Car mags... do you bother now?

[DVee8]

During the 90's and 00's Auto Express every week,at first it was held by the local newsagent for me,Then delivered.

 

The end started when there were pages and pages of something BMW was going to start to build,called THE NEW MINI,at first it was  ooooh.But this was a car that at the time I had no interest in at all..Not now I should re-read.

 

When I got my first Jag and the Daimler I joined the JEC every month or bimonthly they would sent a mag I also got Jaguar world mag.I still have if anyone would like them.

 

I spent a few years with Practical Classics.Thanks to Sam G that's how I found this place.

 

With my bank account  I get Car magazine every month.

 

As well as Car I now get Modern Classics.I enjoy this but it is starting to get a little high brow with shinny Italian and German sports cars.and how to spend 20k.

[bramz7]

I used to get all sorts back when I was in my early teens, lived above a newsagent so had my pick of magazines. CAR was okay...auto express was meh, Autocar was about the same. I actually used to prefer the classic car mags especially CS&C but haven't had it in a while now. I remember getting the books CAR released a few years ago with all the old articles (poorly scanned) in them and it was a world away from the vanity rag it is now.

 

Modern Classics is the only one I can really read now. It is going a bit posh though...I was going to send in a photo of the Marea for the readers car bit just for a laugh.

 

I'd love a big wedge of early 90s CAR and Top Gear magazine now, the latter was really good when it first came out. That's a hint to anyone who has any they want rid of by the way.

[sierraman]

Old top gear was very good. I’ll see if I’ve any duplicates stashed away.

[dollywobbler]

As someone who works in publishing, this thread is a very interesting, and rather painful discussion. Can't really argue with people's findings. As profit margins get squashed, advertising departments end up wielding too much influence.

 

But, there is simple economics at work with the front page stuff too. LRO has a Defender on pretty much every front cover, because sales drop if they don't. I imagine it's the same for PC and Moggies/MGBs. You end up chasing volume and the majority, and the majority sadly like the mainstream icons. The economics of a magazine about obscure stuff don't really stack up - I'd be amazed if The Automobile is really that profitable, but I applaud the fact it exists. It feels more like a magazine put together by people who care about the content, and not a lot else. It exists in its own beautiful niche. (albeit stuff usually too old or valuable for us lot).

 

Tricky times for published media. Personally, I don't buy magazines anymore. Heck, I don't even read the 2CV club mag that often. The time I used to fill with reading doesn't seem to exist anymore.

[djoptix]

The only one I still buy every month is Practical Performance Car. I do get the feeling they're running out of material a bit for the main features - I DGAF about rich Americans who've paid someone else to do all the work - but I keep reading for the staff cars and Dave Walker's Workshop which is unfailingly excellent.

 

Also, most of the features and some of the captioning is just dreadful in terms of spelling and grammar. I would proofread it for them if they wanted me to, I keep meaning to email them...

 

Practical Classics is still a good magazine but I just find it doesn't apply much to me.

 

I bought Modern Classics for a while but I started to suspect it's an exercise in talking up the values of cars that the contributors happen to own.

[GeordieInExile]

My stepdad gets Top Gear.

 

I flick through it and look at the pictures. I'll read the comment pieces if the headline catches my eye.

[sierraman]

I think probably in this day and age, it’s more workable if it’s a minority interest title to write online. On here there’s a great deal of knowledge, it would be great to have some sort of Autoshite knowledge base, where we write a guide on something to share knowledge that only nutcases like us would’ve interested in, stuff like A How To change a CV joint or guide to buying a Mk4 Golf etc...

 

That’s probably where the future is if you are going to write about something as obscure as this. Not going to make you any money but if writing and sharing knowledge is your interest then it’s enjoyable.

[spartacus]

I buy Practical Performance Car occasionally, usually only if Mrs Spart and I both wander into the magazine aisle in Tesco.

I find that I'm just not as interested though in half of the articles, reading threads on the internet, that I can 'target', is much more enjoyable. As an example I've been reading the 'Medusa' thread on Rods'n'sods over the last few days, there's no way a journalist can do justice to the work and ingenuity that's been put into the build using a couple of sides of A4.

There's more information posted on this forum in a day than a magazine could manage in a month and updates often give me a feeling that I'm catching up with a distant friend or family member.

