Brock Yates | |
|---|---|
| Born | Brock Wendel Yates October 21, 1933 Lockport, New York, U.S. |
| Died | October 5, 2016 (aged 82) Batavia, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Journalist, author |
| Alma mater | Hobart College |
| Genre | Journalism, screenwriting |
| Spouse | Pamela Yates |
| Children | 3 |
Brock Yates (October 21, 1933 – October 5, 2016) was a prominent American journalist, TV commentator, TV reporter, screenwriter, and author. He was the longtime executive editor at Car and Driver magazine—and contributed to The Washington Post, Playboy, The American Spectator, Boating, Vintage Motorsports, as well as other publications.[1]
With a journalism career spanning six decades, his work was highlighted by often irreverent and incisive industry critiques—including a 1968 analysis in Car and Driver titled The Gross Pointe Myopians, on which he expanded for his 1983 book, The Decline and Fall of the American Automotive Industry.
Yates was widely known for co-conceiving and then executing the first non-stop, cross-country Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, widely known as The Cannonball Run, in 1971—which subsequently gave rise to his screenwriting career. He co-wrote the 1980 film, Smokey and the Bandit II. For his reporting and racing participation, he was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, in 2017.[2]
Writing for Motor Trend, noted automotive writer Steven Cole Smith, said Yates was a "prolific, iconic, profane, brilliant, pioneering writer" and "called him the first superstar automotive writer."[3]