New Shite Magazine launched

[skoda_fan]

What they all said^^. Opportunity missed. Not quite sure who it's aimed at. Only reason to buy it is to have a few rare mags in your possession when it folds in six months time (not that I'll bother).

[chaseracer]

And if you think about it - is anyone going to produce an actual AS mag?

 

Mr Conelrad is twitching... 

 

I hope it succeeds, because I know how much work Keef and the team have put into it, but your point about the interweb is well made.

[Magnificent Rustbucket]

I might have a flick through it, but it isn't really grabbing me from here. 'Hero' cars sounds to me like they're going to be yesterdays German 'aspirational' choices with the odd hot hatch thrown in. Could be wrong.

[Bear]

Cars that are 1-2 generations out of date? So poor people, non-motorists and chavs...

 

Hands up who passed their test in the '90s?

Now hands up who remembers mags like Practical Classics featuring cars like Manta Bs, Vauxhall Victors, Crestas, Landcrabs, Allegros, Heralds, Stags and so forth?

 

Remember them doing that in the '90s? Remember the 1970s Stag as a cover car - in the early '90s, when the Stag would have been under 20 years old? Remember getting a T-reg car when prefix K was the new plate, and thinking it was like, a proper classic car - and it feeling like a relic from another era?

 

Noticed how so many of the established classic titles have almost stood still, but now PA Crestas are £20,000 cars and Mk 1/2 Escorts aren't a cheap banger, and a 4 page article on fixing the wings on an Arrow series Hunter isn't merely "someone keeping their cheap car on the road" but a bona-fide restoration?

 

We stayed still. We still think 1992 K is new. We still think MGBs and RWD Escorts are 'fun bangers'. I dunno about you, but my mind is completely blown by driving a 1999, well equipped, comfortable car that cost so little it counts as an economic write off if you threaten it with an full oil change and a set of plugs.

 

Having said that, I long for a mag like Jalopy again. It was wonderful, But there is no business case. Distribution through WHS and Comag is ruinously expensive for small publishers, SOR rates are shocking (trust me, on small runs Smiths manages to find some extra charge or fee or T&C that grabs any of your share of the S, whilst they destroy the R "on your behalf"). Ad rates are depressed across the board - inflation has not been matched.

[Bear]

I might have a flick through it, but it isn't really grabbing me from here. 'Hero' cars sounds to me like they're going to be yesterdays German 'aspirational' choices with the odd hot hatch thrown in. Could be wrong.

 

It's a wide market - but before putting down aspirational cars, take a look at how many bargain Mercedes, Jaguar, Bentley (ha, but you know what I mean) and so forth live in the posts of Autoshite.

 

What's better than getting a ridiculously cheap old heap and running it for pennies in the face of rampant consumerism? Getting a POSH old heap etc. - never mind that in aspirational Britain the posh stuff rapidly outnumbered the bread & butter for much of these generations.

[Bear]

I was wondering if you or Keith were gonna comment. At least people are discussing the magazine so as they say no publicity is bad publicity 

 

I did ponder commenting, but any 'defence' of criticism is purely "read it first". My role is not significant, and I had no idea of the content, design, finished product beyond my own submissions - and now I have a copy I am impressed. A lot of the feedback elsewhere has been very positive, and the print/pricing in particular is interesting. It's not going to fold quickly - this is a gap in the market and there's a natural tendency to go for a bit of aspirational splash when launching a title. People's dreams, as well as realities, drive the sales of entertainment products.

 

Personally the only print title I can really consider relevant to AS core values (whatever they are) is Car Mechanics. They've got a whole thing about painting rusty Kas in this month's issue.

[Lacquer Peel]

I think there is a market for it, we're just not in the demographic and RichardK makes a good point about skinflints not buying magazines.

 

My girlfriend's stepdad owns a B7 Audi RS4 4 door and a Celica GT4 and subscribes to a few magazines, I think it'd be right up his street.

