Auto Writer Extraordinare Ingrassia Dies at 69

Paul Ingrassia, a giant among auto writers, has died of cancer at age 69.

As The Wall Street Journal’s Detroit bureau chief, he co-won a Pulitzer Prize with fellow Journal reporter Joe White about the board revolt at General Motors Co. that removed Bob Stempel as CEO.

Three years ago Ingrassia (Reuters image, left) received the Gerald Loeb Lifetime Achievement Award for a career that spanned the Journal, the Journal’s newswire and the Reuters news service.

Most recently he served as editor at the Revs Institute in Naples, Fla. Revs—which was created in 2008 by Floridian philanthropist and longtime auto enthusiast Miles Collier—is devoted to automotive history and research.

Ingrassia penned several books about the travails and trends of the auto industry. They include The Fall & Rise of the American Automobile Industry, which he co-wrote with White, and later, Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry’s Road from Glory to Disaster.

His brother Larry, also a journalist, notes that Paul fell in love with the characters and complexities of the auto industry early in his career and never looked back. He was widely regarded for his thorough and fair treatment of the good and bad aspects of the industry and its most colorful characters.

The always-upbeat journalist soldiered through repeat bouts with cancer over the past 22 years and also lost a son to the disease earlier this year. In accepting the Loeb award for lifetime achievement in 2016, Ingrassia quipped, “I often think that my biggest lifetime achievement is simply having a lifetime.”