Veteran Auto Writer Jerry Flint Dead at Age 79

Veteran Auto Writer Jerry Flint Dead at Age 79

By Michelle Krebs August 9, 2010

Jerry Flint, a journalist who covered Detroit and its auto industry for 52 years for Forbes, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and trade journal Ward's, died Aug. 7 of a stroke at the age of 79.

Flint bluntly called it like he saw it. The way he saw it usually was right but often wasn't what automakers wanted to hear. Still, they generally couldn't argue with him because he could reel numbers off the top of his head to prove his point in a way they could not.

Flint was born and educated in Detroit - "Detroit proper, not any suburb. Tough town," he noted in a recent piece he wrote on himself to introduce his blog on Forbes.com posted in memoriam on Monday.

In that column, he called himself "The 2,000-Year-Old Auto Writer," who learned the business from the "giants," including Robert McNamara, George Romney, Lee Iacocca, Ed Cole, Bob Lutz, Walter Reuther and Ralph Nader. "I know the car business, not from quoting officials, but because of half a century of seeing what works and what doesn't.

"I know the car business, not from quoting officials, but because of half a century of seeing what works and what doesn't," he wrote.

Flint started his autowriting career at the Wall Street Journal in 1956. After a dozen years, he became the Detroit bureau chief for the New York Times for another dozen and then moved to Forbes, where he eventually became an automotive columnist in 1996.

Flint enlisted in the military in the 1950s, and in 1986 was among the finalists in NASA's First Journalist in Space competition, which was cancelled after the Challenger tragedy.

Easily recognizable at events like auto shows wearing ascots and, in winter, a cape, he was known for his curmudgeonly style. Forbes.com has posted his final column as an example; it is entitled "Too Much Ain't Enough," about the high-performance, high-priced cars that continue to be introduced.

A resident of Manhattan and Stuyvesant, New York, Flint is survived by his wife Kate McLeod, also an auto writer who has contributed to Edmunds.com and Edmunds' AutoObserver.com. Appropriately the two married on an automotive press trip.

Flint also is survived by four children from a previous marriage: David of New York; Perry of Kensington, Md.; Douglas of Alexandria, Va.; and Joseph, a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times who today posted a tribute to his father; a granddaughter, Laura; grandsons Ethan, Jonah, Joshua and Philip; a sister, Faye; and a niece in Michigan

 

Michelle Krebs:  is Editor-in-Chief of AutoObserver.com. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.