[Stanky]

My mum emailed me this morning to tell me about the arrival of this mag - She got me a subscription to PC about 5 years ago as a birthday pressie so she's obviously still on their mailing list.

 

I quite like the idea actually, I think the first edition has to be all shiny and lotus/cosworth/aston to draw in the punters but hopefully a few issues down the line they will write an article about the manifold merits of Nissan Almera ownership and my car will quadrouple in value overnight as everyone realises how awesome* they are.

 

I'll probably buy the second copy and see what its like.

[lincolndanny]

I've just driven to the local Asda and Sainsbury to track this down but have ended up ordering it online..

 

As a petrol head who passed his test at 17 in 2001 this kind of age of car is bang on my current interest levels. I've got a mk1 Escort 2 door but I also have a 106 GTI and early Saxo VTS in my garage for nostalgia. You just don't see them on the roads any more and someone needs to start restoring a few

[sporty-shite]

It's a wide market - but before putting down aspirational cars, take a look at how many bargain Mercedes, Jaguar, Bentley (ha, but you know what I mean) and so forth live in the posts of Autoshite.

 

What's better than getting a ridiculously cheap old heap and running it for pennies in the face of rampant consumerism? Getting a POSH old heap etc. - never mind that in aspirational Britain the posh stuff rapidly outnumbered the bread & butter for much of these generations.

This.

 

Even chod like my Celica, that was a bit of a sporty/posh/aspirational thing in the day, but which I rescued as an MOT failure that the guy was thinking of breaking/scrapping.

 

I like the fact that this magazine shows an alternative way to spend c£10k for example, on something that will still be reliable, will be fun to own but won't bleed money in depreciation. Maybe we might see more of this sort of stuff used regularly, which surely can't be a bad thing.

[Bear]

Honestly, the bulk of the editorial team on this aren't "all about the money" in cars. When helping me with the run to collect the Honda Keith was super-jealous of the bargain car I'd got and we nattered for ages about where it sat in the market, what it competed with, who would buy it. Money's a means to an end in enjoying cars, rather than cars being a means to money. Now I phrase like that, it seems like a damn good way to sum up what the ethos is.

I mean, in the back, there's an advert for an Isdera Imperator - the supercar that began as the Mercedes C311. I can't afford a brake disc for that, but bloody hell, it's awesome to see that one exists at all. If I won the lottery it'd be high up the list, but like the SL 60 AMG and Toyota Sera, it wouldn't be bought to hide and consider an investment - it'd be bought because bloody hell, I could afford it and I want it and I'll damn well use it.

[Magnificent Rustbucket]

I am not criticising the idea of having a cheap posh car - my own car was once expensive and is now cheap. The comment was directed at what is considered worthy of aspiration or interest, and was answered indirectly by a refreshingly wide list of cars. There are plenty out there who only consider a German car and are not interested in anything British, French or Italian - unless it is a hot hatch. I don't buy many magazines these days, but will have a look at this one since I am interested in 70s, 80s and early 90s cars - so in some ways I am very much in the target audience.

 

It is getting very good feedback on Piston Heads. This doesn't surprise me; there are a lot of PHers whose interest is not fully captured by todays cars - and for whom the cars in  Classic and Sportscar/ Classic car magazine are too old and/or too expensive. I do agree there is a niche for a magazine catering for more recent cars - and that the Classic car scene is moribund now. I can remember C&SC and  'Thoroughbred and Classic cars' as it was then regularly featuring cars of less than twenty years old - indeed the mainstay of their articles was for cars generally less than thirty back then. The same cars are featured now - it really hasn't moved on at all. 

 

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=23&t=1543841&mid=184986&i=0&nmt=Yey%21+A+New+Car+Mag%21%21+Modern+Classics&mid=184986

[brownnova]

Gave it a 30 second thumbing in Tesco...

 

To be honest there was little that grabbed my attention. This edition as the first one sits a little too much towards the sports cars and higher ends cars. Now you get that in other car magazines. Yes there's a place for them, but out would be much better if there was a wider scope I.e some cheaper stuff. It strikes me as trying to be 'Classic cars' magazine, bit for slightly more modern tin.

