Bob Lutz recalls picking up a direct mail advertisement in 1961 for a Chevrolet Corvair and reading the car’s description.

It compared the Corvair’s layout and engineering to a Porsche, but the copy’s style also struck Lutz. It was the first advertisement, he said, that ever seemed to be written by a car enthusiast for a car enthusiast.

“It was a wonderfully technically described piece, it didn’t talk down to the customer and it was very convincing,” Lutz said.

Lutz owned several European cars at the time, but his next purchase would be a Corvair, and he never bought foreign again. The ad helped steer him toward the American auto industry, Lutz said, and throughout his career he served stints as an executive at each of the Big Three auto companies.

While working at General Motors, Lutz met David E. Davis Jr., the author of that direct mail advertisement. On Thursday, Lutz told Davis’ friends and family of the significant influence the ad had on his life, and described the “very positive impact” Davis had on the American auto industry. "He was a good friend to the American auto industry, but he was also a very articulate critic,” Lutz said. “We tended to listen to him because he had a very good feel for what the market liked and didn’t like, and he had a feel for good cars.

“In the years when Detroit wasn’t making very good cars, he let us have it. But he was supportive, he encouraged us to do better and he was very pro-Detroit, even when he was very critical of us.”

Davis, known as "the dean of American auto journalism," died in Ann Arbor on March 28 after complications from surgery for bladder cancer.

Davis was a former writer, editor and publisher at Car and Driver magazine, which he moved from New York to Ann Arbor in 1977. He subsequently founded Automobile Magazine here in 1985 and returned to Car and Driver as a columnist in 2009.

On Thursday, friends and family gathered at First Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor for a memorial service before moving to an auto museum in Ypsilanti for a celebration of Davis’ life.

In 1975, Davis offered writer P.J. O’Rourke a chance to write for Car and Driver. O’Rourke, who was then a managing editor at the National Lampoon, described himself as feeling “just over the moon” about being tapped by Davis.

O’Rourke called Davis a pioneer of participatory, new journalism, and credited him with revolutionizing the magazine industry. Before Davis brought literary journalism to Car and Driver in the early 1960’s, O’Rourke said, car magazines read like a “how-to manual for your iPhone” and were “very nerdy, mechanical things.”

O’Rourke said Davis "got Car and Driver fired up'' in the early 1960’s. "He brought this whole literary sensibility to automotive magazines, and that was a huge hit with my friends and I,” O’Rourke said.

O’Rourke called Davis’ writing frank, and praised him for strong story-telling ability and “phenomenal knowledge” of cars and the auto industry.

“In the magazine industry, he really raised the bar on what kind of writing you should have in your magazine,” O’Rourke said. “Not only was he a part of a trend toward literary journalism, he was one of the instigators.”

Commercial real estate broker Bill Milliken expressed similar thoughts. Milliken manages the classic car garage that was the site for Thursday’s celebration. Davis’ own classic cars were among dozens of others stored there, and the building also housed Davis’ personal offices, which essentially became an automotive museum and library.

Milliken called Davis a “consummate car guy” and pointed to the warehouse full of notables from the auto industry, as well as writers and editors, as evidence of Davis’ success.

“The automotive journalism profession was shaped by David,” he said. “Many people who were automotive journalists owe their careers to David, either directly by virtue of his having hired them, or indirectly because he inspired them.”

At the memorial service, Davis’ friends and family spoke about his friendship and remembered him not just as a man who lived life, but one who longtime friend Ham Schirmer said “consumed life, stormed the castle of life.”

“Most of all, he loved us — you and me, his pals,” Schirmer said. “The essential element of his rushed-around life was gathering up his pals, and letting us rush around with him.”

Davis’ sister, Dr. Jane Makulski, said his death was quick and unexpected, “much like David.” She recalled Davis had once stated that death is "the last great adventure of life.”

“If there is any regret, it is that there will never be a column in any magazine critiquing what God offers in the afterlife,” Makulski said.