It was 1982 when Warren Brown signed on as the automotive writer at The Washington Post, the same year WANADA committed to restoring the Auto Show in Washington for vehicle model year 1983, following a 13-year hiatus with no show in Washington. The new Washington Convention Center, which would house the Auto Show, opened on time in January 1983 with the Auto Show being its very first event.
Warren Brown covered the Auto Show for the Post then and every year thereafter through this year. But, alas, when Warren recently reviewed one of the new vehicles to be exhibited at the 2018 Washington Auto Show, he announced it would be his last column as the auto writer at the Post.
The dash Warren had between his career years, 1982 – 2018, when he was the auto writer at the Post, could fill a book, which he may write one day. Suffice it to say that Warren Brown’s coverage of the auto business in Washington, no less than the global auto industry at large, was always fair, balanced, authoritative and factual – and, yes, enjoyable and witty, too. And how could it not be with his master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University that he had from the get-go, and his omnipresent New Orleans’ charm?
Perhaps more than anything, Warren Brown thoroughly enjoys cars, and that came through consistently in all his reporting on things automotive. “Warren is passionate about automobiles of all kinds and varieties and clearly relished the opportunities he had to experience new vehicles, first-hand, in the many test drives he did and reported over the course of his career,” said Gerry Murphy, whose 30-plus year career as WANADA’s CEO began when Brown started at the Post. He was also able to take complicated auto technology subject matter and make it understandable to his wide following of readers, Murphy said, which made him “a foremost contributor to the cultural reality of America’s love affair with the car.”
WANADA, which honored him at the 30-year mark in his distinguished career at its Annual Meeting in 2012, wishes Warren Brown the very best in his future endeavors, which hopefully will include more of his incomparable car articles and talk radio On Wheels broadcasts.
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