Ben Oliver
Journalist
Ben Oliver began his motoring journalism career at Autocar, succeeding Andrew Frankel and Chris Harris as Road Test Editor before realising he wasn’t a good enough driver and departing for Car magazine, where he still finds excuses to take cars to odd, remote or dangerous parts of the world he wanted to visit anyway.
His work has appeared in newspapers and magazines around the world and garnered awards, which can add up to a fiver to his fees, though not at The Intercooler. He subsidises his motoring journalism by writing speeches for people who’d prefer you to think they write their own, and with a business that does public relations and makes podcasts.
First car:
A used 1987 Nissan Micra bought from my hard-headed grandmother for full market value
Professional hero:
Honoured to write for Ti alongside three of them: Robinson, Nichols and Frankel
Fondest driving memory:
Taking a standard Mini to 18,000ft in the Indian Himalayas: not sure if ‘fond’ is the right word though
"Writing about cars allows you to write about almost everything. The car influences and is influenced by so many aspects of our lives and society – travel, tech, the environment, the law, finance and the rest – that being a motoring journalist has never felt like a constraint"
