fixture on the website as he’s accepted a position as our Australian Bureau Chief, which is an important part of our infrastructure given our outsized proportion of Australian readers and members. We love Australia and Australia seems to love The Autopian. Beau even sent Lewin on a secret mission in Australia and I can’t wait to tell you about it.

It’s possible you haven’t noticed Peter Vieira, our new Editorial Production Manager, but you’ve seen the impact on the site. He’s been keeping the place going day-to-day, helping us get more posts up, and creating many of the images at the tops of posts that make this place stand out. He’s also the reason why our social media accounts are so hilarious and have such an Autopian voice. Jason’s working on a story introducing both that should run next week.

Please ask us anything or tell us anything. Complain about things! Chide me for not doing more work on the E39! I do have some specific questions, if you don’t mind:

  1. We are going to experiment with more weekend content starting tomorrow. What would you like to see on the weekends? Do you ever look at the site on the weekends? What would get you to look?
  2. What kind of content do you like to see on the site? What do you want to see more of?
  3. If you’re a member, what kind of content do you like best?
  4. If you’re not a member (join here!) what kind of content would get you to join?

Thank you for reading and thank you for hanging out here, it’s a magical place.

 

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237 thoughts on “It’s Been A While, Let’s Talk About The Autopian! How Are You Feeling?”

  1. TLDR: might could shift publishing of some of the weekday content to the weekends

    I’m starting to feel like the pace of content updates is becoming too quick\too much.
    You post all kinds of stuff I’d never think to be interested in, and, yet, it turns out that I AM – and I want to read it all. (Okay, except for the racing stuff.)
    Lately, I’ve taken to scrolling past things in order to “keep up” … knowing that I’m missing out. (Sure, I could go back to catch up; but, I don’t.)
    Maybe some of the weekday stuff could be pushed to the weekends?

    I really like the quirky stuff – Cold Start, personal mis-adventures.
    I also enjoy the engineering / how-it-works stuff.

    1. Good points. But some of us are either bored, or very fast readers.
      I usually read every word posted daily, and run out of stuff to read fast.
      More original weekend content works for me though.
      Maybe a weekend thing could be content submitted by readers?

  2. 1) As I wrote elsewhere, never ask people “Would you like X?” Because for everybody the answer is always yes, because you didn’t mention price or what we’d be losing out on in exchange for more weekend content. Thus… what would be the cost of weekend content? Less content during the week? Lower-ranked writers’ content? Off-kilter stuff?

    2) I’m a big fan of engineering nerdery and macro-type stuff, like EV charging infrastructure. Not an RVer, so I’ll read that sorta content for engineering kinda thing, but I’m reading it to be entertained and not informed, if that makes sense. Overall the collection of writers seems pretty talented, and I don’t see the foot-in-mouth illness that seems to have stricken the writing staff over at Ye Olde Lighting Shoppe. On either the political end or the engineering end.

    3) NA

    4) I’d love to see partnerships here. Like, join The Autopian and get half off OnX (or something else).

    I’d also love to see more deep-dives on topics that are relevant to people who use their cars but which don’t get much love elsewhere. Said topics (these are all just off-the-cuff) could include:

    • Land-use paradigm in the West and its relevance to the offroad community
    • California’s proposal to mandate governors in new vehicles
    • The IRA bill’s mandate to include passive breathalyzers in the next couple years
    • Difficulties in securing vehicle software against intrusion

    I’d also like to see more guest writers addressing items that the regular writing community doesn’t handle. Like, when it comes to suspension engineering – you have a guy, and I’ve always walked away feeling pretty well-informed from one of his articles. But there are other similar topics I’d be delighted to see addressed in the same accessible-but-detailed fashion.

  3. I remember mentioning to DT back in the beginning that the weekend would be a great time to publish some of the longer form stories. Stories like DT’s move to Cali (ha!) or things like the one about the pilot that shit his pants. The type of stories that are more “human interest”. Sundays would be a good time to “premiere” something like that or something that has been previously teased. Racing stuff would be cool, as would general transportation logistics stuff like with trains. Oh, and maybe also something that is “weekend only” about boats/planes? Nothing to go crazy on, obv, because there are other sites for that, but maybe like a Fancy Kristen-style posh piece of the fancy pants stuff. Like a “ritzy toy of the week” thing.

