Holy crap, it’s Friday, which means the Autopian has officially survived its first full week! I’m not going to lie: I’m exhausted, and I know David is too, and I’m pretty sure both of our diets have been the sort that would make a nutritionist slap us, hard, and with genuine rage. That said, we’re grateful you’re here reading this site, and we’re thrilled to work with incredibly talented contributors. David and I still can’t believe all of this is real.
Speaking of contributors, let’s shout them out by name, why not, because they deserve it. We got our fellow car-obsessive Thomas Hundal, cranking out the content; there’s Mark Tucker, giving us our daily serving of shitboxes, hot and fresh every morning; we have our incredible design twins, The Secret One and Adrian Clarke; our engineering-mistake confessor Huibert Mees; Rex Bennett, our man inside the Lane; the Navy’s finest pants-shitter, Bobby Mackay; small-town gearhead anthropologist David Wilson; the GOAT himself, Murilee Martin; our China-car savant, Tycho de Feijter; and our fantastic extra topshot artist, Syd.
How did we manage to pull together such a fantastic team?
We know we have a long way to go to make everything the way we — and you — want it to be. There are still changes we want to make to the design, the commenting system, the pace of our writing — pretty much everything. We probably should get our asses in gear and sell a few ads, too. (Until then, who wants to buy T-shirts in bulk?)
Most importantly, we want to know what you, our fantastic readers, think! We started this site because we want to produce stories and videos and whatever you want to read, watch, listen, and enjoy! If there’s something you don’t like, or want more of, or less of, or whatever, let us know, right here in the comments, and we’ll do our best to make things better. We’re constantly striving to improve, and we’re very open to new ideas.
Thank you all for reading. I really mean that, and I know David and Beau mean it, too. We’ve been busy, but we’ve been having a great time; it’s all been a reminder of why we wanted to do this in the first place: because we love cars, and we love the way cars bring people together.
Except maybe for a couple of jerks on Reddit. But you know, that’s the internet.
(image: Skoda Classic)
Great first week…thanks!
Now, if you could just satisfy my prime twitch with a continuing series on minicars/microcars…
Jason how do I hotwire a car? 🙂
First, I’m impressed. It’s a good site. As for improvements? Moar EV/PHEV stuff because I want the world convinced that we need to go that way and we’re going to hell if we are not. And conversely, show me how to tow a travel trailer or other tall things (not car trailers) to best maximize gas mileage. I know, two opposite and somewhat odd things. Lastly, car reviews, but of something that’s on the plus side of 10 years b/c that’s an interesting price point to buy cool stuff at that us plebes can afford. I mean, I’m not going to go out and buy a new RS6 wagon, as badly as I’d love one.
Slideshows! I’ll show myself out…
A thumbs down arrow for this guy 😀
Hi. Thank you very much for putting together the site. It’s a total breath of fresh air. Just bought my t-shirt! Let me know when the beer coozies come out.
I’m a casual car person, a dream wrencher, who never had the opportunity to learn how to work on cars, much less enough money to buy anything interesting. The site hits me in my wheelhouse. You give me content I can read, mostly understand (given my limited knowledge), laugh voraciously at (XJ nice lady live blog), and I can live vicariously through the writers’ experiences and feel okay with myself (because I bought the “Sport” model of my sensible Subaru) without obnoxious ads.
I’ll piggy back on an earlier comment and put in a plug for diversity amongst writers. The more breadth of perspective, the better.
I’ll also mention that I’m looking forward to seeing how the site begins to find its own identity. For very good reason, it seems that you have rebranded many segments from the “previous administration.” If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Although, in addition, it’ll be great when the staff starts to come into its own and give The Autopian its own flavor.
Congratulations on one week.
It’s already been said, but I’ll say it again: great content. Also, love that you trust your readers won’t be trolls, and allow them the ability to post and be seen, until they prove otherwise.
Pace yourselves. You’re off to a great start, but it’s a marathon not a sprint. It would be better to post fewer articles per day than to resort to half baked garbage articles or slide shows.
Fantastic first week. I’m probably in the minority here, but I would love to see some content on the really old stuff…not rat rods and T buckets but authentic 100+ year old stuff still being driven. All the old timers are dying off and a lot of this stuff is getting turned away from already full museums. Without passing the torch to the next generation, we’re likely to start losing a lot of knowledge and lore from the earliest days of the auto industry.