 

The only mag that I've read regularly that will give unloved chod an airing is Practical Classics (and that's far from perfect either) If this new mag can broaden it's appeal I think it could be a success...

 

I'll keep giving it a thumbing for now see how it fares, and if there's something I fancy reading I might buy it. If not I'm sure others week find things that interest them and enjoy buying it! At least someone is trying to put some material out there about this largely press ignored section of motoring life!

[Bear]

I'm never going to be the poster boy for breaking that aspirational German car thing. I'm not an aspirational person in the traditional sense of the word; I gaze longingly at 605, XMs, BMW E30s that haven't been molested, Nissan Leopards and Stageas, American junk (Imperial, but the 1980s one), Twingo 1... actually, how about I just list the cars I'm really not interested in - post '95 Audis except the A2 except I quite liked the A5 Cabriolet I tried (and that's uber-wanker mobile - like the BMW 1-series, I like them to drive and be in - the badge 'image' actively discourages me). For all that, I know that I am very much "The answer is Mercedes. Now, what's the question?". I just get on with the cars crazy-well, I understand them.

 

If they were Ladas or Fords or Vauxhalls or whatever, but everything about them was as it is now, I'd STILL feel that way. My SLK could be a Ford Capri Mk IV Roadster. If just the badge/brand changed, I'd be a major Ford Capri nut.

 

(Bad example. I like Capris anyway!).

[320touring]

Can I just say Clio17/82 ftmfw

[inconsistant]

I did ponder commenting, but any 'defence' of criticism is purely "read it first".

Fair enough, I'll pick up a copy and let you know.

[Junkman]

Hands up who passed their test in the '90s?

Now hands up who remembers mags like Practical Classics featuring cars like Manta Bs, Vauxhall Victors, Crestas, Landcrabs, Allegros, Heralds, Stags and so forth?

 

Remember them doing that in the '90s? Remember the 1970s Stag as a cover car - in the early '90s, when the Stag would have been under 20 years old? Remember getting a T-reg car when prefix K was the new plate, and thinking it was like, a proper classic car - and it feeling like a relic from another era?

 

Noticed how so many of the established classic titles have almost stood still, but now PA Crestas are £20,000 cars and Mk 1/2 Escorts aren't a cheap banger, and a 4 page article on fixing the wings on an Arrow series Hunter isn't merely "someone keeping their cheap car on the road" but a bona-fide restoration?

 

We stayed still. We still think 1992 K is new. We still think MGBs and RWD Escorts are 'fun bangers'. I dunno about you, but my mind is completely blown by driving a 1999, well equipped, comfortable car that cost so little it counts as an economic write off if you threaten it with an full oil change and a set of plugs.

 

Having said that, I long for a mag like Jalopy again. It was wonderful, But there is no business case. Distribution through WHS and Comag is ruinously expensive for small publishers, SOR rates are shocking (trust me, on small runs Smiths manages to find some extra charge or fee or T&C that grabs any of your share of the S, whilst they destroy the R "on your behalf"). Ad rates are depressed across the board - inflation has not been matched.

 

As much as I would love to disagree with you, I can't (which is entirely btw annoyingly often the case).

 

Look, guys. It's a well known fact, that car production stopped in 1986. So now, there is an entire generation out there, who has never even experienced being in a car, let alone driving one. People of this generation are going to hark back to something that ceased to exist before they were born as much as I hark back to horse and carriage. Instead, they will cherish the pioneering devices of the post-car-era. Let's not forget, that one of those 1991 mobile appliances is a quarter century old machine now. Heck, that newfangled Piggo of mine will go on a classic policy next year, for crying out loud, and it still does a sterling job booting most of its godforsaken comma putters every morning. How the hell shall I convince the Junkwoman, that we must replace it with something older?