I was of the Max Power and Fast Car generation and although my nostalgic side misses those days, the reality is that progress can't be stopped, slowly and inexorably all our media is becoming digital, surely the days of a printed magazine are numbered.

[DodgeRover]

I used to have Australian Muscle Car mag on subscription to a family members address in Aus as air freight was a right price but then someone nicked a load that were due to be brought over by a family member and I gave up:(

 

I leaf through practical classics occasionally but I probably spend more time reading stuff like Old Glory or Tractor and Machinery.

If only there was somewhere I could read about someone buying something wierd from overseas and driving it back to the uk, or some nutcase buying an old horsebox with a serious rust problem to transform into a house truck...,

[chadders]

I've got Car since about 1974 and these issues with Setright,Barker,Bishop,Bulgin and so on have never been bettered.

I still get it, along with Autocar,PC,classic cars,classic and sportscar and modern classics. If I'd cancelled the subs I'd had my MGB back on the road by now.

I'll probably cancel at least one of these as a car magazine full of private banking adverts and advertised cars costing at least 100k or so is a complete waste of time and money for me.

[LoftyvRS]

I was a devout reader of car magazines from an early age, and I dread to think how much i've spent over the years. 

 

More recent times has seen me wean myself off them as there's simply less time and less content in them that interests me. My long standing subscription to EVO magazine has been cancelled as it resembled a 911 brochure to me every month so all i have on sub now is PC. How long that will last i don't know. 

 

It seems there's better value in buying a bulk of old 70's magazines for loose change and reading them, it'd be a lot more relevant to me at the moment!

[Rocket88]

Modern Classics is for me, the only one worth reading.  And even then I only buy it at the airport before a flight. 

 

I had a subscription to Auto Express for years, but their bumming of German manufacturers and shunning of anything else got tiring.  Same story with What Car? happened well before that.  They gave the Renault Avantime 1 star.  Seriously.... 

 

Pretty much the Sun of the motoring press............get Autocar religiously, and most of the classic stuff......just so that I can be annoyed by Quentin Wilson.

[Datsuncog]

In short, no - or at least, not the news-stand ones.

 

My car mag habit began in early 1991 when I bought a copy of Classic & Sportcar at the airport on the P7 school trip to London. I was 10. It had a Jaguar XJ12 on the cover, and a fantastic travelogue across Australia inside that basically consisted of snaps of rusty Australiana like Chrysler Centuras and Austin Kimberlys. I must have read that magazine from cover to cover about 100 times; in fact I still have it. I was hooked.

 

From there on in, I spent my pocket money infrequently and sporadically on Volksworld (a brief but very passionate spell where a Type 2 Bay crew cab was the most desirable vehicle in the whole wide world), Mini World (same, and led to the unwise acquisition of a totally fucked Clubman some years later), Max Power (lucky miss there, as I spent about a year getting all wide-eyed over Dimma-kitted 205 GTIs, Courteney Novas and Turbo Technics Sapphires), Classic American, more C&SC, CCM, Top Gear (when it was launched), Retro, and occasionally Car Week.

 

Jalopy magazine, already referenced above, was the first magazine I totally connected with. I stumbled across Issue 3, and stuck with it (whenever I could find it) right through to the final Issue 31. I loved it. The marvellously self-deprecating stories relating to the dismal heaps profiled therein in glorious smudgy monochrome; the cheerfully candid tales of the publication's ongoing financial woes, Paul Wells' cracking illustrations (including Skoda The Scrapyard Dog) - which I photocopied and used to cover my school binders - Peter Wynn-Rees' Crock Music reviews, which pointed me towards Neil Young and The Who (to my everlasting delight) - it was all in there.

 

 

Until the day I stumbled upon this place (while conducting an internet search for Jalopy magazine, as it happens) it was the only instance I'd encountered where tatty old cars, cheerily black humour and a lifestyle outside mainstream consumerist orthodoxy intersected. And I'm hopeful that one day I'll find the missing two issues to complete my collection.

 

When the Jalopy publishing lean-to finally caved in, I moved on to Popular Classics, which levelled out as the only one I made a point of buying monthly. My years misspent with Britain's Smallest, Dullest Motoring Mag had now ruined C&SC for me forever, with its £500k Mercedes 500SLs and Sothebys auction reports, and PC featured more of the the kind of cars I liked - Viva HCs, Renault 16s, Mk3 Zodiacs. I even had a couple of submissions featured in the Rust In Peace and Reader's Cars sections, which certainly felt like Hitting The Big Time to a starry-eyed provincial 15-yr old.