Better comment formatting. Unless I’m missing something there is no way to italicize, bold, quote or add photos to comments. Also notifications like they do at Jalopnik – It’d be good to see when someone replies or likes.
And editing – preferably with more than a 15 minute window.
We need more pictures of dogs in motorcycle sidecars wearing googles!
Putting improvements up front and praise later.
1. Site issues – cookies on mobile for login are rough. Had to manually refresh from sign in on the article (this one) I wanted to comment on. It was a pain.
2. Posting comments is at the bottom of the page. This may be intentional to promote people reading the comments before barging in with a new one – but from a UX pattern perspective it’s jarring. An improvement could be some way finding if that’s the rationale.
3. Need to hire a copy editor. Some articles even have section headers missing letters from words. In the example I noted, it was the first letter.
And now the good:
Guys, loving the content choices and the topics. This is the stuff I’ve followed you (Jason) and now you (David) for years.
I’ve also been keen to dig into the writers I’m less familiar with. So far the product is one I’m interested in continuing to use, and I find it’s automatically a site I’m checking with casual browsing. I don’t use bookmarks, and usually enter the sites I follow by memory. You’ve made it.
These are all great points. I had to refresh three times before it acknowledged my login.
Maintaining this momentum is going to take insanity, which is why I have the utmost faith in the founders here.
I was thinking yesterday that we’re in the first week, and you want to hit the ground at full throttle to capture interest. I have no qualms if there’s a noticeable drop in content pacing while they continue to get things running and staffed up. The cached content developed pre-launch is doubtless running down.
If we see 1/2 – 2/3 of this content equivalent weekly for perpetuity I’ll be a happy daily reader.
Change the Autopian “A” icon in tabs and bookmarks so it is legible.
You know how a little graphic from the website is displayed on the left side of the tab in Chrome? For Defector.com it’s a clear white D in a black circle. For Torrentfreak.com it’s a clear white TF in a pink square. For Autopian, it’s… illegible. It’s a blue circle with a squiggle or something. It’s the same in the bookmarks bar. I’d like to see a bold A for your bold new site!
Technical term is “favicon”.
And they gave already changed it too…they read feedback
I’ve been fairly impressed. I don’t have a ton of time; casual reading online after work is really all I have. But the fact that I’m behind on all the content is impressive. Not to rip a previous engagement of haphazard material that starts with a j (with some writers I won’t even look at), who’s content was slow to post and mediocre at best. I like the in depth detail of engineering, and the overall feel of the site. Although disappointed in no real taillight articles yet. Before I never really thought much about it, but now I look forward to those pieces (I’ve been converted). My only real recommendation would be capacity. It does load slow. But that’s normal growing pains and speaks to the interest in the site. Well done, you’re clearly succeeding as you should. The site is not some anti-car, liberal leaning car site trying to steer people into an opinion. It’s honestly a car site for people that are into cars. Well done.
I have really enjoyed much of the stuff ya’ll have done so far. Most of the stuff that I think could be approved has already been mentioned by others (being able to enlarge images, an edit button, some sort of notification for replies). I look forward to what this place will have in the future!
Don’t like: How much the morning news post wants me to think about somebody taking a shit as much as it wants me to think about cars.
Like: Pretty much everything else! I’m getting that old J******k feel of starting an article on a subject I don’t really care about and getting pulled in because it’s written so well, by an interested author. Keep it up!
More of: General news, I guess? Honestly I don’t really read about cars anywhere else, so maybe it would be redundant for other readers, but I like how YOU write about stuff. And of course I hope you can start doing reviews, but I assume you have to build an audience before car makers will want to invite you for a drive. All in good time, I’m sure.
Just for the record, I didn’t quit reading The Other Site because the content wasn’t good anymore, I quit because it became so overloaded with crap that half the time I literally couldn’t read it even if I wanted to. All those sites are ad platforms first, now. The articles only exist to give them something to put ads on; they’d just say lorem ipsum top to bottom if the owners could get away with it. G/O Media is hardly unique in that these days, I’ve seen plenty of other great organizations get killed by parasites. But hopefully, even in 2022, you can make a site where the writing is the point, and any ads necessary are there to support it. I’ve turned off my adblocker on theautopian.com, y’all, don’t let me down!
