Mike has been writing about cars for more than 25 years, having defected from radio journalism to follow his passion. He has been a contributor to Autocar since 2004, and is a former editor of the Autocar website.
Mike joined Autocar full-time in 2007, first as features editor before taking the reins at autocar.co.uk. Being in charge of the video strategy at the time saw him create our long running “will it drift?” series. For which he apologies.
He specialises in adventurous drive stories, many in unlikely places. He once drove to Serbia to visit the Zastava factory, took a £1500 Mercedes W124 E-Class to Berlin to meet some of its taxi siblings and did Scotland’s North Coast 500 in a Porsche Boxster during a winter storm. He also seems to be a hypercar magnet, having driven such exotics as the Koenigsegg One:1, Lamborghini SCV12, Lotus Evija and Pagani Huayra R.
Mike earned a Postgraduate Diploma in Broadcast Journalism from the Falmouth College of Arts, graduating in 1997. He has held senior roles at CAR Magazine and evo and formerly edited the Fifth Gear website. Alongside his work for Autocar he is Senior European Correspondent for Hearst Autos in the U.S.
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Mike Duff Q&A
What was your biggest news story?
The interview with Michael Schumacher I did in 2004 was a personal pinnacle. He was dominating the season and seemed very relaxed when we spoke for 30 minutes at Silverstone; I think it was the longest interview he gave to any English language journalist that year. More recently I broke stories about what would become the McLaren GT and Lamborghini’s plug-in hybrid system well ahead of their official confirmation.
What’s the best car you’ve ever driven?
Most of my benchmark cars are from the mass market. I remember driving the E39 BMW 5-Series for the first time as a junior road tester and being blown away by how far ahead of the competition it was. I felt similarly about the Mk7 Volkswagen Golf when that came out. At the other extreme, the chance to experience a Bugatti Veyron and Bugatti Chiron back-to-back on a derestricted Autobahn was very special.
What will the car industry look like in 20 years?
Much will be radically different in terms of mass EV adoption and technology like steer-by-wire and higher level autonomy. But I’m certain that a passion for cars will still be there, as will be the need to distinguish the bad from the good from the best.