What Car Magazines Did You Grow Up Reading?

[warren t claim]

Born in 1970 so I cut my mag buying teeth on these.

 

What were your first pocket money wasters?

[Novanick1]

Auto Trader!

[Manbearpig]

I had that very issue of What Car? when the XR3 looked wildly extravagant.

 

My pocket money waters were CAR, Alternative Cars, and Kit Car

 

[Pillock]

CAR. 

 

My uncle used to subscribe and he'd bung half a dozen copies my way every so often. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I have little time for some mags, the writing in 80s CAR was really good. Also liked the GBU section for the cheeky bits of hidden wit.

 

Also had Auto Express from issue 1 onwards, certainly enough issues to fill the entire bottom of a single divan bed! Looking back it was very much like old Top Gear - focus was on safety and consumer standards and practicality. Used to love the spy shots, it's actually quite amusing now looking back at what they thought cars we now consider shite were going to look like. Hastily airbrused picture of a Mk1 Mondeo testing in the alps or summat.

[phil_lihp]

Auto Express and CAR. My favourite read for several years was a 1996 copy of Parkers Older Car Price Guide, complete with scathing reviews and £0 valuations for poor condition Princesses and Datsun Violets. My parents seemed mildly concerned at the time but they're used to it now.

[Ghosty]

My dad used to keep a few very specific issues of Car Mechanics from the early '90s in his wardrobe for specific articles. One had an 'Old Gold' feature on Mk2 Astras, and another had a blue Metro on the cover. The articles would have been about Metros, Mk2 or 4 Fiestas, a Capri, or something else. He also got a question about his 190E published once, about 4 months after he'd solved the problem!

There were more too but they don't spring to mind. Also a single copy of CAR with a feature on the various types of Impreza WRX up to about 2000.

[Faker]

Auto express, carsport, custom car, street machine, motoring news.

[Jim Bell]

Young

 

 

 

Older

 

 

 

 

Wank age.

 

 

 

 

 

Grown man.

[Shep Shepherd]

I started off reading the Beano and Look-In around 1983, then progressed to Crash, ZZAP! 64 and Computer and Video Games when I got into the heady world of 8-bit computing in the late 1980s. When I became car aware in the early 1990s, I read Auto Express, Jalopy, Car Mechanics, Practical Classics, Fast Ford and Performance Ford. I currently read Car Mechanics, Practical Classics, Classics Monthly and the Volvo Owners Club's magazine

[Junkman]

 

 

 

And I haven't started growing up yet.

[trigger]

I never read car magazines.

[dollywobbler]

Thoroughbred & Classic Cars Magazine. 

 

My Aunt read them. I think she also got these.

 

I read and re-read them and had a classic addiction before I was 12 years old.

 

Not that it was all old cars - I went to my dad's work as a ten year old one Saturday, helped out a bit and got given £2. I went and bought this. (well, the first or second one)

 

It was a great newspaper. I bought it regularly and somehow, still own issue number 2 from 1988. It has a road test involving the Citroen 2CV, Skoda Estelle, Yugo 55A and Fiat Panda. My shite addiction also started young. I wanted to own all of them (only managed two of the four so far). Auto Express seems unreadable these days, but that's true of most modern magazines.

 

I did take Autocar for a long while, but that turned to utter shite when Steve Sutcliffe became editor. It was little more than Max Power in a different frock. "Let's get lairy in a Subaru Impreza and Mitsubishi Evo. Again. And Again." I cancelled by subscription in disgust in 2002/3.

[Alusilber]

My old man was a frequent buyer of Car Mechanics and Practical Motorist in the 70s, so these became my main source of automotive information as a laddie. He also got copies of the AA's magazine, Drive, from an AA member friend - back then, this actually had some pretty meaty content, with in-depth road tests and articles on the car industry. Popular Motoring was also a good read, judging from the couple of issues I got my hands on.

 

Oh, and there was also the annual Daily Express Guide to World Cars, which I started collecting around 1980...

 

Still have most of the above in my library, apart from the Drives, most of which seem to have disappeared since then 

[phil_lihp]

Oh, and there was also the annual Daily Express Guide to World Cars, which I started collecting around 1980...

