Shakeup at Car and Driver

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Csere (pronounced “CHED-ah”) started at C/D in 1980, eighteen months after the magazine moved to Ann Arbor from Manhattan. Editor since 1993, he led last year’s move from Hogback Road to the Eisenhower Commerce Park, where the car-crazy writers finally have their own garage. But Csere didn’t stay to enjoy it—he stepped down in December.

“It’s a fabulous job,” Csere says. “But I’d been doing it for a long, long time, and that was combined with the real downturn in our business.” Between the car sales slump, the financial crisis, and Internet competition, he says, “profitability was way down.” When the magazine’s longtime receptionist and associate art director left soon after Csere, parent company Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. (whose publications also include Elle, Woman’s Day, and Road & Track) decided not to replace them.

Hachette sent group editorial director John Owens to Ann Arbor as interim editor for a couple months, but an insider says the staff was relieved that he didn’t get the job permanently. Instead of writing for Car and Driver’s traditional audience of car aficionados, this source says, Owens wanted the magazine to be completely “in market”—aimed strictly at people currently shopping for cars.