Our purpose in developing this automotive Web site is to not only provide up-to-date and informative vehicle reviews, but to offer other features that are not available at many of the hundreds — perhaps thousands — of sites on the worldwide web.

We seek to entertain our visitors as well as inform them. Our primary goal is to offer automotive reviews based on road testing and real-life testing an average of 100 new cars and trucks a year. But more than that, we will provide interesting tidbits from the industry, our opinions — some from the right coast and some from the left coast — and such craziness as abandoned car pictures.

Our promise — to keep the site continually updated so that when you return week after week, you will find something new and interesting.

We are:

TED BIEDERMAN

Ted has had a life long love affair with cars and trucks. An everyman’s enthusiast Ted found his first automotive job as a 14-year old lot boy for a local used car dealer. Of course he lied and told the dealer he was 16, so he not only got to wipe the cars down, he also got to drive them.

After college (Valley State College in Northridge, Calif. and East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina) and a stint in the U.S Air Force (where Ted and Jim served together in the 1960’s) and a couple of tours in South East Asia, Ted returned to his second home in suburban Los Angeles (he’s originally from New York City) to ply his creative skills as an actor and writer.

Somewhat side tracked, because he needed a job so he could feed his young family Ted landed at the Los Angeles Evening Citizen-News where he found out he could write about cars and the auto industry and get paid for doing so.

What started as a temporary job turned into a life-long career as an auto writer, editor and columnist including a 20-year stop at Meredith Publishing and another 19-years at the Los Angeles Daily News (and sister publications of MediaNews Group).

Ted and Jim reconnected and have been writing a column together since 1999. While both are now retired from the day to day grind of newspaper work they continue to write together for the Los Angeles Daily News and a variety of newspapers and on-line sites across the country and of course Ted (and Jim) can now be found right here at motorwayamerica.com. Ted can be reached at ted@motorwayamerica.com

JIM MEACHEN

Jim has had a passion for cars since he was a teenager...which was some time ago. He spent many years in high school study hall drawing his renditions of future cars while his math, science and English books remained closed.

Despite this prep school diversion, he managed to finish high school and earn a B.S. degree in journalism from South Dakota State University. This is a rare combination...a car guy with an actual journalism degree.

Jim then escaped the cold upper Midwest climate by joining the Air Force. He was stationed at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina, and a combination of great climate, a good job offer and a young lady kept him planted in the South.

He worked as a newspaper editor for nearly 40 years, including 15 years as a sports editor. He retired in 2006 as executive news editor of the Goldsboro (N.C.) News-Argus. But his passion has always been cars and that passion has never been stronger.

He has been driving and passing judgment on cars, trucks and sport utilities for nearly 20 years and drives and evaluates more than 100 new vehicles a year. This translates into more than 2,000 vehicles since 1990.

Jim now writes in partnership with Ted sharing a byline with Ted at the Los Angeles Daily News and a variety of other newspapers and on-line sites. Jim also continues to write a weekly automotive review for the News-Argus.

Jim says that his goal in life is a new car in the yard every week. Life would be dull without a new set of wheels to critique. Jim can be reached at  jim@motorwayamerica.com

Contributing Writers:

AL VINIKOUR

Allen Vinikour is president of Vinikour Communications in Trenton, Michigan.

Al has worked in marketing, sales, public relations and journalism since 1968. The first two-thirds of his career centered on aviation, aerospace and defense, working on major weapons systems when funding battles emerged. At the time he was President of Derus Media Service, a Chicago-based mass distributor of filler material to suburban dailies and weeklies throughout the United States.

With declining military projects he gravitated toward automotive writing – something of a homecoming…while growing up in Northwest Indiana, his family owned several automotive junkyards and this background, coupled with his writing experience and a stint as Aviation Editor of the Chicago Daily News, created a new career as an automotive journalist.

Along the way Al has been the recipient of numerous awards and a few roasts. Known for his raucous sense of humor he brings new light to the serious world of cars and trucks.

Al lives in the Detroit-area with his wife Donna, (a member of Ford Motor Company’s Public Affairs staff for 24 years prior to her retirement). They have three children and twin-grandsons.

Al can be reached at al@motorwayamerica.com. 




RUSS HEAPS

Russ began covering the automotive industry in 1986, when he parlayed his position as a retail ad sales rep into helping conceptualize and establish a stand-alone automotive section for the Boca Raton News, a Knight-Ridder newspaper in South Florida.

In 1995 he moved to the Palm Beach Post to help develop its bi-weekly automotive pages. Leaving the Post in 2000, he freelanced car reviews to a variety of publications before assuming a senior editor position at AMI Auto World magazine in 2001. While at AMI he helped launch NOPI Street Performance Compact magazine and was appointed its managing editor.

He has been freelancing stories on a variety of topics since leaving AMI in 2004. His regular outlets have included Hispanic Magazine, the Miami Herald, the Washington Times, the Journal-Register Newspapers, AAA Go magazine, MyCarData.com, Automotive Metrics, Bankrate.com and Interest.com.

In addition to freelancing automotive reviews, from 1991 until 2001 he was supervising producer of the syndicated television series Discover America.

Russ currently resides in Greenville, SC.

Russ can be reached at Russcarguy@aol.com



Site Administrator/Motorcycle Fanatic:

NOEL NUNKOVICH

Noel grew up in Eastern North Carolina and found himself on the back side of high school with a love of electronics and technical things but not much motivation for school. This situation ultimately led to six years in the U.S. Navy where he spent sixteen months in the San Francisco area followed by four years and change as a Data Systems Technician aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.

After the Navy Noel did some time as a technical consultant working on radio, paging, and mobile data networks, primarily in the public safety sector, before ultimately ending up as a geek of all trades working for a U.S. arm of a large European corporation, where he remains to this day. His work days are spent mostly on computers now, doing everything from 3D graphics to technical support and software engineering.

Noel is a bit of an odd duck around MotorwayAmerica.com, since he's much more partial to fast Italian motorcycles than cars. He's frequently been accused of purchasing his current vehicle, a 2007 Ford F-150 Supercrew, as a motorcycle accessory and finds the allegation difficult to deny.

His motorcycle and computer guru musings can be found at www.swamphole.org