Mike has now been writing about cars for longer than he hasn’t, having started at Car Magazine in 1998 where he rose to eventually become road test editor. He first wrote for Autocar in 2004 – one of his first assignments was an interview with then F1 world champion Michael Schumacher – and joined the staff in 2007. He worked as features editor and then editor of what was then the shiny new autocar.co.uk website. He also led our early video strategy. So yes, you can blame ‘Will it Drift?’ on him.
He defected to work for Evo for three years – we try not to mention that – before rejoining the Autocar roster as contributing editor in 2015. He combines that role with a range of titles in the US and Australia.
A lover of adventure, highlights of Mike’s Autocar career include leading our attempt to take a third-gen Ford Mondeo to every EU country when it was launched in 2007 – we missed by two – and a storm-wracked winter drive around Scotland’s North Coast 500 in a bright yellow Boxster in 2020. He’s also a hypercar magnet, having driven such exotics as the Koenigsegg One:1, Lamborghini SCV12, Lotus Evija and Pagani Huayra R for us in recent years. Despite that he insists there’s no truth in the rumour he won’t get out of bed for less than 500hp; his daily driver is a plug-in hybrid Skoda.
Before writing about cars Mike started out working in radio, having earned an NCTBJ from the Falmouth College of Art in 1997. His stand-out memories from that time were interviews with two of his heroes: Murray Walker and Damon Hill.