 

The other day, I had some kind of revellation. I followed an M plate Seville STS, which made some nice burble thanks to two boom boom Borla back boxes (<- beat this construct, you journalist types), into a car park and ended up parking next to it. When both of us disembarked, the owner of the Caddy turned out to be a punk kid not even half my age. I said something like "nice mucheen you got there" and he replied "yeah, I just love old yanks with big bloody V8s". Only then it occurred to me, that his car is 23 years old, exactly as old as my '60 Buick convertible was when I bought it for exactly the same reason. So to my own surprise, I heard myself say "that's the spirit, man".

 

I think it's people like him who will be the majority of the buyers of this new magazine and I'm glad that people like him finally got a magazine catering to them. Yes, for them an old Ford is a Mondeo MK1 and a 740i is for them, what a 3.0 Si is for me.

 

Plus, I'm sick and tired of seeing magazines with yet another red She-Type on the cover and a story inside, how some geezer triple my age restored yet another OMGMG in his fucking shithouse only with two spanners and his toes, or some other lethally boring horseshit like that. I would also exult if every single muscle car would just evaporate tomorrow, because I'm fed up with them seemingly being the only things ever made in Detroit.

 

Who knows, I might pick up the odd copy of this new rag (I'm actually looking forward to the classifieds section) and learn, that there might be some post-car stuff to consider after the last cars ceased to be suitable every day transportation (V12 Benz, anyone?). I might even learn not to give out on da yoofz so much.

OK, that last thing might be a bit far fetched.

[andrew e]

I bought a copy yesterday, I liked it, I fit the demographic (able to now buy the cars I couldn't justify/afford 15/20 years ago). I also know the Editor well. My only gripe is it didn't get a "Youngtimers" title like most European magazines do.

[andrew e]

I will just add I'm with the Junkman for being sick of "Birthday card" classics on magazines: E type, MgB, GT6, etc.

[Bear]

Seriously, the T-reg thing. I am not sure my brain even works properly on this.

 

In 1992 my first car was a Chevette (technically it was an Allegro, but it died before I was 17). My Shuv-it, as my 'friends' hilariously called it, was clearly a relic of a bygone era. It was RWD when their Novas and the spangly new Corsas were FWD. It had 4 speeds, and wipers that looked tiny, and one mirror I had to adjust by reaching out of the window, and four doors I had to lock all myself - but it was okay, because I could do them all from the driver's seat.

 

It was one of the last. 1984 registered. A-plate.

 

It got let in on the local classic car shows, polished to within an inch of its life (you could eat your dinner off the inner wings).

 

It was eight years old. My relic car was as old as a '57 plate Astra now. I don't even know what shape Astras were by that stage, I'd probably think they were brand new.

 

When I wanted a proper classic car, I got two projects. An absolutely rotten Morris 1100, and slightly later, a Vauxhall VX1800 from the scrappy. It had fibreglass wings.

 

The Morris was like something you'd pull from a hedge. It was rotten, it was scrap held together with paint. It was positive earth. It had a bloody dynamo.

 

It was a little bit over 20 years old. My 300CE is older than it was. My SLK - a car which looks great in my unbiased opinion - is older than my VX1800 was.

 

Cars. They really have come a long way in terms of longevity, technology and all that jazz. Shame they're bloated, identikit and often charmless lumps now :/

[Magnificent Rustbucket]

My Jag came out 29 years ago and has been out of production for over 20 years - yet is still considered a 'modern car' by the classic car boys. Crazy, really. Was the Jaguar MK VIII (the same age as the XJ40 in '86) really regarded as a modern car in the mid '80s? - I'm confident it wasn't.

 

I don't know why the American Muscle cars so overshadow the full sized land yachts. Nearly all of my favourite American cars are bigger and softer than the muscle cars. I prefer the big saloons and coupés; much more interesting and significantly less frantic. Style is king. The same is true of European cars. I prefer the big saloons like my Jag. I'd choose one every time over some frantic, manual, buzzy sporty-thing.

 

I can't agree car production stopped in 1986!   - It was clearly 1994, at least in Europe!

[Bear]

The Mk 1 XJ6 was regarded as a classic in the mid '80s. As was the 420G - when did the 420G end production, '69?

