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John's opening introduction from the first MotorWeek program:
Welcome to MotorWeek. I'm glad you're with us. This is a television series for people who love cars, and for those of you who'd just like to find out a bit more about them. Each week we'll have our own road test of new models, our chief mechanic Pat Goss will tell us how to keep our cars in good repair, and Joyce Braga will give us a close look at other new products on the automotive scene. So let's get things moving now with our first MotorWeek Road Test.
 Well, not exactly the first. The first test we did never actually aired. That was a head-to-head comparison of the front-wheel drive Chevy Citation and the old-guard rear-drive Ford Fairmont done for our pilot episode in 1980. For our first broadcast, our studio cameras focused on the trendsetting new world car from Ford, the Escort.
The original concept for the set was to bring the audience into some aspect of the automotive industry. So we made it look like a
styling studio. We had mockups of cars, we had stuff on the wall, we had drafting tools, so when they were there, they knew they were in an automotive environment, but a different one than they
had ever seen before on TV.
We had less than 12 weeks to get that first show on the air, so the first challenge was finding the right people, and fast! I knew everybody on the show was going to have to be a car enthusiast but do some TV technical work. So, I looked out in the parking lot.
I looked at what people drove.
Based on that, Craig Singhaus was an easy choice. He was, and still is, a certified car nut, and was driving a Shelby Mustang at the time. Joyce Braga, our first news reporter, also worked in the building. She had very little on-air experience, but she drove a Porsche 924, so I knew she had potential!
And I had been talking about the concept for a long time, and so there was a pool of us that had been chatting about it, and a lot of those folks just came on board right away because it was a chance to do something that nobody had ever done before. Those early shows were really a learning experience. We were all car enthusiasts,
but had never actually tested a car before.
 While we didn't have a lot of money, we did have certain equipment; we had stopwatches, we had a great place to test cars at an old airport. So we knew the basics of how to lay out a slalom, how to do timed events, how to basically measure braking, we'd read other people who had done it for magazines, we'd watched engineers do it. So it was really just a matter of doing the test in a legitimate fashion, but also making it look good for television.
Because the early shows had no regular feature segments, we had the luxury of time in the road tests to show details like the location of the spare tire, where to check the fluids, and also time to have a little fun. Whether it was a staffer popping out of a car trunk or some visual gag, we always tried to entertain the audience, and ourselves, while showing each car's virtues and vices.
Despite our early enthusiasm, though, the pace of the show soon became too slow, especially for younger viewers. In an eight minute road test, we would use less than 25 edits. Now, for a five minute test, we use three times as many shots. Then, in the seventh season, we moved out of the studio, streamlined our production, and added the FYI and High Road features to every show.
 We've been proud to witness several automotive milestones along the way. The first Chrysler minivan in 1984 forever changed family transportation. AMC/Jeep's 1984 4-door Cherokee and woody Wagoneer were the first mid-size vehicles to blur the line between cars and trucks, but it was the huge popularity of Ford's Explorer in the early '90s that fueled the SUV phenomenon. Chevrolet's Corvette ZR-1 fulfilled our desire for an American performance icon. The Acura Legend and Toyota T-100 proved that no market segment was safe for complacent designs. And recently, the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius have shown us that green motoring is possible without compromise. As the cars have become more sophisticated, so too has MotorWeek evolved to keep pace, but the same concept from 25 years ago still works today. For us, the cars are still the stars!
Over the past 25 years, we have had an insider's perspective as we patiently waited for that Car of the Future to arrive. We've highlighted all of the small but important breakthroughs and witnessed some fantastic failures. Now it's time to look at the lessons learned, and at the same time, peer into that crystal ball at our driving future.
 We've certainly seen glimpses of the Car of the Future in our tests over the years, and we've applauded each effort regardless of the outcome. The Bricklin Safety Car answered a question nobody was asking. And the DeLorean made more sense as a Back to the Future movie car than it ever did in reality. The Electro-Vette may have gotten a better reception had it been a Corvette instead of a Chevette. And imagine filling up this turbine-powered car at your local coal station.
Looking at the car scene in 1981, it would have been easy to predict that the car of the future would be small, front-wheel drive, maybe a hatchback, and more likely than not, powered by cheap diesel fuel. Unfortunately for car enthusiasts, performance took a back seat to economy in the early 1980s.
The 1983 Trans Am covered our 1/4 mile test in 17.1 seconds. That's one second slower than a 2005 Kia Spectra. Still recovering from the gas crisis of the '70s, and uncertain about our energy future, American drivers were also willing to let patriotism take a back seat in their search for efficient transportation. Import brands like Toyota, Nissan, and Honda couldn't build 'em fast enough to meet demand. But Detroit isn't completely going to hell in a Honda, not yet anyway. Some cars are doing just fine, thank you very much. American brands fought back. The humble Chevrolet Chevette was the best-selling small car in the land in the fall of '82, and the Ford Escort was also selling like hot cakes.
And let's not forget about safety innovations. While none of us mourn the death of automatic seatbelts, technologies like ABS brakes, accident avoidance, and SMART airbags will make all cars safer to drive now and forever.
And now with gas prices again spiraling upward, and our energy security by no means assured, we are once again looking at efficient technology and alternative fuels to provide guilt-free motoring without giving up the excitement of driving. That elusive Car of the Future may, in fact, look very similar to what we're driving now - modern crossover designs strike a good balance between utility, agility and livability, while providing a suitable platform for packaging a variety of drivetrains.
We do think diesel power will make a strong comeback in the 21st century, thanks to clean fuels and low-emissions technologies. For the near-term, gas or diesel hybrids seem the most practical means of providing efficient motoring. 200-mile-per-gallon carburetors are no closer to reality now than they were in 1982, but down the road, we expect breakthroughs in battery and fuel cell technology to provide a more permanent energy solution.
And just as innovation has rescued the auto industry before, it will even save the internal combustion engine, with computer controls, variable timing, cylinder deactivation, and low friction coatings, proving you can indeed teach an old dog new tricks. The future won't happen overnight, but it sure will be interesting, and we can't wait to see it!
Twenty-five years ago people thought we were crazy to want to do a weekly television series about cars. But no other machine has stimulated man's imagination and passion as completely as the automobile. It's a love affair of body and mind that shows no signs of fading. It's been quite a ride. And on behalf of everyone here at MotorWeek, thank you for sharing it with us, and we hope you'll stick around for the next 25 years!
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