    There isn’t too much to nitpick. I guess the bell notifications are annoying as they are now. I find myself wishing that little shimmy would “JUST GO AWAY ALREADY!” and it’s silly to have to delete things. Who is saving those anyway? But, that’s probably just how the system works. Also, my personal preference would be that the first page always stays first in the comments, instead of having to work backwards.

    Shit, I did just think of something! I wish you all would just use youtube for vids and find some sort of standard way to publish photos (maybe just screenshot things?). It’s odd and a bit annoying to have one pic one way, the next is an Insta post, the next is twitter or whatever, then it’s back to a 4th pic that just is there natively, all in the same story.

    Otherwise, keep it up! Everything is perfect! lol.
    Basically, the site is great, even if there isn’t enough love shown to Cadillacs 🙂

        1. Which is her dream job, so I couldn’t ask her to give it up. However, I would love it if Fancy Kristen would pop in once in a blue moon and review a luxury car or give her input on a upscale feature

  4. Personally, I am loving the site so far. I don’t need the motorsport content, but more wrenching/chainsawing content is always welcome. I also love how you send Mercedes out on adventures (I am sure she doesn’t need much convincing), and more of SWG going to junkyards other than his driveway, please.

    I’ll restate my request for “Reader’s Garages”.

    And anytime we can get David dirty with a wrenchfest is always a good time.

    One last thing — one of the great joys of a site like this is reading about everyone’s personal cars in the comments. A forum would be a hoot if properly moderated.

    2. There is a Readers’ Garages feature! It just happens that the readers are all members and the feature is called Member’s Rides. The chance to be featured did goad me into membership.

    3. I’m trying to get “Gossin’s Gold: Graveyard Garbage & Grievance” back onto the site, although it appears to be an acquired, specific taste for a niche section of readers. If it does get the green light to reappear, I’ll be sure to bring some serious junkyard heat.

      Thanks for the shout-out, my dude!

  5. Thoroughly enjoying the site, read as one of my first sites every day. I do look at content over the weekends; perhaps that’s a good time for possibly longer pieces? I know I have more time to actively concentrate because I’m not sneaking looks during meetings. (Not sorry.).

    Suggestion is to try and limit Torch doing things like chainsawing batteries and getting hospitalized. Have to keep the Torch posts going. Understand there are limitations on this because, well, the man thought chainsawing a battery was a good idea.

    I’m a member at the initial cheap bastard monthly level, whatever that was when you started. Vinyl? Yugo? Something like that.

    Keep the Adrian posts coming, as those are ones that I always read and absolutely enjoy.

    Direction is going great, really glad this is still a going and growing site.

  6. I’m here for the design, history, design history and obscure knowledge.
    Also the beer.
    Weekend content would be even better than during the week – spread it out a bit!

  7. More weekends is great.
    I have been digging the trade in Tuesday recently, Bishop stuff, and anything Jason’s aeorta can handle. Always read morning dump.
    I joined to help the RV purchase, cause I want to see more Autopian events. Get the gang on the road and come visit the Simeone collection in Philly.

  8. The old site used to have a weekend racing roundup, but it was always posted too late to be useful. Posting it early Friday/late Thursday would be best.

    A good story is what I’m here for. It might be a wrenching article, or a test drive, but if it is a good storying, I’m here for it.

    1. I’m of mixed mind on racing stuff. I can get all the details I can stand from regular media. What I think you could offer is an irreverent take that helps me separate the hype from the interesting tech and driver talent news.

  9. Am I allowed to say I miss reading myself, lmao? But really, strong yes to weekend content, ya girl gets bored during the long contentless 48 hours. Keep Adrian around, and yes, I realized I’m biased as a fellow Italian car owning goth, but he’s still funny af and makes me learn things. My favorites are the dives into weird things that make my brain swell with thrillingly fresh knowledge. As for content I would like more of, nothing makes me happier than questionable Italian vehicles.