 

Whenever Popular Classics was subsumed into Practical Classics (around 1997?) I switched to it for a few more years, but eventually became aware of how much recycled content and repetition there was; MGs, Minors, Jags; MGs, Minors, Jags... I'd sniffed around publishing a little more by then as a possible career, and a few work experience stints confirmed what DW has mentioned upthread: as much as the editorial staff might want to profile a Citroen CX, Peugeot 604 and Renault 30 shoot-out on the cover, they would be painfully aware that an issue so presented might only sell about half as many copies than if they'd slapped yet another sodding MGB on the front. The bored-husband Tesco magazine aisle dreamer is, it seems, a substantially more lucrative target market then a ragtag band of passionate Francophile petrolheads. I think Jalopy just might have been subtly alluding to such a depressing reality when they slapped a pair of E-Types and a Morris Minor in a show setting on the cover of the penultimate Issue 30.

 

Your Classics magazine also appeared toward the tail-end of the 90s, headed up by some of the ex-Jalopy luminaries. I did buy it for about eight issues, but although it had a pleasantly reasonable £1.95 cover price, I couldn't get over the fact it wasn't Jalopy. It folded not that long after I stopped buying it. Although I was now the proud owner of an entire driveway of utterly rotten and deeply shit cars, much to my parents' delight*, by 1998 I didn't feel the car mags had much to offer me.

 

Around that time, I was also descending into a costly vinyl addiction and if I did come home with some dead tree, rather than a large tin of Isopon or a Super Furry Animals 7", it was now more likely in the form of NME, Melody Maker, Record Collector, Q or Mojo.

 

My dad had been roped into some form of special offer which meant that Auto Express arrived through our door weekly for a derisory sum; I did used to enjoy flicking through it, especially articles on buying at the lower end of the market. Recently though, I was something like 80p short on a Sainsburys shop where I'd hoped to use one of those '£4 off when you spend £40' vouchers, and after hurriedly grabbing a copy from behind the checkouts to nudge me over the line, was beyond horrified to see that it was now approaching a fiver - despite being mostly adverts. Yow.

 

During my latter years at Halfords, we had a magazine stand on the parts desk and used to get Car Mechanics, Auto Express, Banzai and a few other titles which never, ever sold. I'd flick through them at quiet periods, and then send the unsold covers back for refund while taking the rest of the mag home with me.

 

For about the last ten years or so, I've maybe received a Practical Classics at Christmas and that's been about enough. I just find that articles are either strangely short, and very light on detail, or seem to be plugging some sort of snake oil product. Decent, informative, in-depth articles just don't seem to happen anymore - though I do enjoy Sam Glover's fleet updates. Occasionally I'll have grabbed the odd Classic Ford or Octane before heading off on a longer trip, but that's maybe once every two years. I don't even buy music mags anymore. They're the same old mix of breathlessly recycled hype and trying (and failing) to come up with fresh angles on defunct bands that have been absolutely flogged to death. Music journalism is possibly in a worse way than car journalism.

 

I do have a subscription to Classic Motoring Review though, which has a fantastic breadth of new and reprinted articles from across the decades (many of which are from Car, which I'm sad to say I didn't bother with in its heyday). I don't really consume it like a magazine for instant gratification on the train, though - as a quarterly publication, I make a point of holding it back until I have an evening free to sit down and really savour it. There's an eclectic mix of supercar exotica, classic racing and utter sheds, which makes it into something of an automotive chocolate box - but it's marvellous to once again read new writing from my Jalopy heroes Mark Williams (CMR editor), Rod Ker and Frank Westworth. Helpfully, it's even the same size as Joypal, so sits neatly alongside it in the Datsuncog Shite Archives.

 

I've also really enjoyed the premier issue of Motorpunk, another quarterly subscription magazine which has its partial genesis in Rich Duisburg of this very parish - and, for full disclosure, not just because they put one of my articles in. It's amazing how much content fits in when there are no adverts, and although there might be an initial sticker-shock for those of us used to mainstream mags, I reckon that the quarterly subscription market of high-quality, niche articles tailored to a small but loyal fanbase - paid for in advance and not relying on lowest-common-denominator shelf appeal - could be the way forward for print publishing.

