Who is –Ed? That, dear reader, is the million-dollar question. Who, or maybe what, is this mysterious entity that appears without warning in the Backfires section of every Car and Driver print edition to engage in spirited repartee with readers who write in to C/D? The answer is as mysterious as –Ed himself or herself or itself. –Ed is everywhere, and nowhere.

–Ed is a conundrum, an enigma, and a riddle that nest inside one another like Russian dolls or the ingredients of a turducken. –Ed is by turns knowledgeable, kind, ironic, critical, technically astute, charming, irreverent, keenly insightful, and funny—in multiple languages, no less. Sometimes, –Ed even shows up in online stories.

But is–Ed a staff editor? A professional comedian? An auto company executive using a pen name, or a spirit from the great beyond? Who knows? –Ed has never been seen in the Car and Driver offices—at least, not that we know of.

Dare we ask: Could –Ed be a bot? (Oh, c'mon; I started haranguing readers long before Al Gore invented the internet, let alone since AI became half as witty as me. –Ed) See that? –Ed had something to say and appeared spontaneously to comment. –Ed's pronouncements are always in bold italics, by the way. We don't know why that is, either.

Like the author of Diary of an Oxygen Thief, –Ed prefers to remain anonymous. We respect that. All we know for certain is that –Ed keeps us honest by channeling the Car and Driver ethos of intelligence, independence, and irreverence—like a guide, or a spirit animal, or maybe not a spirit animal.

You can't ask for more than that, especially from someone who has never hit up the finance department for so much as a single penny. Though we don't presume to know what drives –Ed to do what –Ed does, we do know that we're eternally grateful for it.

So, –Ed, we'd like to take this opportunity, on behalf of your faithful Backfires fans and your colleagues on the staff, to offer our thanks for your decades of selfless service, and for keeping us and our readers intrigued, entertained, and informed. You're welcome. –Ed