Guild Member Profile: Simon Harris

Name and job title: Simon Harris, head of valuations, Vehicle Data Global, chair of Guild of Motoring Writers.

How did you get started in automotive journalism? I got my first job in journalism in 1996, at a local weekly newspaper in Stamford. The newspaper had a monthly Motoring Extra section with editorial to help support local car dealer advertising. 

After a while, I asked the editor if I could take on this section with more objective reporting and car reviews rather than printing news releases, and he agreed, so long as I wrote copy in my own time. I also had to use my holiday allocation to attend car launches.

What’s been your most memorable car review or feature piece? I was technically the first journalist to drive a Peugeot 407 after being invited, along with Richard Bremner writing for Autocar, on an event several weeks before the media launch. I was writing for Fleet News, and Peugeot had two cars they could make available for supervised drives from the company’s Mulhouse factory. As I got into the car at the front, I pulled away a couple of seconds before Richard, so that counts as ‘first’ in my book! The internet wasn’t such a big deal in those days and there was no social media, so it was good to get driving impressions published the same week as Autocar.

Which motoring story or investigation are you most proud of? I don’t think I’ve ever written anything that changed the world. Not in automotive at least! One thing you get to look out for is how interviewees phrase things, so that the story is often in what they don’t say. For example, when freelancing, I managed to get a story about a model built at a UK factory being discontinued published twice because the product manager was vague about its expected replacement. There was no formal announcement about it for almost a year afterwards.

How has motoring journalism changed since you started? I started writing solely about automotive in 2000. Although I’d been a journalist for several years, my Fleet News job was the first one where I had my own email address! There was very little focus on anything digital back then, although Fleet News was one of the first automotive publications to have a website in 1997. But all the extra technology and exposure through increased channels means we work much harder now than we ever did. Can you imagine being an automotive writer before the internet, with only weekly, or maybe even monthly print deadlines? Launches would have been a much more relaxed affair.

What was the first car or motorcycle you ever owned? I was quite late to car ownership, not having taken my driving test until I was almost finished at university, and then spending four years on an appallingly low reporter’s salary on a local newspaper. Then with frequent test cars, it was a while before I got around to buying my own car. When I did, it was a 1973 Jensen SP auto, which I had for five years. The best fuel consumption I ever managed from the 7.2-litre V8 engine was 13.6mpg.

Do you have a dream car or other vehicle you’d love to own or drive? I’ve owned a few nice cars, but nothing with 12 cylinders yet. I quite like the tale behind the Jaguar XJ40, engineered specifically not to accommodate a V-engine for fear of cost cutting landing it with Rover’s V8. But the brand was spun off before the XJ40 was launched, and at the time the 12-cylinder engine was still important for North American customers – to the extent that the XJ Series 3 had to continue alongside the XJ40 to keep a V12 saloon in the Jaguar range. In the early 1990s, with barely two years of its life left to run, the XJ40 finally became available with Jaguar’s 6.0-litre V12, either as an XJ12 or a Daimler Double Six. Either of those would be fine for me.

What’s the best road trip you’ve ever been on? Road trips aren’t what they used to be, with heavier traffic now, many areas with lower speed limits than they used to have, and annoying delays for roadworks. But I’ve had a few enjoyable long drives. In 2008, Mercedes-Benz held the global launch of the updated SL in California, and the driving route took us from Santa Monica to Palm Springs. But I enjoy driving when I’m not working, and I’ve done Canadian road trips many times.

Which motoring event do you always look forward to? It has to be the Guild Big Day Out, which has been at Castle Combe for the last few years. If you don’t know why, maybe you haven’t attended, in which case you should.

What’s the biggest challenge facing automotive writers today? One is working harder than ever for relatively less money, being squeezed by publishers and commissioning editors. Another is as brands increasingly turn to influencer marketing as a promotional tool rather than independent reviews, bona fide journalists are finding access reduced. 

I could go on all day about this, but one more is keeping up to date with rapidly advancing technology in the automotive while being able to cut through the hype and understand its true worth. We’re still waiting for the fully autonomous vehicles we were promised by 2020, as well as hydrogen fuel cells superseding other power formats – which many were talking about 25 years ago.

Where do you see the future of automotive journalism heading? Everyone knows the world is changing much faster than it ever has, and this includes automotive. Technology, legislation, climate and culture are all connected with automotive writing. Although we are competing with influencers and AI-generated copy, readers still appreciate honesty, clarity and the stories that matter to them. We need to hold our ground on independence, but stay curious about the landscape we work in. Although the tools have changed, our mission is the same.

How do you think vehicle manufacturers could improve their media engagement? One thing I have noticed at big events, such as SMMT Test Day at Millbrook, since becoming Guild chair, is that some PRs will do their best to hide from a face-to-face meeting if they haven’t responded to a recent email or a call, or they think you’re going to ask them to sponsor something. I’ve seen them turn and walk the other way or hide at the back of the hospitality unit. But usually I just want to say hello. 

We really do understand that PR budgets aren’t what they were, and we accept that. And we appreciate the job is busier than it ever was with smaller teams. But the complaint I get most often from Guild members and others is not responding to emails or voicemails. We really need to work together to make this better somehow.

What’s the strangest or funniest thing that’s ever happened on a car launch? I’ve heard a few tales of outrageous things happening, but personally, on my first launch abroad, I got stranded on a beach in Sicily as my co-driver, who needed to do photography, had identified the perfect framing for this metallic blue Fiat Punto HGT against the golden sand, sapphire sea and azure sky. 

As he went to move the car to position it better in the frame, it sunk in the bone dry sand up to its brake discs. We tried for what seemed like an eternity, but was more like half an hour, to push and pull the car out of its position. Throughout this, a police car with three officers sitting inside, waited in the beach car park where the occupants observed our efforts. Eventually they got out and offered to help, and after a few more minutes of struggling and heaving we were on our way again. We arrived at lunch 40 minutes late with a very dusty looking car.

If you could swap jobs with someone in the industry for a day, who would it be? Given that I’m exposed to the world of residual values in my day job, I would love to find out who thought it was such a great idea to ramp up EV registrations in the UK with targets for manufacturers with no thought to who would be the customers of these vehicles on the used market. I would job swap and come up with a package of initiatives to make it easier for used car buyers to transition to EVs where they could.

What’s your go-to driving music or podcast? I tend to listen to music playlists when I’m on the road, or BBC Radio 2.