In 1981, John Davis walked through the Maryland Public Television parking lot, copied down license plates, and took the list to security. He was not chasing parking violations. He needed people who could help put MotorWeek on the air, and the cars outside told him where to begin. Television experience mattered, but a genuine interest in cars could not be picked up as a prop when the cameras started rolling.
That practical test anticipated the editorial rule that kept MotorWeek recognizable through 45 years and 1900 plus episodes: the cars are the stars. The program was never designed around a commanding host, a single reviewer's taste, or an expensive production crew. It relied on a consistent magazine style format, staff members who knew cars, collective judgment, and instrumented testing that allowed fair comparisons.
The cars are the stars.
Nearly everything around that system changed. The staff contracted, cameras improved, feature reporters assumed more responsibility, automotive media spread beyond television, and driver assistance systems altered the vehicles under review. MotorWeek adapted its methods without dropping the test or putting its personalities ahead of the machinery. Its longevity came from knowing what could change and what had to remain fixed.
The parking lot where the cars chose the staff
Once MotorWeek received approval to proceed, Davis had to assemble a crew quickly. His parking lot search led him to Craig Singhas, who owned a Shelby Mustang and had participated in the 1978 pilot. Joyce Braga drove a Porsche 924. She became MotorWeek's first female reporter and an early news presenter. Their vehicles did not prove they could make television, but they showed an interest in cars before a MotorWeek job existed for them to pursue.
The method was unconventional, but the reasoning was sound. A production routine can be taught more readily than sustained curiosity about how a car drives, behaves, and differs from the one beside it. MotorWeek still asks applicants what they drive because Davis considers the answer revealing. The point is not whether someone owns an expensive car. Davis's first was a bare-bones, six-cylinder 1967 Ford Mustang with an automatic and a bad valve. What matters is whether the applicant sees the vehicle as more than transportation.
Davis did not follow a standard route into automotive journalism. He attended engineering school, worked in radio at North Carolina State University, took weekend jobs at commercial stations in Chapel Hill and Durham, and moved into television at WRDU. He earned an MBA, went to New York, and worked as a transportation analyst before joining Maryland Public Television to produce Wall Street Week. He brought mechanical curiosity, broadcasting experience, and enough business knowledge to understand the demands of a weekly program.
The parking lot exercise established a useful order: find people who pay attention to cars, then apply television skills to what they know. Reversing that order risks producing polished footage without much substance. MotorWeek needed staff who would notice the details of a road test, contribute to a shared verdict, and treat automotive knowledge as part of the job rather than copy placed in front of them before recording.
The twelve-week rush to put MotorWeek on air
The original idea took shape while Davis was producing Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser. After becoming executive producer in 1978, Davis began developing a program of his own. He made the MotorWeek pilot, but his larger plan was an automotive magazine for television. He wanted the variety and utility of an automotive print magazine in a weekly broadcast.
The pilot was completed in 1978. The team had researched the MotorWeek name and found it clear to use, but the program sat on a shelf for three years while they tried to interest stations. Davis wanted more than a local production from the start. The aim was to serve local viewers while choosing subjects that could carry the program regionally along the East Coast and, if possible, nationally.
The timetable changed on July the 5th, 1981. Warren Park called Davis into his office and said a competing station planned to offer an automotive series to PBS in January. He asked whether MotorWeek could be ready by then. Davis said he would not need six months; he would be on the air in six weeks. The promise was too aggressive, though not by much. The first episode aired in mid-October, about 12 weeks or so after that conversation.
The first episode aired in mid-October, about 12 weeks or so after that conversation.
For a recurring production, the first deadline is only the beginning. The harder task is having another finished program ready the next week, and another after that. Davis had learned from Wall Street Week that stations were more likely to keep a program in place if it supplied fresh material every week. MotorWeek developed a schedule of 26 all-new shows and 26 shows in which the majority is new. That regular supply protects the time slot because a rerun gives a station an opening to remove a program and decide later whether to restore it.
Why no car stays on screen too long
MotorWeek established its basic structure early: a magazine style format composed of distinct segments, usually about five or six minutes each. That length prevents one subject from taking over the program. It also accounts for the different interests of automotive viewers. One may want a new-car road test, while another is waiting for Goss's Garage or a feature unrelated to that week's test vehicle.
Davis cited Evening Magazine as a contemporary model for how the structure could work on television. Westinghouse-owned stations produced it using five- and six-minute pieces, and the stations borrowed material from one another to fill a Monday-through-Friday schedule. MotorWeek applied that segmented structure to automotive material instead of building each program around one extended subject.