  10. I’m sure you know how many of us check in and when, so I won’t pretend to have any answers, but count me as the lone voice of “I’m satisfied with the schedule” member.

    Maybe it’s just me, but for me, it’s challenging enough to stay on top of the present posting pace (not that I’m complaining)! Around-the-clock would be more than some of us could manage, but perhaps I’m in the minority. Again, a good problem to have.

    You’re the ones who have to balance volume with quality, staffing with engagement, etc. I’m sure you’ll keep crushing it, as they say. Thanks as always for making this thing.

  11. Velour member- loving the site! Weekend content would be great. Id love some race stuff, wrenching, or maybe some ‘best of’ articles with updates/some added content?

    Ill admit i am missing the ‘what car should i buy’from the old site. I liked seeing the oddball or unexpected answers.

    Also, how about a ‘racing for dummies’ sort of articles? For people who maybe arent familiar with formula 1, or lemans, etc. Go into the history, how it works now, and hownto follow it. That could tie into coverage. Companion article(s) on how to get into autocross, road racing, or track days.

    And autopian lemons rally team please? Take torches RV.

    1. Take torches RV.

      The wife and I watch a lot of Vice Grip Garage and I’ve been itching to try to rescue something. I’ve pitched starting with Jason’s RV more than once. It would be fitting as it’s wrenching and RV content at once!

  12. I subscribe to the RSS feed so I basically come when there’s anything new and I have a few minutes to spare. Definitely would look at weekend articles but if I have a life during the weekend —a big if— it may take a bit.

    As for other suggestions, in no particular order:

    • I need AND require de tiny dopamine hit that I get when my comments get smiled (or favorited or whatever we call that here). Notifications for that, preferably coalesced non-spammy ones, would be welcome.
    • The Autopian Cinematic Universe requires more World of Autopian content. Can’t keep this looking like half of it was filmed in a LA parking lot ????. We’re getting good stuff about Australia and China, and some Japan stuff. Europe (not a monolith), the rest of Asia, Africa and latin America need more representation.
    • It’s going to be hard to do but if you can plan around your trips to feature more opportunities for reader meetups maybe I’ll finally have the chance to verify that you’re real people (I kid, I once crossed paths with David Tracy. But is Jason real?)

    2. He is, and I even talked to him once 6+ years ago! (to be fair the entirety of the conversation was “hey do you mind if I check out your Pao?” as I interrupt the conversation he’s actually having, to which he replied “go for it”)

    4. Jason is real, wears pants and surprisingly lives in a house which I’ve been to. And no it’s not a three quarter size hobbit house but a real, genuine people house. I didn’t have to duck to avoid bashing my brains out once.

  13. I drifted and out before really realizing what a gem Autopian was in the last two months. (I felt a little burned watching old site go down in flames, then again when The Drive also suffered from autoeroticcannibalcapitalism).

    I’m proud to be here. This is one of two sites where I comment. I like telling my site stories in real life, and my real life stories on the site. I like that the default here is acceptance and kindness, and people are courteous in giving correction and gracious in receiving it. I love the sense of connection and community the community has with the editors, the jibes and pokes and good-naturedness we all bring to this place.

    Especially Adrian.

    Lewin feels like a jigsaw piece fitting in. His wrenching stories are achingly familiar and very informative. To that end, I’d love to hear more from SWG. His troublesome acquisitions make great stories, and I’d love to know what his wrenching process is like besides finding center caps for wheels that mostly sort of fit.

    The variety of content is amazing – I think I said this before, but even though I don’t care one whit for RVs and campers, I read anyway because Mercedes is gonna take us on an informative, insightful, deeply researched journey. I’m always down for more motorcycles.

    I’d really love some more maintenance and wrenching posts. Everyone likes to say “drop an LS in it” or “slap a turbo on it” and I can only think of the bewildering number of connections and dependencies on my old QR25DE. A turbo would have turned the piston rings into emission rings in short order. How do you *actually* slap a turbo on it? Etc.

    Finally, because the meetup was a genuine highlight, I owe DT an apology: I was determined not to fanboy when I met you and Torch in real life, so I prepped a question about the Z4 as an icebreaker. I didn’t mean to hound you for mechanical advice, but it was still fun to watch you link the pieces and go for the solution.

