Crossing the line from criticism to vandalism

At this year’s Los Angeles auto show — the media days called Automobility LA — Jeep showed off the first time to the public, its upcoming all-electric Recon SUV. If you want to know my thoughts on it, I was recently on the Wheel Bearings podcast talking about it and other topics with industry legends Sam Abuelsamid and Craig Cole.

During the first day the show was open to the public, the individuals who run The Middle Lane YouTube channel filmed themselves tearing apart interior pieces of the Recon that was on display, touting the poor build quality.

I’d like to link to their video, but according to a statement given to Motor1, the video was taken down.

Make no mistake: this was vandalism. It was vandalism for the sake of clicks. I’m going to break down why I have this take, and how they could’ve handled this that would’ve delivered the point they were trying to make without intentionally destroying a display.

New vehicles go through a development process, where prototypes are built for testing purposes. Eventually, they’re good enough to move from prototype to pre-production. Preproduction builds can vary in quality and are often representative of the final product, but there could still be fit and finish issues.

Each automaker typically has several tiers of pre-production vehicles, and journalists aren’t often allowed to drive one of those vehicles until they are in the absolute final stage of pre-production.

We often do drive pre-production vehicles because they’re typically available when an automaker wants to do a press drive. Automakers want to have press drives close to the on-sale date of the car, so people can read the review and then go to the dealership to check it out themselves. Those first batch of production cars are typically shipping at the time, and aren’t available to journalists. Or, the automaker wants those final production variants to be devoted exclusively to filling orders.

That does mean we often drive cars that aren’t technically finished. We’re often asked to give the OEM some latitude in these situations if we come across an issue. How much latitude we give depends on the individual, but if I see something I don’t like, I make sure to ask about it while I’m on the ground. You also learn to get a feel for what actually is a production problem, and what is a preproduction problem. That just comes with having context and experience as an automotive journalist reviewing new cars.

Sometimes automakers can use preproduction as a cope. What I mean is, the OEM might try to pass off a problem as a pre-production issue when it’s really a problem with cars in customer driveways. A well-honed bullshit detector usually sets off enough alarms for the experienced reviewer to know better, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen.

What I can tell you, dear reader, is that every car at an auto show that isn’t on sale at a dealership is a preproduction vehicle. It might even still be in the prototype stage. It might not even have an engine.

That is to say, the Jeep Recon on display at the LA Auto Show is most certainly a preproduction vehicle of some kind.

In the statement to Motor1, The Middle Lane said, “In regards to their statement about the vehicle being pre-production, if this is true we’d love to see the final version of the car and hope that the build quality is indeed improved, but the vehicle on display at the auto show did not have any visible signs indicating that it was preproduction, and it was not locked or roped off as is usually the case with other such vehicles like the Rivian R2 and Honda Prelude, which were also at the Auto Show.”

First off, these folks are never going to see a production Recon unless they go to their local dealership. Stellantis will undoubtedly see to that, as that is something that I would make sure of if I were them.

Secondly, it was surprising that the Recon wasn’t locked. I’ve heard conflicting reports about whether the Recon was roped off on public days, but since all of the press photographs of the Recon tout the fact that you can easily remove the doors, it’s no surprise that the car on display would have its doors off. It’s hard to lock doors if they aren’t there. So while I do understand their point about being able to have access to the vehicle, it still doesn’t excuse the behavior.

The fact that they did this during the public days, instead of during the media day, is why this is a bigger problem than you might think.

Ripping apart a car during the public day doesn’t benefit anyone. It’s the same as going to a public day and removing the shift knob from a manual transmission car. It’s theft. It’s vandalism. It’s not journalism.

Also, if you apply enough force to anything, you’ll get it to come apart.

But what they should have done was apply for and receive media credentials to attend AutomobilityLA. They would have qualified, as their YouTube channel has over 40,000 subscribers, and overall media attendance has been falling in recent years. The dealership group that runs the auto show would love to have more people covering the event.

If they had attended the media day, they could have looked at the build quality and asked a representative directly about it. They could’ve asked questions on camera to see what the representatives of the company actually have to say about. They could’ve done real automotive journalism.

Sure, a Jeep rep would’ve likely said it was a preproduction vehicle or a prototype, but they could’ve pushed back.

The problem isn’t questioning build quality — even of a preproduction vehicle — it’s that they were destructive to the vehicle for the purpose of generating a few more Instagram reel views and YouTube clicks.

What’s worse is that by doing it on public days, Stellantis and Jeep might make the decision to reattach the doors and lock the vehicle for future auto shows. That means the general public who are going to check it out — possibly because they might actually consider buying one — can’t check it out without the pressure of a dealership employee hanging over them because some kids thought it’d be funny to be jerks on the internet.

When you’re faced with a challenging decision in life, it’s also important to remember Wheaton’s Law. Don’t be a dick.