Drivers Republic - The DriveTribe of the 2010s
How a small group of journalists tried to revolutionise car media before it was ready.
There are two types of car reviews. The first is the stereotypical and drab review with a seasoned journalist in their mid-40s standing infront of a camera or sitting behind a laptop talking about a car's practicality and comfort. They will test boot space and connectivity whilst trying to weave witty remarks and relatable anecdotes into their presentation. Inevitably, they will struggle to be engaging because both the car and their reviewing style is irrefutably boring. These reviews have their place in the world; they are genuine consumer journalism that we peruse when we are looking to... well, consume.
Then there is the media that we elect to engross ourselves in; the crazy and flamboyant world of automotive journalism can produce writers and presenters who devote their craft to showing us the more ridiculous and, most of the time, unobtainable side of the car world. They focus on how a car feels, whether it makes their hairs stand on end - we'll see power slides and top speed tests before any of that 'practicality' nonsense. Who cares if your Porsche is useless for on-road driving? it goes sideways, what more do you need?
At the end of the 2000s, a select group of these more theatrical and engaging journalists decided to create a website devoted to giving the viewer the best quality content they could possibly present. It was called Drivers Republic and it was created by writers and creators with backgrounds at some of the biggest journalistic institutions in the world. They tried to implement a more interactive site and used new techniques and technology. Inevitably, it would fail for being ahead of its time; although, it does share a striking resemblance to the site your browsing on right now.
The characters
Richard Meaden
Richard MeadenRacing is life. Everything else is being chased for late copy.
I think it would be prudent to introduce the faces behind this automotive adventure. There were very big names putting their hat in the ring for this one with a majority of writers and creators coming from Evo Magazine. For example, Evo Co-founder, Richard Meaden saw his chance to create another publishing gem. He was one of the creators of the legendary magazine back in the 1990s alongside the likes of Harry Metcalfe and John Barker. Since then, he has continued to hone his skills with over 20 years of writing experience as an editor and columnist and has been involved in the racing scene with experience in events like the Pikes Peak Hill Climb and Nürburgring 24 Hours. He set the the world record for the fastest production sedan at Bonneville Speed Week with a whopping 227.08mph in a Skoda Octavia vRS.
The only non-car personality in the group was Steve Davies who used his management and corporate experience to act as the CEO for the company. He provided the initial investment to start the company.
Chris Harris
Next on our list is a talented penman and presenter by the name of Chris Harris. You probably know him from his Top Gear exploits and his popular YouTube series 'Chris Harris on Cars'. However, he wasn't always the seasoned reviewer we've all come to know, he started at Autocar and ascended to the rank of road-test editor with his thorough reviews and opinion articles. Harris would leave to co-found Drivers Republic and, despite producing lots of their content, he would not stay at the web platform due to its shutdown.
Chris would join Evo Magazine as a writer for the brief period before engaging in some successful exploits on YouTube with /DRIVE. After parting ways with them he'd go on to form his own series whilst still writing for Evo and Jalopnik. He was hired by Top Gear as a presenter in 2016 where he remains today. He too has an extensive racing career with GT and Endurance racing being at the forefront. Harris has competed in 24 hour races at Spa, Silverstone and Nürburgring in some impressive GT3 machinery such as the Bentley Continental GT3 and Glickenhaus P4/5 Competizione (though it didn't actually compete in the race due to a crash in practice). He has honed and shared his driving skill in both racing and reviewing.
His close friend and camera whizz, Neil Carey, was also part of the production team of Drivers Republic. He was the former designer at Evo and joined the team soon after its formation. He was a cameraman and editor and worked mostly on their video content. Since the end of the website, he has worked with Harris on multiple projects until present day and has founded GRIP Productions which works closely with big names in the automotive world such as Top Gear and Porsche.
Jethro Bovingdon
Finally, we have the man with the most memorable name in automotive journalist: Jethro Bovingdon. He began at Evo in 2001 as a road tester; from then on, he proved himself to be both a superb writer and wheelman. He joined Meaden and Harris as a writer and presenter for Drivers Republic during its term and from then on has darted about and utilized opportunities on both sides of the pond. This is because he currently hosts Top Gear America with MOTORTREND as well as writing a column for Evo. He was a factory BMW driver during the 2014 Nürburgring 24 Hours and holds one of the best lap times Blyton Park in a McLaren 12C Can Am.
The Idea
The team wanted to change the way that readers consumed their content. You have to remember that the internet was not the grand entity it is today and was only just starting to develop; print media was still dominant and magazines were at the forefront, social media was a lesser concept and there was much less focus on getting your car content online. This group of automotive aficionados wanted to do something different. They saw promise in a new style of media and, despite their shortcomings, would go on to predict the way the automotive scene would change and diversify.
The plan was to create a more interactive website as it was a method to further engage the audience. They included all of the tools at their disposal - there was emphasis put on social functionality; this meant that users could create personal profiles like on social media with the ability to join groups, make friends and even create their own posts. The producers wanted to involve the consumers - they saw car enthusiasts for what they were: a community, not just mindless customers.
An unfortunately low resolution picture of a DR group test.