The choice also made production sense. A five- or six-minute segment must introduce the vehicle, show the relevant details, explain the road-test findings, and end before repetition creeps in. The format gives the crew manageable pieces to produce and editors clean points for rearranging material. Davis also thought MotorWeek might eventually have a commercial version. Separate segments made room for commercials without forcing editors to tear apart the entire show.
Feature segments arrived over time, but the underlying format remained in place for 45 years. Viewers did not have to relearn the program as cars and television technology changed. They could expect a road test, service information, news, and other automotive subjects in compact sections. The details were free to change because the structure kept doing its job.
A smaller crew without a weaker test
MotorWeek employed 13 or 14 full-time people in its early years. At the time of Davis's account, the regular staff numbered about 10, and the operation had run with as few as six or seven. The reduction did not come simply from asking fewer people to produce the same material by the same methods. Electronics changed the equipment, while experienced staff learned duties once divided among several jobs.
Feature reporters originally traveled with producers. Once the reporters could produce their own pieces, a producer who retired or left did not always need to be replaced. Technical work changed in much the same way. A road-test remote crew once needed three people on the camera side: a camera person, an engineer, and an audio engineer. One person can now manage that work with a good camera or a selection of cameras.
Davis distinguished that shift from simple automation. The camera did not decide what mattered about the car, frame every necessary shot, evaluate its behavior, or assemble the road test. Better equipment let one qualified operator cover work that once demanded three specialties on location. The job now requires broader competence. It saves headcount, but only if that operator can deliver usable pictures and sound under road-test conditions.
A smaller crew could not become an excuse for a weaker test. MotorWeek handles about 150 cars a year, plus or minus, and conducts instrumented testing on every vehicle used in a road test. Davis said only about three publications still do that work. The instruments provide a consistent basis for comparison even as camera crews, reporting assignments, and vehicles change. Without measurements, a review can drift toward whichever car felt quickest, quietest, or most impressive to the loudest person in the room.
The instruments provide a consistent basis for comparison even as camera crews, reporting assignments, and vehicles change.
The same discipline applies as vehicles acquire new systems. Davis did not anticipate the current level of driver assistance systems when MotorWeek began, although anti-lock brakes and skid control were expected. Work intended for autonomous driving produced lane keep assist, rear traffic alert, and other systems that add a safety margin. Such features must be judged as equipment with specific behavior, neither praised simply for being new nor dismissed because they intervene. The cars changed, but the obligation to test what they do remained.
The 45-year formula: cars are the stars
Davis became MotorWeek's host because the production could not afford to hire someone else. He had broadcasting experience, but he did not design the program around himself. By his own judgment, his early delivery was dreadful and deadpan. That limitation clarified the editorial priority. The program would be about cars, not the people driving them.
The numbers show how consistently that decision held. Davis estimated that viewers see him for only about two and a half minutes of a 26:46 program. That is a small share for the creator, host, and executive producer of a series that has stayed on television for 45 years. Many programs would make that position the main attraction. MotorWeek uses the host to keep things moving, then returns the screen to the vehicle, test footage, measurements, and findings.
The road-test verdict is not organized around one personality, either. Staff members spend time with the vehicles and contribute observations, producing a group judgment rather than the opinion of one or two people. That matters when the program tests about 150 cars a year, plus or minus. One driver may tolerate a control layout that frustrates everyone else. Another may concentrate on acceleration and miss a problem that emerges in ordinary use. The group can challenge those preferences before they become part of the final script.
The road-test verdict is not organized around one personality, either.
Davis's garage shows what extended time with a vehicle can reveal. He chose a 2024 Fiat 500e after the lease cost dropped and because he wanted to use an electric car every day. Its range made it a plausible replacement for his 2002 Mini Cooper, although the Mini ultimately stayed. The Fiat became a daily driver shared with his wife. That produces knowledge a short drive cannot: charging, range, routine errands, and repeated use all inform the judgment.
Looking toward a possible 50th anniversary, Davis would not promise that he would remain the host. He did specify what must stay: young staff, instrumented testing, and a scientific or at least semi scientific approach that maintains a level playing field between vehicles. The face on camera can change. Crew members can assume broader jobs, and one operator can replace a three-person camera team. The program can test a 2024 Fiat 500e instead of a De Tomaso Pantera. But if the cars cease to be the stars, or the road test becomes one personality's unsupported reaction, the work has become something else.