    1. I think you may be the only other person on this Earth that is aware of my center cap fitment issue!
      I’m also guessing you have an excellent memory since I believe that I only mentioned it once in my lifetime, which was at the Chapel Hill Reader Meet-Up last month.

      Thanks sincerely for retaining that little nugget of info and for the kind, supportive words, my friend!

      Hoping to be back on the site as soon as I can. Until then.

  14. The stuff Adrian does is some of my favorite stuff anywhere on the internet. I absolutely love his knowledge, his opinions, and the way that he kinda puts some of that stuff into a format that normal folks can understand. Being an automotive designer was literally my dream job growing up, so it’s a lot of fun to read about something that I still have a passion for.

    Oh, and it goes without saying that Jason is a treasure, and his particular brand of batshittery is delightful. I also love the deep dives on suspension design and such that Hubert does. Same with DT’s nerdery, it’s unique, and you don’t see that anywhere else.

    Racing content. It’s basically non-existent here. What’s Elizabeth Blackstock doing these days? Steph? I always liked reading their motorsport stuff on the old site.

  15. Velour Member Here: I like weekend content, maybe it’s my tech addled brain but the weekends feel very off to me as noone is updating things and it feels weird. Y’all have lives obviously so please don’t give up your weekends for our sake.

    We’re not having fun unless y’all are having fun!

    1. Just because they publish/post an article on the weekends, doesn’t mean that they actually wrote it on the weekend. ( Written on a Wednesday, published on a Sunday)

  16. First off, I must say I love this site and visit/comment several times per day. One thing I really like is that it almost entirely objective journalism, unlike the Tesla-bashing click-bait I’ve seen other sites devolve into.

    One thing I would like to see again is Parts Bin Puzzle and/or trivia. Parts Bin Puzzle was one of my favorite features, and we get it to some degree with the “identify this criminal’s car from blurry footage” (which, by the way, is also awesome).

    As others have mentioned, motorsports is always good for the weekend, and maybe save Mercedes Marketplace Madness just to spread it out a bit and give us something to chew on a boring Sunday.

    If I have one itty-bit of constructive feedback for the site, it would be that I think the font is a bit small and could be a bit more bold. What can I say? I like my letters thicc.

    1. Sure! I’ve been meaning to get back into the old Parts Bin Puzzle routine, but have been lost deep in the rabbit holes of Holy Grails. 🙂

      1. I’m ready to go whenever you’re willing.

        That is of course ignoring the understandable legit legal concerns you probably have about discussing the subject. Someday maybe, but I will continue to breathe until then.

  18. I’ll confess that I don’t watch the videos (any videos, as a rule), but I’ve been enjoying David’s drives of traded-in hoopties. I think in general what I’d like to see is more of your crew getting behind various wheels and telling us about it. I get that that requires more time, travel, planning, people-power, etc. And I love that so much of the content here is about nerding out on little things in a way that’s maybe more accessible for more of us to comment on, but I want to live vicariously a little (or learn about potential future purchases), too. More new-car reviews, please, or old-car reviews, or Aussie-car reviews, or beige-car reviews, or whatever.

    I’ve enjoyed the sporadic Members’ Rides feature (any plans for that one, now that Stef has a new gig?); I bet many members, myself included, would be happy to open our garages to you and put you behind the wheel if someone from the staff were in our area. Could be a way to piggyback on travel for other events.

    Last…sometimes bluntness is kindness. Please know that this is my intent. Copy editing. I get it, it’s pedantic and probably unimportant in the grand scheme, but it’s tough that so often I get taken out of the flow of one of your writers’ brilliant voices by some little missed word or typo or disagreement in tense. It’s another step in the process, probably more than you have people power for, a big pain in the butt…but the basic quality of the content is so good that I really want the presentation to match. It’s like your articles are brilliant BMW M54B30 inline-sixes and the errors are those failure-prone oil pump nuts Thomas told us about a while back.

    Speaking of which, get back to work on your E39, and I’ll get back to work on mine. You guys are doing great.