The Content
When it came to producing their varied writings, they explored the deepest depths of the internet's functionality. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to find most of their work as it disappeared from the server following the shutdown of the site. Though, from what I can find, they utilised similar assets to that of the modern day automotive websites.
There were lengthy videos and devoted columns with specific themes. First drives, head-to-head comparisons, opinion pieces and the relevant news of the time. They engaged in unique exploits such as competing in the Pikes Peak Hill Climb with Meaden (as I mentioned earlier) and, because of the writer's extensive connections within the world of cars, could get access to the best vehicles on offer and the most ideal places in which to drive them. They would do several track tests with Silverstone being their circuit of choice due to a partnership that they formed in 2008.
The social media functionality would be a big piece of the puzzle and bring in fans, creating a reader base for the internet start-up and a community of likeminded individuals that they wanted to grow and expand. To this day, the majority of their surviving content can only be found on YouTube. Hence why I've linked a video below of the trio engaging in a road test between the BMW M3, Lexus IS-F and Mercedes AMG C63 of the time - the quality isn't brilliant and it isn't the greatest of videos you'll ever watch, but it'll give you an idea of what sort of content that the group wanted to produce. Enjoy.
The end
It was poignantly obvious that Drivers-Republic.com was doomed from the get-go. The first inkling of a steadily unfolding nightmare in their midst was when the Lehman Brothers Bank collapsed on the same week that they started the company, bringing forward the beginning of the financial crisis of 2008 - not the best time to start a business. From then on, as much as the group worked to produce the best content as possible, the inevitable downfall loomed closer.
The unfortunate thing is that the site was a genius idea, but it was just started at the absolute wrong time. Whether it be financially or technologically, the world wasn't ready for a digital-only medium for our car media; it was a creation that was much before its time and it was impossible for it to succeed against the likes of the bigger print media companies like Evo and Autocar.
As the Audi representative to whom the group pitched the idea said with extraordinary clairvoyance: 'it's a brilliant idea, but is it not another Audi A2?' - that is to say, it is a remarkable product that's ahead of its time. You have to remember that the A2 was an aluminium bodied sub-compact car designed for luxury and fuel-efficiency. It would fail to match the competition despite employing revolutionary technology, and Drivers Republic was exactly the same.
The magazine would shutdown on the 11th August 2009 and Steve Davies would explain with a blog post on the site saying: "There has been plenty of speculation on other sites and forums about the reasons why this has occurred, and despite the first impressions that it must have been for financial reasons, nothing could be further from the truth. Thanks to your participation and the generous support of the automotive industry we were in rude health and looking forward to a bumper year, but differences in our vision about future priorities have led to a parting of ways." We will probably never know the full reason behind why the plug was pulled on the website but we do know that it would provide the precedent for the next decade of automotive media. The website has disappeared but the domain name has since resurfaced in the form of a new site called SkiddMark.
Chris Harris' Hypercar test
The present
A small group of enthusiasts saw a gap in the market after the integration of Performance Car into Car Magazine in 1998 and we saw the birth of Evo Magazine. Richard Meaden and his cohorts saw opportunity and they took it back then and it payed off. I'm sure he saw the same opportunity in Drivers Republic but the outcome would be very different. No, the results weren't what he'd intended, though comparisons can be made between it and the media of present day.
In fact, the website you're currently sitting on reading this article shares many of its characteristics with that of Drivers Republic. Obviously, DriveTribe is much more advanced and has developed further, but the basic premise is the same. It's a website with a community of enthusiasts that produce their own content as well as consuming what it created by the brand. There's a YouTube channel and varied content with which you can draw direct comparisons to the subject website of this article.
It wasn't just the format of internet based car media that Drivers Republic started. The characters involved are in the position that they are now partially because of their actions in this 18 months timeline. After a brief stint with Evo, Harris started a his review channel on YouTube - 'Chris Harris on cars' which became extremely successful and further pursued this new form of online media. Eventually, he would create a very pivotal review between the Hypercars of 2015 (the McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder and Ferrari Laferrari). Alongside famed presenters and racers Tiff Needell and Marino Franchitti, they would produce an hour long special review which was the first battle between the trio of mind-bending vehicles. This would secure him a position as a recurring personality on Top Gear and he'd eventually become a full-time presenter. This shows how, even though Drivers Republic failed, Harris dipped his journalistic toe into uncharted waters and pursued a new form of content which would eventually gift him with a very successful career. He works alongside Neil Carey to this day.
As for the other members of the team: Jethro is the current host of Top Gear America and still contributes to Evo and other publications. He was one of the creators involved with DriveTribe when it was first created; when he brought it up with his Drivers Republic peers, Harris stated it was like a ‘déjà vu‘ moment from the days of their ill-fated website, though with a different result. Richard Meaden does a similar thing, still supporting the institution that he created back in 1998 as a columnist.
This article should have shown you the lesser known side of internet journalism. I must confess that it was difficult to make an article out of given that my sources were three Wikipedia paragraphs, a few archived articles, some poorly formatted videos and the Collecting Cars Podcast. However, I hope I've done it justice and shown how the path of automotive journalism is a unique and varied one. Thank you for reading and be sure to check out the links dotted about this article for further content pertaining to Drivers Republic.
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