 

Loved these, had one a very dog-eared one from 1996 with all sorts of odd cars in it which disappeared some years ago.  Very expensive though so I hardly ever bought one!

 

Edit: and they're not getting cheaper as they get older either:

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.Xdaily+express+world+cars&_nkw=daily+express+world+cars&_sacat=0&_from=R40

[Angrydicky]

Beano and Dandy, then Practical Classics.

[aldo135]

As above really liked the spy shots in auto express, but my favourite was popular classics from about 12, I think started cos of a triumph 2000 mk1 feature (my Dad had one at the time).

 

Not interested in modern mags now but still occasionally buy Practical Classics and PPC

[Spiny Norman]

[Station]

This was the best magazine ever as a kid.

 

 

Basically spent my pocket money every week on computer mags, typing all the programs in.

 

Never bought car mags as comp mags took priority, but did go round the dealers filling my bag with brochures. Some of the salesmen didn't like this, but some were fine with it.

 

My mate had a paper round, and basically snatched every porno mag that he delivered for himself. The subscriber never complained to the newsagent (obviously), and he had to shift them from his cupboard. I thought he had a few. A few HUNDRED would be precise. Me and two mates went home in a taxi with black bin bags full of art pamphlets. I spent a good few years 'reading' them until my horrified mum discovered them and they ended up in the bin.

 

On the same subject, my other mate got nabbed stealing a jazz mag from the same newsagent. The police were called, and his parents got called in, and then he was called up in front of assembly and paraded by the headmaster with 300 pupils looking on. HAHA.

[catsinthewelder]

I went straight from the Beano to Classic Car Weekly at around 10 years old but then defected to Model Railway Enthusiast a couple of years later.

 

I went right off cars for most of my teens then got into bikes in a big way, the Used Motorcycle guide was a hilarious bible

[Micrashed]

TSR-2 1964 (3) by Micrashed, on Flickr

THIS

 

1978 Car Mechanics by Micrashed, on Flickr

Then THIS

 

Finally THIS

Jalopy Issue 2 by Micrashed, on Flickr

[sheffcortinacentre]

street machine & auto performance have every issue of both.

[vulgalour]

Custom Car - it was the nearest thing to what I wanted to read about in the nineties.  Street Machine never really cut it for me and other mags of the modified ilk didn't cover the stuff I was interested in.

Volksworld - at 16 I was dead set on a metalflake dune buggy.  Failing that a '64 Beetle in black on cream steels.

Practical Classics - I wanted to be informed, this seemed like an adequate choice at the time.

 

Then the internet happened and I stopped buying mags pretty much immediately because it seemed like there wasn't any point any more.  I still think about buying mags, but most of the content while artfully laid out is spoiled by the plethora of advertising.  Have you seen how much advertising is in an MG mag?  Thankfully I've never spent money to find out, but I can tell you it's at least 60% advertising for highly polished widgets and overpriced mats.

[stuboy]

auto express....

 

car and car conversions..

 

fast car

 

max power (early precheque book bought cars)

 

revs

 

fast ford

 

performance ford

 

total vauxhall

[RichardMoss]

Wank age.

 

 

Mayfair was a good compromise - fit birds and articles on cars

[DVee8]

Auto express, Revs,Redline.Practical classic and classic car weekly,

 

[fiatdaft]

Talking of mags,i was about to ebay this lot if anybody is interested beforehand?

 

 

Bunch of Grey Bike magazine,with a couple of other bike mags included,some tatty,some not so tatty!

 

 

 

I think this is the full range of brochures for Chrysler cars on sale in 1996 Canada

 

 

 

Fiat range from around 1999 to 2004 ish

 

 

Randoms ,mostly american,plus a 50th anniversary Hemmings.

 

 

 

Did somebody mention Hot Car?

 

 

 

Some interesting randoms.

 

 

Now if your budget was a bit bigger than the jalopy magazine classified adds,you could not buy a used car in the early 90's without these guys advice!

 

Any interest? gimmie a shout.

[DVee8]

how many  Hotcar is there and how much and the carchoice best used car 1993?

Mark

[fiatdaft]

Pm me please with any interest.