Practical Classics have stolen £4.40 From Me!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

fucking moan moan moan etc

[Jim Bell]

Beryl. This is the whinge button. You leave this button alone.

[dugong]

fucking moan moan moan etc

 

I'd like to rename work's letters page, please. 

[Alexg]

http://newsthump.com/2016/09/15/bbc-to-only-make-programmes-specific-to-interests-of-man-from-kent/

[oldcars]

Thats what smart phones are for.

I prefer toilet paper but each to there own.

[flat4alfa]

[Tamworthbay]

Yes, but PC's audience caters to slightly broader tastes than yours - and its feature spread is still eclectic.

If it all it had were double page spreads on bilge, I'd lose the will to live - and so (shock horror! conspiracy revealed) would the advertisers.

I never understood why people buy a magazine on the strength of one feature - so they can read stuff they already knew about with the express purpose of knocking holes in it. Is it some kind of moral one-upmanship? The same mentality whinge about editorial accuracy but never want to help with said pieces while they're being written or stay out of the way to seek the final piece out (and then complain, loudly).

The canny ones want the message about their chosen marque as precise as they can get it (and will help contribute).

 

I seem to remember similar complaints from AS when Retro Japanese came out. There had to be quick stuff to draw readers in; like PC, RJ hasn't exactly been bereft of chod before or since.

 

Are you mistaking me for the OP? I have been a subscriber to PC for more than a decade and a regular reader for twice that. My tastes vary from 1920s 7s to modern stuff, from French fancies to Eastern European trash, from sports cars to ex military tracked vehicles and a million things in between on two four and more wheels. I doubt many people have a more varied taste and the reason I like PC is that you never know what will be in it. What I am not interested in is cars that cost as much as a small house so when I see a buyers guide for a Healey costing £50k or more then it doesn't fit the practical classic niche, anymore than a buyers guide for my 1.6l Capri would fit in one of the up market classic sports car mags'. Horses for courses and all that. Much as I happen to love the healey it isn't why I buy PC, the reason I buy it is for the cars that aren't covered elsewhere. And SHOCK HORROR people who own capris and maxis and triumphs and datsuns also buy stuff for their cars and SHOCK HORROR II the revenge of shock horror, companies exist to supply these parts - many of which advertise in PC.

 

If PC wants to become another mag full of cheque book restos and cars costing stupid amounts then it will blend into the many other titles and fade away.

 

It's good to be different.

[quicksilver]

You are missing the point, there are lots of mags that feature super expensive cars that 99% of the population will never afford. PC is (was?) different, the restos were almost all owner done to at least some degree and the range of cars was brilliant. When they start featuring cheque book restos on rare alfas, as they did a few months back, they lose what makes them special. If you want to look at super cars there are far better mags out there than PC. I love PC because of the massive range of cars featured but also because the majority of them are vaguely affordable, super cars are of no interest at all, they aren't, never have been and most likely never will be part of my life. And the selfish idea that we should just accept what they offer as long as they are having fun doing it is utter suicide in a world where circulation is falling across most if not all printed media.

PC has always been like this with occasional exotica. I have the very first issue from 1980 and it has a feature on the Ferrari Superfast, which even then was a rare and expensive thing and not exactly a typical practical classic. By way of balance, it also features the restoration of a barely 20-year-old Austin A40 that most people in those days probably won't even have considered a classic at all.