10 Auto Industry Insiders You Should Know

You love cars. You love talking about cars, you love working about cars, and you love looking at cars. So it's important that you are following the right information to make sure you're up-to-snuff on your knowledge. Blogs are a great place to start, but it's where the blogs have their pipelines hooked up that you should be paying attention to. The people who make cars, investigate cars, sell cars, and spy on cars are the ones who have the real gold.

These are the people who make the auto industry tick, and if you want to have your finger on the pulse of cars, stop trying to feel a heartbeat in a gas line and follow these 10 Auto Industry Insiders You Should Know.

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Who He Is: No, not Tom Ford the designer, we're talking about the editor from Top Gear Magazine. Top Gear gets the most important cars before anybody else, and that means that Tom Ford usually has something to say about whatever the next big things is before anybody else has even had a chance to see the car in person.

Twitter: @tomwookieford
http://www.topgear.com/uk/tags/Tom-Ford

Who He Is: A veteran automotive executive, car guru, and author who has worked with GM, BMW, Ford, Chrysler, Lotus, VIA Motors, and VL Automotive, to name a few. He's responsible for cars like the Pontiac G8, the Dodge Viper, the Cadillac CTS, the new Camaro, the Ford Sierra, and the Ford Explorer.

Twitter: Bob Lutz is too old school for Twitter.
http://www.boblutzsez.com/

Who He Is: The Chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association. The dealer network wields a huge amount of influence not just on the industry, but also upon government, and Baggott knows what's up with the dealers.

Twitter: @NADAUpdate

Who He Is: The DRIVE Channel's most sideways presenter, who gets to drive all the cool cars and trash all the expensive tires. He famously called out Ferrari on some less than honest practices regarding how that company deals with the media, and was blacklisted because of it.

Twitter: @harrismonkey
YouTube: Chris Harris On Cars

Who He Is: The auto enthusiast and TV presenter with a massive head who gets to drive every cool car before anyone else does. He has some other show that you might have heard of too.

Twitter: @jayleno
http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/

Who He Is: The president of the United Automobile Workers' Union. We'd wager that no single man has more of an effect on American auto manufacturing than King. He's aptly named.

Twitter: @UAWPresident

Who She Is: The industry's most (in)famous spy photographer. Those pictures you see of cars being tested in the American Southwest are usually courtesy of Ms. Priddy, and she's even been known to leave Brenda Priddy & Co. wrist bands on the cars she's shot.

Twitter: @BrendaPriddy
http://www.brendapriddyandcompany.com/

Who He Is: The Detroit News DC Bureau Chief. If you need to know something about the auto industry's political side, he probably knows what's up.

Twitter: @DavidShepardson

Who He Is: The President and CEO of SRT as well as the Senior Vice President of Design for the Chrysler Group. He's responsible for the Chrysler 300 and the SRT Viper and will defend his cars to the death if you say anything bad about them on Twitter. He made news for making Donald Trump look like even more of a clusterfuck of unfounded opinions and money than he already did in 2012.

Twitter: @RalphGilles

Who He Is: An automotive columnist for the Wall Street Journal who won a Pulitzer prize for criticism in 2004 and was once fired from the News & Observer for writing about having had sex in a Ford Expedition press car.

Twitter: @danneilwsj
Wall Street Journal: Dan Neil

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