Jeff Daniels 1939-2008

Jeff Daniels, who passed away suddenly last month aged 68, was one of the true characters of motoring journalism and will be greatly missed by everyone at evo and by the legions of readers who enjoyed his work. When we launched this magazine back in 1998, we had no hesitation in asking Jeff to be technical editor from the very first issue. His knowledge and understanding of car technology was immense and, just as importantly, he had a gift for communicating it in a uniquely readable fashion. But he was also just a great bloke to work with. Unfailingly cheerful, generous and supportive, ‘big Jeff Dan’ was like a friendly uncle to us all. It’s hard to believe he won’t still be around at car launches and motor shows, or on the end of a telephone line whenever we need some technical insight – or just a really good chat with an old friend. After graduating with a degree in engineering, Jeff’s early career was in the aircraft industry. He clocked up so many air-miles that in later life he joked that he would have to cut down on flying to car launches, having calculated that his odds of being involved in an air-crash had become uncomfortably short. He also had a spell in PR in the 1970s, working for Datsun and Citroen.

But it is as a technical writer that he will chiefly be remembered. Starting in the 1960s, he worked for Which?, writing fantastically detailed and analytical road tests, before moving on to Car and later Autocar magazines as technical editor: in the 1980s his ‘Danspeak’ column was a popular and long-running feature in Autocar. And in the late 1980s he joined Performance Car, which was where many of us got to know him well. No-one who was there will ever forget the very first Performance Car of the Year, in 1990, when Jeff turned up in a Land Rover Discovery V8 which towered over the coupes and sports cars the rest of us had nominated. Jeff had figured that combining a powerful engine with a big, tall 4x4 created a really usable, versatile performance car. None of us could possibly have envisaged a roadscape dominated by X5s, Cayennes and Range-Rover Sports, but Jeff could.

It was this same level of insight that led him, in the very first issue of evo, to predict the rise of the diesel performance car and, ultimately, a diesel supercar. Again, none of us could really see it, but this year Audi launches the R8 V12 turbodiesel, and as so many times before and since, Jeff was bang on the money.

As well as writing prodigiously for magazines and newspapers, he wrote numerous books on car technology and the industry, many of them award-winning and all of them displaying his rare gift for making complicated technology understandable and relevant to the non-technically minded. He had a huge enthusiasm for engineering, and this combined with his unfailingly generous character earned him the respect and affection not only of readers but also of leading figures right across the car industry.

He was also great fun to be around, and never more than at the dinner table, where his appetite was the stuff of legend and earned him the nickname ‘Two Dinners’ Daniels. evo’s John Barker can also recall a Performance Car tyre test in the early ’90s when the team came down for cooked breakfast at the agreed 7.30, only to discover that Jeff had been in the dining room since 6.30 and was already lining up his second. He was, in every sense, a larger than life character, but also a true gentleman, one of the ‘old school’.

Our sincere condolences go to his close friends and family, especially his two daughters, whose photos Jeff always carried in his wallet and would often proudly show to colleagues and acquaintances. They should be proud of their dad, too, for his passing will leave a very big gap in many people’s lives.

Jeff’s funeral was on March 20 at Mortlake Crematorium. The family requested that instead of flowers, donations be made either to The Guild of Motoring Writers’ Benevolent Fund or Women on the Move Against Cancer. Send cheques to Co-Operative Funeral Care, 2 Lambton Road, Raynes Park, London SW20 0LR, payable to either ‘The Guild of Motoring Writers Benevolent Fund’ or ‘The WOMAC Fund’, and indicate that your donation is in memory of Jeff.