‘more grip than a tree frog’

It surprised many when Dan Neil, the Los Angeles Times auto columnist won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, especially since Neil had only been at the Times since September. It doesn’t take much reading though to see that his style is special. He begins his most recent column:

Only about 15% of Americans know how to drive a manual transmission. This is not surprising. Most Americans couldn’t find France on a map and couldn’t name the chief justice of the United States if William H. Rehnquist bit them on the face.

As a consequence of this mechanical illiteracy, 85% of Americans won’t be able to enjoy the new, hair-igniting Cadillac CTS-V, the GM division’s first foray into the factory “tuner” market and one of the most amazing performance sedans ever to light up a cop’s radar gun.

So much for ignorance being bliss.

If you have any interest in hot cars and/or award-winning writing, continue reading The ‘V’ is for victory.