Ivan Aistrop

Freelance contributor

Ivan Aistrop has been a professional journalist since 2001, which is a depressingly long time, and just writing those words remind him just how old he is. 

He studied for a degree in Journalism at Southampton Solent University (then called ‘Southampton Institute’ it was so long ago), graduating in 2000 with a 2:1, which neither he nor any of his friends or family can still quite believe he managed, given how little work he did. It was during his degree that he realised that writing about cars would be much more interesting than having a proper job, and so that became the goal.

After graduation, he spent the next few months working as a driver at British Car Auctions so he could drive and experience as many different cars as possible. He didn’t even crash that many of them. He owned up to even fewer. 

Next followed a three-year stint on local newspapers, honing his journalistic skills by covering parish council meetings and cat shows, a period through which he seriously questioned his life choices on an almost-constant basis. He spent all his holidays doing work experience on various car magazines in search of an escape route.

Salvation came in 2004 when, at the end of one such two-week work experience stint at What Car? magazine, he was offered a job, which he gratefully accepted. He stayed there for nine years, spending the vast majority of that time on the road test desk, driving and reviewing all the latest new cars, and travelling the world doing it.

In 2013, he moved to Auto Trader where he served as Road Test Editor for almost seven years, driving even more cars, writing even more reviews, and doing even more travelling. He also made quite a lot of YouTube videos during that time, which you can probably still seek out online if you want to see what he looked like with hair and a reasonable waistline.

At the end of 2019, he decided to go freelance, just a couple of months before the advent of an unprecedented global pandemic, and the resulting chaos. Timing was never his strong point. Thanks to the kindness of various clients - Honest John included - his career didn’t tank in the way he feared at the outset, for which he will be eternally grateful.

Nevertheless, when the offer of permanent work came along at the end of 2020 from CarGurus.co.uk, he grabbed it with both hands. There he stayed as Deputy Editor until 2023, at which time a return to freelancing occurred on much firmer ground than the first time around, thank goodness. And he’s been there ever since.

During two freelance stints, he’s worked for pretty much every motoring outlet you’ve ever heard of, and several you probably haven't: Honest John, obviously, but other examples include Heycar, CarGurus, What Car?, Auto Express, CarWow, DriveTribe, The Daily Telegraph, Cazoo, and many more.

As a consumer champion, he’s obsessive about finding the right car for the right person, and for the right price. He likes working for Honest John because that’s precisely what they’re about, and they also like to have a bit of fun along the way.

What advice would you give to car buyers?

Take some time at the outset to figure out exactly what you need from a car. Think about where you go in it, what you do in it, who you take with you, and what stuff they bring with them. Think about occasions in the past where your current car hasn’t been quite big enough, and if there aren’t any, it’s probably too big for you, which means you’ve probably paid too much to buy and run it. For that reason, you want the smallest car you can get away with, but it has to be big enough for your needs. Other than that, buy something that you like and you bond with, for whatever reason, because you’ll have to live with it every day. Oh, and never buy a car under time pressure: that’s when all the worst purchases happen.

What was your first car?

A rather splendid 1984 (A-reg) Renault 5, one of the last of the mk1s before the mk2 came in later that year. I’ll never forget it: a TL ‘Flair’ special edition with electric blue metallic paint, awesome eighties alloy wheels and the coolest three-spoke MOMO leather steering wheel. It had proper retro charm, even in 1997 when I bought it off my sister for £200, who only sold it to me on the strict understanding that I kept the name she’d christened it: ‘Carmella’. I felt like a right berk using the name, but the car itself was tremendous. It had the 1.1 petrol engine, presumably so-called because that’s the amount of horsepower it felt like it had. 

What cars do you currently own?

I still have a fondness for all things retro, so my current runabout is a lovely old 2006 Skoda Octavia vRS hatchback in silver, the petrol with the manual gearbox. It’s young enough to not feel completely archaic (especially since I changed the standard stereo for an aftermarket one with AppleCarPlay/Android Auto), but old enough to have plenty of character. It also helps that it’s got plenty of room for the kids and a massive boot. And that 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol is still an absolute crackerjack of an engine: plenty ballsy enough to surprise lots of newer cars off the lights. It might even go round corners pretty well if I weren’t too tight to put better tyres on it.