Years ago, when Road & Track called Ann Arbor, Michigan, home, the magazine’s archives occupied a vast corner of the office opposite the break area. It was a good place to grab a cup of coffee, pull a file, and flip through the decades of images and notes compiled in the service of making this magazine. Odds were better than not that the negatives in your hands were signed “J. Lamm.” For 37 years, John Lamm was the look of Road & Track. As a photographer and writer, he helped craft the magazine that so many of us fell for. Yesterday, at 76 years old, he passed away in California due to complications from lymphoma.
There are hardly words for the loss. For those of us fortunate enough to have met or worked with him, Lamm seemed like the best of us. The kind of person you hoped to become, someday. Never jaded by the grind of relentless model releases. Always generous, positive, and above all, curious. When the digital revolution came, Lamm eagerly put away his 35mm and picked up a digital camera. When the powers that be determined our futures lay in video, he taught himself everything he needed to know about stitching clips together and got busy. He was a storyteller in the best sense, and it seemed that it didn’t matter the conduit so long as he got to keep sharing what he knew about cars and the people who loved them.
Lamm’s storytelling earned him the International Motor Press Guild’s Dean Batchelor Award as well as the Ken Purdy Award, but that’s not why he’ll be remembered. For readers, his words and images define some of our favorite machines of the last 40 years. If you can see a 986 Boxster in your mind, chances are you’re seeing it as Lamm did through the lens of his camera. For those of us on this end of things, John will always be the best of us.
Road & Track is also owned by Autoweek’s parent company, Hearst Autos.
From: Road & Track
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