Write, Buy, Link: TTAC Needs You!

Someday you’ll boast “I read TTAC before reading TTAC was cool.” Back when the website looked like a parked URL site. When reviewers had to pretend to be new car buyers. When the TTAC’s “take no prisoners” editorial stance was diss-missed as AWAKitude (Anyone With A Keyboard). Back before the site threw auto show Bacchanalia for its loyal readers paid for by firewalled advertising, branded merchandise and TTAC Buyer’s Club car sales. Rewind to now and you’ve got some work to do. Yes, you.

First, get off your literary ass. Your comments have demonstrated your ability to kill, crush and destroy misguided, misinformed and mentally misaligned malcontents. As Rafiki would say, it is time– to move your passionate intellectual insights from our award winning comments section (if there was such a thing) onto TTAC’s editorial pages.

TTAC now publishes some ten 800-word articles per week: seven rants and three reviews. Our site stats indicate that you read most everything we publish. Don’t you know it’s karmically dangerous to snipe at our work without once putting YOUR fully-fledged ideas about the automotive industry in the cybernetic cross-hairs? Email Managing Editor frank.williams@thetruthaboutcars.com for TTAC's Writers' Guidelines.

Write a rant. Start by turning your “WTF were YOU thinking?” comment into a fully-fledged rip-post. Or write about something that’s been pissing you off since Wheels were Hot. Contrary to popular belief, there is no TTAC “party line.” Want to start a GM Recovery Journal? Game on. Think Greens are a bunch of hypocritical proto-fascists? Tell the world. Consider global warming a more dangerous threat than the Mustang GT500? Just check the topic with Frank (for duplication and libel), and then let loose the canines of conflict.

I know: you’re not a professional writer. No sweat; your passion is enough. All but a handful of our scribes are gainfully employed doing other things. Ask the guys and gals who pour their heart and soul into their work for this site: I’m a kick ass editor. If you can write something halfway decent, I’ll Hunter S. Hemingway your text until it goes from zero to apoplexy in one paragraph. And you have the right of final approval.

Next, buy some TTAC swag. Remember those stupid rock and roll T-shirts you bought, feeding the band’s cocaine habit just to prove how hip you were to total strangers? Well it’s time feed our writers’ beer budget just to prove how hip you are to total strangers. The TTAC logo may look a bit like a prison tat, but the motto kicks ass. Show me another license plate frame that flaunts your knowledge of a dead language (hint: “the truth conquers all”), refers people to a way cool website and doesn’t advertise some skanky car dealer.

TTAC T’s are excellent quality and so not gaudy. The TTAC mug tells the world you’re no mug. The mouse pad asks the rats what they’re made of. Yes it’s expensive stuff. But TTAC can’t lose on the deal (no inventory costs), we make a few bucks per purchase and you’re not that pimply-faced teenager who depended on his/her parent’s largesse to make a bold counter-cultural statement. And if you can think of another deeply desirable item we should be selling, share it with the group below. (Check back on our selection from time to time.)

Speaking of sharing with the group, you’re an automotive alpha. Friends, family, co-workers and bored strangers on flanking bar stools depend on you for car buying advice. Eventually, we’ll have all the info they need to buy a car. Eventually, you can hook them up with an independent car broker through the TTAC Buyer’s Club. Meanwhile, email a link.

In fact, anytime you read something on TTAC that makes you eject coffee out your nose, email the TTAC link. By the same token, anytime you read a review or rant that makes you wonder what ignorant mind could assemble such fetid tripe, email the TTAC link. And anytime you leave your cubicle to go to the can, come back and email a TTAC link.

In the last five years, TTAC’s explored strange new viewpoints. We’ve sought out controversial ideas and sacrificed sacred cows. We’ve boldly gone where Edmunds, Car and Driver and The Detroit News have never gone before. Now it’s your turn. Write for us. Buy from us. And tell the world that TTAC is here. Tell them we’re hungry for the truth.

The bard said small curs may not be regarded when they grin; but great men tremble when the lion roars. I say I'd rather face a single lion than a really determined pack of curs. Anyway, you do your part to increase our ferocity and we’ll do ours. Fair enough?