David E. Davis

Background Davis was born in Burnside, Kentucky, on November 7, 1930 – in a house without running water, on a hill called Tyree's Knob. He would develop his "simple, declarative [writing] style" working on aviation technical manuals.

Davis overturned while racing his sports car (an MG TF 1500) at age 25 in Sacramento – badly damaging his face. He lost his left eyelid, the bridge of his nose, the roof of his mouth and most of his teeth. Davis required extensive plastic surgery – and was later able to hide his disfigurement under his full beard.

Davis lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with his second wife Jeannie Luce Kuhn Davis. were Peg, David E. Davis III, and Matthew, who has held a number of roles in the automotive business, including senior PR jobs at Nissan and Infiniti and working as a European contributor for numerous publications, including Autoblog. He had three stepchildren – Eleonore Kuhn Snow, Vincent and Anthony Kuhn.

He died unexpectedly at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ypsilanti, Michigan on March 27, 2011, shortly following bladder cancer surgery.

At Chevrolet's advertising agency, – a campaign that Car and Driver and other publications ranked as the best automobile commercial of all time.

He returned to Car and Driver in 1976 to serve as the magazine's editor and publisher – and moved its headquarters from New York to Ann Arbor He resigned as Editor/Publisher in 1985 when Car and Driver was sold to CBS.

In 1986, he founded Automobile with financial backing from Rupert Murdoch – using the credo No Boring Cars. Davis introduced full-color photography and thick stock, increasing the magazine's literary standards to distinguish it from the other three U.S. automotive magazines, Car and Driver, Motor Trend and Road & Track.

Davis later left Primedia and in semi-retirement started the online automotive magazine Winding Road. The company subsequently pulled much of its advertising.

Davis was periodically estranged from the editor of Automobile, Jean Jennings, who said "to know [Davis] is to acknowledge his short fuse and his penchant for unpredictable, snorting charges at friendly targets."