    1. I’m not going to let the cat out of the bag, because there’s only recently a bag and barely a cat, but SWG and I are trying to put together something collaborative for this summer that should scratch that living-vicariously itch a bit. Won’t say more for now.

  19. Active member of the commentariat, not a member, weekday daily reader (I usually check on the website 3-5 times a day during the week for new articles).

    I think racing stuff makes a lot of sense on weekends, but I don’t watch racing and won’t be here reading on weekends. I would catch up on Monday, regardless of how good the articles are over the weekend.

    I’ve enjoyed much of Lewin’s stuff. That is awesome that Autopian has a heavy Australian following. Actually, now that I think about it, there is a Brit, an Aussie, and a Canuck writing on here. Maybe you guys should find someone in South Africa and maximize your British Empire influence!

    1. I’m enjoying Tycho’s China reporting, and makes me think I’d love it if there’s an autopian in Japan who could give us 1st person insight on the crazy car culture there.

    1. We are going to experiment with more weekend content starting tomorrow. What would you like to see on the weekends? Do you ever look at the site on the weekends? What would get you to look? For me, weekends are all about wrenching and reminiscing. It’s always fun to see what wrenching is going on, but if there’s a secret archive of wrenching content, dropping a piece every other weekend would be cool. It’s also a very timely opportunity to share stuff on the cheap/weird cars available in the market.
    2. What kind of content do you like to see on the site? What do you want to see more of? I like the industry content, it’s always interesting to see what’s moving and shaking at any given time. I’d always be down with more wrenching and crapbox content and stories (see point 1), though. If Mercedes does any extended camper/RV tests, that would be fun to see as well.
    3. If you’re a member, what kind of content do you like best? N/A
    4. If you’re not a member (join here!) what kind of content would get you to join? The content is definitely there, but I really would enjoy a community-specific pillar. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but an Autopian message board/forum would be awesome, which I suppose would do double duty as a classifieds section and serve as a great place to organize meet ups.

  21. I really like what has become of this site and I definitely notice that you have many new contributors,which is good. Earlier on I would sit at wait for new content to come up and be exited to see what new mischief you all were up to, now I have to really read up an keep track of all the new stuff. I get that capitalism is a beautiful thing and you all deserve to grow and I really hope this is what all involved are hoping for. This turned out to sound a bit critical, but I don’t think I meant it to be. I guess all I want you to do is to keep it simple and fun like always and don’t just post things because whatever algorithms tell you is good for traffic.
    Also more crazy shit, I get my news elsewhere thank you.

  22. I love the site. I check inon the weekend just to see if I missed anything. I really like the posting notifications but don’t need the detail in the email and the bell. Just a notification then hit that bell. It would be nice it the site marked responses as read without requiring me to click on it. Maybe members information they can limit and post their cars, projects. A classified section for members to sell projects or seek parts. I also would like a wider range of vehicles covered. I get everyone has their favorite but I doubt more than 20% of cars made ever get mentioned here. I sometimes get beetled out or jeepstrained, or out started, vaginated.
    Also anyway to improve the loading of stories when logging in? I see a good story and by the time I click on it a different story is there. Maybe load the newest one then it stays 2nd newest etc

  23. I’d love some racing and related stuff on weekends!

    I (like I suspect a few of us here) get excited when the season gets underway and would love to chat about it with the knowledgeable folks here, both authors and commenters, about it.

    B/c to whom else would I rant about why aren’t more people watching IndyCar or why can’t IMSA simply keep the same class setup for more than a season?

    Also, getting Parker to call his finishing position beforehand or the number of fights that break out afterward would make me want to watch Xfinity even more!

    1. I am definitely thinking of ways to get more motorsports on the site. Also, if you asked Parker to call his finishing position he’d probably just tell you “first” every time. He’d probably be more accurate on the fights.

  24. I’m always disappointed on weekends when there’s nothing new to read. I would love to see segments on quirky things like car toys from the past- there are so many to cover, from RC to Hot Wheels and then some. Oh, and I always enjoyed the DOTS segments on the old site. Overall love the site though, keep it up!

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