 

I know from MrsDC's interests that she no longer bothers to pick up knitting mags from newsagents or the like, for the exact same reasons of repetition and poor proofing - but very much enjoys the curated quarterly periodicals - and, let's be honest, I'm reaching the age where quality over quantity counts. I stopped buying daily newspapers when I realised I didn't have time to read them (or didn't prioritise time to read them), and simply bought them, dumped them on the coffee table, then put them in the recycling, still unread, at the weekend. Which was beyond stupid.

 

So yeah, CMR and Motorpunk are the only motoring titles I make a point of reading these days, and that works well enough for me - although I still retain my subscription to Viz, because deep down I am a childish and immature individual... but all these magazines come to my letterbox, of my choosing - I just don't buy much off the shelves.

[RRT22R]

I have so many magazines and brochures in my loft, that if my house caught fire, they would be damping it down for weeks, like they do with a haystack fire.

 

I can't remember the last time I went into a newsagent and bought one, but I have had C&SC and PC subscriptions bought for me recently as presents.

 

I will search out cheap, second-hand mags whenever I can - The new ones don't seem to represent good value to me at £5 a pop. 

[SierraMikeHotel]

Deep thoughts from Datsuncog, as so often... But I'm a bit worried that you have the word Joypal in your auto correct

 

I haven't bought a music magazine since the 90s which is odd because I used to love them, Q especially. Sad to hear that they are in decline as well but it seems inevitable.

 

I used to be addicted to Practical Classics and still buy a very occasional copy but it seems lightweight now... Not sure if it has changed, or if my expectations are different. I only buy a magazine now if I have a long train journey or something, not out of habit.

 

I never buy a newspaper any more. It would seem so wasteful to buy the thing and throw most of it away. I do have an online subscription to the Guardian, I think they do worthwhile work which I'm supporting in a small way and I get to read the bits I'm interested in with no adverts.

 

I can't think when I'd have time to sit and read the paper, but I often have ten minutes when I can read a couple of articles on the app. I always have my phone with me but these days I wouldn't want to have to carry a whole newspaper around.

[artdjones]

In short, no - or at least, not the news-stand ones.

 

My car mag habit began in early 1991 when I bought a copy of Classic & Sportcar at the airport on the P7 school trip to London. I was 10. It had a Jaguar XJ12 on the cover, and a fantastic travelogue across Australia inside that basically consisted of snaps of rusty Australiana like Chrysler Centuras and Austin Kimberlys. I must have read that magazine from cover to cover about 100 times; in fact I still have it. I was hooked.

 

From there on in, I spent my pocket money infrequently and sporadically on Volksworld (a brief but very passionate spell where a Type 2 Bay crew cab was the most desirable vehicle in the whole wide world), Mini World (same, and led to the unwise acquisition of a totally fucked Clubman some years later), Max Power (lucky miss there, as I spent about a year getting all wide-eyed over Dimma-kitted 205 GTIs, Courteney Novas and Turbo Technics Sapphires), Classic American, more C&SC, CCM, Top Gear (when it was launched), Retro, and occasionally Car Week.

 

Jalopy magazine, already referenced above, was the first magazine I totally connected with. I stumbled across Issue 3, and stuck with it (whenever I could find it) right through to the final Issue 31. I loved it. The marvellously self-deprecating stories relating to the dismal heaps profiled therein in glorious smudgy monochrome; the cheerfully candid tales of the publication's ongoing financial woes, Paul Wells' cracking illustrations (including Skoda The Scrapyard Dog) - which I photocopied and used to cover my school binders - Peter Wynn-Rees' Crock Music reviews, which pointed me towards Neil Young and The Who (to my everlasting delight) - it was all in there.

 

Until the day I stumbled upon this place (while conducting an internet search for Jalopy magazine, as it happens) it was the only instance I'd encountered where tatty old cars, cheerily black humour and a lifestyle outside mainstream consumerist orthodoxy intersected. And I'm hopeful that one day I'll find the missing two issues to complete my collection.