Exactly. Ads work on some kinds of sites, but not this kind. The Autopian reader wants to READ and spend quality time being immersed in tales of taillights and such and ads totally disrupt that experience. Subscriptions, sponsors (the small tasteful battery mentions aren’t disruptive) and merch or GTFO.
It’s been an enjoyable first week, kudos to the crew. Such a plethora of interesting content!
I hope the occasional digression into other transportation oddities carries over – winged, railed, and aquatic were always fun diversions, not to mention science-fictional. In the meantime, keep the Torch lit! 🙂
NEEDS MOAR SLIDESHOWS!
/jk
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Seriously – thank you! This week has been awesome!
With that said… Will there be weekend content? If not, I understand you all need the break but possibly the columns can be done during the week and published on the weekends?
+1 editing comments
+1 posting photos in comments
My literal only complaint is that while scrolling through the comments on my phone (always on the phone, never a laptop etc – for me I read on a phone or a real book!) my thumb always seems to hit the “reply” icon. But I can deal with that for the pleasure of perusing your site daily.
Keep up the great work – but don’t burn out!
Oh and keep it sideshow free!
We will not be publishing on weekends; this is a strategy we’re following early on to ensure that our stories during the week meet our quality standards. (We’re using the weekends to plan/research/write).
Thanks DT! Appreciate the response but appreciate the site and your work even more. I’ll wait for hats to be added to the merch and will try to support your advertisers whenever possible.
You know what this site needs? Slideshows… said no one ever.
I’m enjoying it so far. A good deal of content that’s thought out and not just there for the clicks. I’m having a hard time reading it all, but that’s my problem. Others have pointed out some updates to the comments section that I agree with. Editing; a reply button up top, adding pics, a notifications system, etc. I hope there are plans to include some regular video content in the future. I don’t expect it now with things just getting off the ground, but that would be cool to see. I’ve already suggested renaming the “Morning Dump” feature. You may want to get a shock collar for DT to keep him from hoarding more cars and getting letters from the city again.
Still, love the new site. Love the content. We’re here for you guys. I hope this becomes the success that it deserves to be and that you guys need it to be.
I can’t find a turd in the pile. I have enjoyed every article I have read, from every contributor. Consider me a lifer. 🙂
Love: RSS! Thank you soooo much! I can finally keep up with my car/adjacent content along with everything else I read! <3
I've also enjoyed the interpersonal/interconnectivity/cross-linking you've been doing: shows the internal community I know you've always had, but it's much more plain 🙂 (And of course helps me discover articles I missed or maybe passed up on first pass.
Keep up the great work!!
Agreed about the RSS. One thing I would improve though is the lack of header picture. Makes reading some posts somewhat more difficult (particularly the Cold Start as it features just one image).
A layout related thing: categories that can be found on top of the site (news, reviews, experts/tech etc.) only contain four entries per page. That makes it IMHO somewhat useless.
You’ve set the bar very high. It’s been a breath of much needed fresh air to read car articles about people who like cars again. A great blend of detail and fun articles from what I’ve read.
A few items that would be nice:
-Notifications for replies to comments. As well as the ability to add photos/GIFs.
-On Shitbox Showdown linking to the classifieds (or an archival link) would be excellent as the adds typically have more detail.
Regarding Shitbox Showdown: The header above the first photo of each car is a link to the sale listing. And I have an idea for a slight format change that would make the basic info about each car a bit more plain; we’ll see if it works.
Yeah. The one thing I miss is notifications for comment replies. I love interacting with this community, and I miss knowing when there is something to reply to. I would totally invest some money in a subscription model similar to how the Defector did when they all left Deadspin.
Otherwise this site is working amazing. The content is amazing.
Patreon: I’d pay for this content.
Writers: Poach Rob and Mercedes and you’ve got everything the J has to offer.
Content: Love it. Kinda miss the Blips but the new content is great!
This is a marathon. You have your vision in mind. So far the way it’s playing out is just fine.
Snappy writing written by actual auto enthusiasts. No click bait. No judgement. What’s not to like. RIP jalopnik.
So far. so good. I’ve enjoyed the content, so far. Press on.