Based on conversations I’ve had with a lot of car enthusiasts, I wasn’t born at the right time. My first car was not a 1967 Camaro Z/28 or some other deliciously inexpensive muscle car that I drove happily through my youth. No, I turned sixteen years old in December of 1994, a time when my hard-earned $3000 budget just barely got me into an Alpine White 1987 Volkswagen Jetta GL, which I loved dearly and festooned with as many Neuspeed add-ons as I could afford. My dream cars were neither American nor rear-wheel-drive. They were VW Corrados, GTIs, and Audi Quattro coupes. As a result, this month’s cover car, the Audi S5 coupe, brings back a great amount of personal nostalgia. Even though the Audi TT was (and is) a beautiful car, I never considered it to be a descendant of the 1980s and 1990s Audi coupes that I fell in love with. But the A5 and S5 range fit the mold perfectly. Finally, there’s a medium-size Audi 2+2 grand tourer that I can dream about again. And, just because we wanted to, we had our man Poblete mock up an “S1” version (the scary, winged mid-Eighties race cars that tore up Group B rallying and Pikes Peak) just for fun. Audi won’t build one, but that doesn’t mean we can’t dream.

You’ll notice we’ve added one very important name to our masthead: Leo Levine. The Connecticut-based author will serve as our Editor-at-Large, writing feature stories for our magazine and adding commentaries on our news blog. My first encounter with the man came through the pages of Ford: The Dust and the Glory, Volume 1, which David E. Davis, Jr., handed to me in the fall of 2000 as a required reading assignment. The book covers Ford’s involvement in motorsports, from Henry’s October 1901 win at the Detroit Driving Club to the company’s 24 Hours of Le Mans victory in 1967; Levine published a second volume a few years ago, which updated the series. I consider Volume 1 to be one of the best books about automotive history—motorsports or otherwise—that has ever been written, and I believe no automotive library is complete without it. You’ll probably recognize Levine’s work from the pages of Road & Track or the New York Herald Tribune. I’m proud to be able to provide a space for him, and I know that you will enjoy reading his work in the months and years to come. He’ll add another unique American voice to our cadre of creatives.

Thanks for your time,
Reilly Brennan