 

When the Jalopy publishing lean-to finally caved in, I moved on to Popular Classics, which levelled out as the only one I made a point of buying monthly. My years misspent with Britain's Smallest, Dullest Motoring Mag had now ruined C&SC for me forever, with its £500k Mercedes 500SLs and Sothebys auction reports, and PC featured more of the the kind of cars I liked - Viva HCs, Renault 16s, Mk3 Zodiacs. I even had a couple of submissions featured in the Rust In Peace and Reader's Cars sections, which certainly felt like Hitting The Big Time to a starry-eyed provincial 15-yr old.

 

Whenever Popular Classics was subsumed into Practical Classics (around 1997?) I switched to it for a few more years, but eventually became aware of how much recycled content and repetition there was; MGs, Minors, Jags; MGs, Minors, Jags... I'd sniffed around publishing a little more by then as a possible career, and a few work experience stints confirmed what DW has mentioned upthread: as much as the editorial staff might want to profile a Citroen CX, Peugeot 604 and Renault 30 shoot-out on the cover, they would be painfully aware that an issue so presented might only sell about half as many copies than if they'd slapped yet another sodding MGB on the front. The bored-husband Tesco magazine aisle dreamer is, it seems, a substantially more lucrative target market then a ragtag band of passionate Francophile petrolheads. I think Jalopy just might have been subtly hinting at such a depressing reality when they slapped an E-Type on the cover of Issue 30.

 

Your Classics magazine also appeared toward the tail-end of the 90s, headed up by some of the ex-Jalopy luminaries. I did buy it for about eight issues, but although it had a pleasantly reasonable £1.95 cover price, I couldn't get over the fact it wasn't Jalopy. It folded not that long after I stopped buying it. Although I was now the proud owner of an entire driveway of utterly rotten and deeply shit cars, much to my parents' delight*, by 1998 I didn't feel the car mags had much to offer me.

 

Around that time, I was also descending into a costly vinyl addiction and if I did come home with some dead tree, rather than a large tin of Isopon or a Super Furry Animals 7", it was now more likely in the form of NME, Melody Maker, Record Collector, Q or Mojo.

 

My dad had been roped into some form of special offer which meant that Auto Express arrived through our door weekly for a derisory sum; I did used to enjoy flicking through it, especially articles on buying at the lower end of the market. Recently though, I was something like 80p short on a Sainsburys shop where I'd hoped to use one of those '£4 off when you spend £40' vouchers, and after hurriedly grabbing a copy from behind the checkouts to nudge me over the line, was beyond horrified to see that it was now approaching a fiver - despite being mostly adverts. Yow.

 

During my latter years at Halfords, we had a magazine stand on the parts desk and used to get Car Mechanics, Auto Express, Banzai and a few other titles which never, ever sold. I'd flick through them at quiet periods, and then send the unsold covers back for refund while taking the rest of the mag home with me.

 

For about the last ten years or so, I've maybe received a Practical Classics at Christmas and that's been about enough. I just find that articles are either strangely short, and very light on detail, or seem to be plugging some sort of snake oil product. Decent, informative, in-depth articles just don't seem to happen anymore - though I do enjoy Sam Glover's fleet updates. Occasionally I'll have grabbed the odd Classic Ford or Octane before heading off on a longer trip, but that's maybe once every two years. I don't even buy music mags anymore. They're the same old mix of breathlessly recycled hype and trying (and failing) to come up with fresh angles on defunct bands that have been absolutely flogged to death. Music journalism is possibly in a worse way than car journalism.

 

I do have a subscription to Classic Motoring Review though, which has a fantastic breadth of new and reprinted articles from across the decades (many of which are from Car, which I'm sad to say I didn't bother with in its heyday). I don't really consume it like a magazine for instant gratification on the train, though - as a quarterly publication, I make a point of holding it back until I have an evening free to sit down and really savour it. There's an eclectic mix of supercar exotica, classic racing and utter sheds, which makes it into something of an automotive chocolate box - but it's marvellous to once again read new writing from my Jalopy heroes Mark Williams (CMR editor), Rod Ker and Frank Westworth. Helpfully, it's even the same size as Joypal, so sits neatly alongside it in the Datsuncog Shite Archives.

