Jim Dunne

Jim Dunne (December 13, 1931 – August 19, 2019), was an American test-track engineer, journalist, editor, author and regular contributor to automotive publications, including Popular Science, Road & Track, Automotive News, Autoweek, The Drive, Motor Trend, Ward's Automotive, and Leftlane News. In addition to serving as Detroit editor of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines, Dunne is widely known as one of the industry's preeminent automotive spy photographers.

Using telephoto lenses and carefully selected vantage sites, Dunne would secretly capture photographs of often remote and heavily disguised prototypes, test vehicles and early production cars years ahead of introduction, and selling the photographs to magazines and online sites. He recounted his career in his 2011 autobiography Car Spy. a profession he was ultimately credited with creating. Dunne retired, as the profession evaporated, gradually overtaken by the proliferation of smartphone cameras, shifting automotive spy work from professionals to amateur photographers everywhere. Jim Dunne grew up in Detroit with nine siblings and lived his entire life in Detroit.

After graduating from Catholic Central High School in Detroit, receiving a bachelor's degree in Industrial Management. He subsequently served for three years in the United States Army during the Korean War.

As a journalist, he upheld basic professional standards and was known for his insistent, direct questioning in the face of evasive, less than straightforward responses from industry executives. or his “Predictions Lunches.”

Leftlane News interviewed Dunne in a 2011 YouTube video, where he related he was intimately familiar with GM's Milford Proving Ground, which were close to where he lived. Dunne said "I've told drivers in the past when you drive down the north-south straightaway, please smile because your picture will probably be taken." Ultimately, GM would nickname a particularly vulnerable photography vantage after Dunne.

Renault had once invited journalists to their company proving grounds outside Paris, where the journalists discovered a scale model of the facility, noting a lone plastic figure perched carefully in a well-located tree. The Renault executives noted “That’s Jim Dunne.”

Security offices around Detroit's manufacturing and testing sites carried "WANTED" posters of Dunne. He was ultimately sued numerous times, including for his expose of dubious devices marketed to offer dramatic fuel savings, and on one occasion he was investigated for stealing proprietary photographs.