 

Actually never mind that - when did the E-type end? '75, though I expect purists would say '71. So the early '70s V12 DHC that was in our local Jaguar showroom as a bit of classic dressing - in part to draw attention for the XJ220 - could have been just 17 years old.

 

Yet even then, the thing was indisputably a classic, and indeed, some had been through the six-figure "investment" boom and bust (this one was £22,000, FWIW. I was 17. Seriously wish I'd just chased the finance to buy it).

[Junkman]

The Mk 1 XJ6 was regarded as a classic in the mid '80s. As was the 420G - when did the 420G end production, '69?

 

The 420G was still proudly manufactured in 1970, when I was 6 and sadly had to go to school. My second car was a 1964 Jaguar Mark X, which was as old as I was back then, 20. The same year I bought the Jag, I also bought a 1970 8.2 litre Eldorado, which seemed ancient at the time. Mind you, a 14 year old Eldorado today is on a 02 plate.

At the same time, I also bought a brand new Seat Ronda Chronos for my terminally bonkers Italian GF. Subsequently, I was driving her* Chronos, while she was driving my Eldorado. To Calabria and back twice a month. Hey, petrol wasn't exactly cheap even back then. Add the fucking motorway tolls. And the rent for a huge flat in Munich's city centre.

But of all those cars, the Seat is the only one that would fit into this new magazine.

[Jim Bell]

Can the OP please substitute the word Shite for the word Aspirational please. I find the thread title misleading. Mag seems to be unrelated to shite.

 

Popular on Pistonheads is perhaps a catchier tag than "Hero Cars of the 80s, 90s and 00s"

What does that even mean? I don't know Derrick, but it sounds dynamic moving forward.

 

I'm all for Journos having paid work and I hope it's a great success, but just as I don't see the point in watching Grand Designs, I don't see the point in reading how great hero cars are when I can't afford to buy one now or ever. I bet the classifieds section will be interesting, but if there's any other interesting features, I suppose they should have mentioned them on the cover.

 

Relative to my interests rating based on not reading it: 2/18.

[fred]

I think if a company could just ''copy and paste'' AS Once a month and publish it in magazine mode - It would outsell every fecking mag going

Its the VIZ Of the Car loving land

[warren t claim]

I must admit I bought the latest Classic Car Buyer so I could read our own Dugong waxing lyrical over the RS2000 and pinto engine.

[UltraWomble]

Mr Conelrad is twitching... 

 

I hope it succeeds, because I know how much work Keef and the team have put into it, but your point about the interweb is well made.

 

Cough - BrownMag, Original Tin.

 

In essence though, isnt Autoshite essentially an on line version of JoyPal

 

 

It'd be nice to bring Jalopy back, but it'd flop.

A magazine aimed at people running cars on a shoestring who drink mild because its 3p a pint cheaper than bitter was never going to be a big seller - aim it at the market sector who by their very nature are tightwads and opposed to spending money on frivolites.

 

Besides, how many active members of AS are there? A thousand? Thats your readership right there.

 

Pre-internet it had a chance, post internet not really.

 

 

 

 

Remember them doing that in the '90s? Remember the 1970s Stag as a cover car - in the early '90s, when the Stag would have been under 20 years old? Remember getting a T-reg car when prefix K was the new plate, and thinking it was like, a proper classic car - and it feeling like a relic from another era?

I still think X reg (suffix) cars are pretty new.

 

 

In 1992 my first car was a Chevette (technically it was an Allegro, but it died before I was 17). My Shuv-it, as my 'friends' hilariously called it, 

 

You are Susan Prescott and I claim my £5 - more to the point can I have my Fleetwood Mac LP back please?

[chaseracer]

^ I have been rendered uncharacteristically speechless! 

[beko1987]

Damn, I thought that Brownmag (cant remember the name now) had been resurrected!

[chaseracer]

CONSENSUS = interesting, has potential; assess second issue.  Retro Cars wasn't "built in a day" either...