 

I've also really enjoyed the premier issue of Motorpunk, another quarterly subscription magazine which has its partial genesis in Rich Duisburg of this very parish - and, for full disclosure, not just because they put one of my articles in. It's amazing how much content fits in when there are no adverts, and although there might be an initial sticker-shock for those of us used to mainstream mags, I reckon that the quarterly subscription market of high-quality, niche articles tailored to a small but loyal fanbase - paid for in advance and not relying on lowest-common-denominator shelf appeal - could be the way forward for print publishing.

 

I know from MrsDC's interests that she no longer bothers to pick up knitting mags from newsagents or the like, for the exact same reasons of repetition and poor proofing - but very much enjoys the curated quarterly periodicals - and, let's be honest, I'm reaching the age where quality over quantity counts. I stopped buying daily newspapers when I realised I didn't have time to read them (or didn't prioritise time to read them), and simply bought them, dumped them on the coffee table, then put them in the recycling, still unread, at the weekend. Which was beyond stupid.

 

So yeah, CMR and Motorpunk are the only motoring titles I make a point of reading these days, and that works well enough for me - although I still retain my subscription to Viz, because deep down I am a childish and immature individual... but all these magazines come to my letterbox, of my choosing - I just don't buy much off the shelves.

CMR is good, although I have only read 2 surplus issues Datsuncog gave me for free(Thanks again!).The articles are often very short,even the articles from Car seem to be edited down somewhat.I know I'm not typical,but I prefer longer stuff.So I probably won't subscribe.I'm looking for a copy of Owen Llewellyn's book about 4 men driving to Spain in 1906,though, which I wouldn't have heard about without reading the extract in CMR.

[Spottedlaurel]

Your Classics magazine also appeared toward the tail-end of the 90s, headed up by some of the ex-Jalopy luminaries. I did buy it for about eight issues, but although it had a pleasantly reasonable £1.95 cover price, I couldn't get over the fact it wasn't Jalopy. It folded not that long after I stopped buying it. Although I was now the proud owner of an entire driveway of utterly rotten and deeply shit cars, much to my parents' delight*, by 1998 I didn't feel the car mags had much to offer me.

 

Sounds like Real Classics? IIRC, Your Classic was a C&SC offshoot that was launched in the late '80s and ran for a few years. I got both of them as well. And Popular Classics until it merged with Practical Classics.

[HMC]

I Buy practical classics most. Its become more relevant to me over the time since danny hopkins became ed. Its focus has shifted to stuff from the last 30 years, which going back to its launch in 1980, is arguably what it was doing then, in its time frame of reference. I like the writers and the contect and am going to sort a subscription soon. James Walshe bought an alfa 156 for £200 once when his train was stuck so he could get home. This pragmatic, slightly eccentric enthusiasm shows through the mag IMO.

 

C&SC I respect and have read off and on since about 1995. Its ads, if not quite its editorial is focussed toward stuff thats a lot more valuable. Im glad to see its avoided moving toward advertorials on amazing watches etc but it can be a slippery slope. I like the writing but personally a bit MEH about some of the cars but perhaps more the reputations that go before them. It must also be hard to write a memorable (distinctive) piece about a 250GTO- whats hasnt been said before? Isnt the car itself a cliche? Will the owner chuck you the keys these days and leave you to it for a week (steve cropley, 250gto, CAR late 1970s) Difficult.

[Datsuncog]

Sounds like Real Classics? IIRC, Your Classic was a C&SC offshoot that was launched in the late '80s and ran for a few years. I got both of them as well. And Popular Classics until it merged with Practical Classics.

 

You're quite correct - I've mixed those two up!

 

Real Classics had an A35 (and free badge!) on the cover of Issue 1, and was edited by ex-Jalopy publisher Paul Guinness (though I couldn't necessarily swear to that now, either). Other issues to my recollection featured the Mk1 Range Rover and a very tasty Vauxhall VX4/90 FD, and like later issues of Jalopy it was printed on A4 pulp stock rather than glossy paper - but with a glossy centrefold of the cover star.

 

I must have picked up a few issues of Your Classic over the years, too, though can't now remember anything particularly distinctive about it (hey, I could only have been 12 or 13 when I read it, so not dissing the team) - thanks for clarifying that, plus the extra info (didn't know it was linked to C&SC).

 

 

As an aside, I'm still missing Issue 12 (May 1993) and Issue 13 (June 1993) from my Japloy mini-colleckshun, should anyone be able to assist?

