Remembering Marlan Davis HOT ROD’s Legendary Tech Editor
Around 10 a.m. on January 15, 2022, Marlan Davis died of complications from pancreatic cancer just four weeks after diagnosis. He was 66 years old.
It was an ignominious end to a stellar career as America’s most widely-respected expert on all things hot rod and performance. Over a 44-year career that spanned from the fall of 1976 until his involuntary retirement in 2020, Marlan focused his research, writing, and photographic skills on hot rods, muscle cars, and V8 engines of all descriptions (Marlan was not known to play favorites in print, but more privately preferred GM products). In later years, his specialty was fielding tough tech problems from readers and fixing them on the pages of HOT ROD for his column “Ask Marlan.”
Marlan was born April 21, 1955, in Staten Island, New York, according to Marlan’s younger stepbrother, Eric Steiner—and was adopted a few weeks later by Sylvia and Emanuel “Manny” Davis, growing up in Brooklyn. In 1966, Marlan moved with his family to Sherman Oaks, California, where he finished his primary school education, then graduated from Cal State Northridge in 1976 with a degree in political science. As luck would have it, the Davis family lived next to HOT ROD publisher Dick Day. In the summer of 1976, Manny was having a neighborly chat with Day and happened to ask him if HOT ROD might have a job for his son, Marlan. The rest was history.
The newly minted college grad had almost no experience with cars, journalism, or hot rodding, except for a brief stint in high school auto-shop class. It was, however, enough to land Marlan a job at HOT ROD’s Sunset Boulevard office—not as a technical writer, but as a mailroom gopher. Once at HOT ROD, Marlan supplemented his mailroom work with shuffling cars from place to place, washing and gassing them, then shlepping gear and supplies to far-flung locations for photo shoots and testing. He was a tireless worker with an unlimited supply of enthusiasm, and that soon led to a move up the ladder to associate editor, then technical editor.
By the time this author became Marlan’s
