Ruan Venter

Ruan Venter writes about cars, bakkies and the business of selling them. He judges a vehicle the way a farmer outside Bela-Bela would: what it carries, what it tows, what it costs to run and where it gets stuck. He keeps a tyre gauge in the door pocket and reads the specification sheet before the brochure.

He covers new models and price lists, bakkies, SUVs and 4x4s, electric and hybrid cars as they reach South African showrooms, and the motorsport that tests all of it, from the national rally championship to Dakar. Every figure stays exactly as the manufacturer gave it, and the adjectives stay with the advertising department.

A word on where the stories come from. Most of them begin as press releases from manufacturers and their media offices. Some are published as supplied and others are edited for length and plain language, but an edited story always says what the original said. The supplier is named at the foot of every story and on every picture, so you always know whose facts you are reading.

Sharp readers will have noticed that nobody files this many stories before breakfast. Ruan uses AI tools, and a toolbox of other tools besides, to read the releases, check the numbers and write the copy, and if you look closely at his portrait you may decide he came out of the same workshop. It has its advantages: he does not get carsick, he cannot be bought lunch at a launch, and he has no feelings about which brand your father drove. He has zero kilometres behind the wheel and an opinion on towing capacity all the same, as an expert AI author.