 

[w00dy]

I subscribed to Motorpunk and it has shown me how much I can enjoy a good physical magazine when it's good. Lots of interesting content about enjoying cars rather than the dull articles found in most motoring rags.

 

I did occasionally pick up the odd issue of Modern Classics, but found I read very little of it unless I had a train journey to waste. And i do like Practical Classics, but I haven't bought an issue in ages.

[Matty]

Not now too dear. The contents the main trouble it's drifting away from affordable motors to aspirational stuff. Get my kicks on here and I could actually get a leg in most of the cars folk discuss for less than x thousand pounds. This'll do nicely thanks!

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Your Classic was an excellent mag, the first I was involved with some 25 years ago. It was a Haymarket job so very well put together by guys who were both good at writing and oily hands stuff. Sadly it was 'merged' with C&SC in 1994, a pity as it really was good.

 

Car mag publishing will inexorably follow the public's increasing lack of interest in cars. 30 years ago I would have crossed the road to look at a 911 Turbo. I barely give a modern one a second glance. Unlike last time classic cars went mad (88-90) when new cars were genuinely excellent and interesting (2CV, E30 M3, Sierra Cosworth, BX GTi etc) and roads had 40% less traffic than they do now, modern cars are just so boring and everyday driving such an arseache.  The interest in old cars is, in my opinion, due to this. People love the good old days and escapism from shit modern life. The standard of writing in mainstream publications is also extremely poor - it's been many years since anything really drew me in and made a mag 'unputdownable'

[Tadhg Tiogar]

.... It must also be hard to write a memorable (distinctive) piece about a 250GTO- whats hasnt been said before? Isnt the car itself a cliche? Will the owner chuck you the keys these days and leave you to it for a week (steve cropley, 250gto, CAR late 1970s) Difficult.

 

That's probably why that type of thing seems to have moved over to Octane, which strikes me as part advert for the unobtainable, part coffee-table lifestyle mag. There have been a couple of genuinely-interesting articles in Octane, namely the feature on an early CX Prestige, and another on a V8-engined Dino 246, but that's really about it.

[busmansholiday]

Being in the MGOC I get 'Enjoying MG" every month which I do read. As for mainstream car mags, buying those is restricted to some unholy hour in the morning at a WH Smiths whilst awaiting boarding for a holiday flight.

It's generally Practical Classics, although I look to see if they've the bumber issue with Practical Mechanics as well. If we're off for two weeks jollies then I'll buy another mag, varies, but has to be about classics or older cars. Honestly not interested in the modern stuff now.

 

Just last week, BiL dropped this huge pile of of old car mags off with me. I haven't had time to see what's there, he said there's some from the 50's. What I did notice was the top one and have had a quick look. I didn't realise there were that many Jap cars available in 1970.

 

I'll be sticking them on Shitecycle obviuosly when I 've read them.

 

 

 

[motorpunk]

I subscribed to Motorpunk and it has shown me how much I can enjoy a good physical magazine when it's good. Lots of interesting content about enjoying cars rather than the dull articles found in most motoring rags.

I've also really enjoyed the premier issue of Motorpunk, another quarterly subscription magazine which has its partial genesis in Rich Duisburg of this very parish - and, for full disclosure, not just because they put one of my articles in. It's amazing how much content fits in when there are no adverts, and although there might be an initial sticker-shock for those of us used to mainstream mags, I reckon that the quarterly subscription market of high-quality, niche articles tailored to a small but loyal fanbase - paid for in advance and not relying on lowest-common-denominator shelf appeal - could be the way forward for print publishing.

Oh. Hello!

 

I write for a few magazines and do a bit of YouTube (and even telly now and then) but it's a hobby, not a job. I got so frustrated with the stuff in other car mags (for the same reasons as the rest of you shiters) that I started my own. There's no aspirational bollocks, no mention of 'future classics', no watch adverts and no wanking off to the latest 911s.

 

As an indicator of the kind of thing we love, here's something I'm writing about for issue two;

 

 

My own car

 

[louiepj]

I currently buy Practical Classics, Practical Performance Car and Car Mechanics every month on their thursday release from whichever newsagent/WHSmiths I am passing.

I started reading Autocar with my group of car mad friends at secondary school in the early to mid nineties before discovering girls and magazines such as Max Power, Fast Car and Revs. As I 'matured' more I started reading most of the Mini car magazines and buying the odd (insert any car manufacturer) magazine that caught my interest when browsing.

Stopped buying any mags for a couple of years and coincidentally bought and drove some boring/uninspiring new cars because I was a 'family man'.

I will pick up and try to read any car magazine I can get hold of but will start by first reading the long term road tests, contributers car maladies and victories, even readers contributions. Almost reading some magazines back to front for my preference of interest.

[Datsuncog]

I subscribed to Motorpunk and it has shown me how much I can enjoy a good physical magazine when it's good. Lots of interesting content about enjoying cars rather than the dull articles found in most motoring rags.

 

Very true. I feared that I simply didn't have any interest in reading car magazines anymore; but as it turned out, I went through Motorpunk #1 in two evenings and thoroughly enjoyed the wide variety and the writing tone. Seems that it's not the magazine format per se that's discouraged me in recent years; it's having something worth reading!

 

As Kurt Vonnegut stipulated in his advice to writers: “Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.”

 

Many magazines seem to exist primarily as a means of selling advertising space, like those annoying clickbait links that hover at the periphery of many web pages. They've not much to say that hasn't been said already, but since Footman James or Adrian Flux or whoever has dumped ££££ for a back cover splash, and Machine Mart's agreed to the inner cover, they'll jolly well have to come up with some means of filling the rest of the space. And that perfunctory, contractual obligation mindset does seem to come across in some publications as dullness, or simply can't-be-arsed-to-proof-this. Again, not ragging on the journos - I know many of them would love to be writing original, sparkling articles - but that won't necessarily sell more copies. It's far from a new problem, but there's now other options for car hobbyists, to use that awful term - like forums.

 

There's actual passion in Motorpunk though, while CMR has a healthy veneration of motoring journalism's past heavyweights to show us how writing about cars can be informative, engaging and entertaining.

 

I've no doubt it's very tough to be a staffer at many mags right now, with circulation and budgets down and increasing demands to add value to the parent company's share value. As the Kodak case shows, when businesses hit a disruptor they tend to double down on what they think they know, rather than expose themselves to further risk by innovating. Magazine business models seem to focus on getting a lot of people to buy one issue on impulse, then another five or six issues from habit, then move on to another title (within the same parent group) - rather than encouraging a discerning long-term readership base. Hence the déja vu vibe from all the article recycling. You're not expected to buy enough issues to notice.

 

Print's not dead, necessarily, and I don't believe that taking everything online is the future, any more than I believe the future of food is little while pills that taste just like a roast dinner. But the big-meejah companies might want to take a long hard think about where they're at, if they don't want to go down with all hands.

[Faker]

I used to buy custom car, street machine etc, which progressed nicely to CCC, then came the max power days, mini, total Vauxhall, performance ford, classic ford, etc. Not forgetting carsport and pacenotes (n.i. mags). I generally took notions for particular marques for a while, then got bored. I've random boxes of mags. Generally I purchased whatever caught my eye. I very seldom purchase mags now.... unless there is something very much of interest..

[artdjones]

Being in the MGOC I get 'Enjoying MG" every month which I do read. As for mainstream car mags, buying those is restricted to some unholy hour in the morning at a WH Smiths whilst awaiting boarding for a holiday flight.

It's generally Practical Classics, although I look to see if they've the bumber issue with Practical Mechanics as well. If we're off for two weeks jollies then I'll buy another mag, varies, but has to be about classics or older cars. Honestly not interested in the modern stuff now.

 

Just last week, BiL dropped this huge pile of of old car mags off with me. I haven't had time to see what's there, he said there's some from the 50's. What I did notice was the top one and have had a quick look. I didn't realise there were that many Jap cars available in 1970.

 

I'll be sticking them on Shitecycle obviuosly when I 've read them.

 

 

 

IMG_20181008_150458.jpg

The 1970s were the Golden Age of Autocar.They had left behind the need to be deferential to potential advertisers,but still had the skills to write good,fairly long articles that held the interest of readers.

The watch adverts in C&SC are ridiculous.I could understand an ad for a watch in the 4-5000 bracket,but an ad for a Richard Mille at half a million?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

.... an ad for a Richard Mille at half a million?

 

The rich are different from you and me.