PPC Magazine

[djoptix]

Brown bread.

😟

[bunglebus]

So I just saw on FB. Unfortunately print magazines are really expensive now, I picked up a copy in the newsagents recently, about the thickness of a Beano comic and something like £5.99.

I used to really like reading PPC and others, but I gave them all up several years ago

[louiepj]

Sad to see them go.
Have been notified that my subscription was cancelled.

[motorpunk]

I’ve written for them for years, but it’s always been a rearguard action, commercially. Sad but inevitable. There’s supposedly a potential rescue package being discussed but don’t hold your breath. Sad stuff.

[Rod/b]

The website has already gone offline

[groovyboovy]

That explains my standing order being cancelled, sad news

[Bren]

I used to buy a few magazines but now I am just down to car mechanics. I had every issue of practical sportsbikes but I even knocked that on the head. They are expensive.

[Dobloseven]

Sorry for being a bit thick, but what's PPC? Only mags I buy regularly are Practical Classics, which I've bought almost since day one, and Car Mechanics. Do buy others occasionally if I'm on holiday. 

[SiC]

Same. I have no idea who PPC are. I presumed practical classics to begin with but their website is still alive unlike mentioned above. 

[djoptix]

Practical Performance Car.

[Spiny Norman]

Print media in general is on its very last legs. The only people who want to read magazines these days no longer have the eyesight to do so.

I treated* myself to a sub for the once great CAR at Christmas last year and to say I was shocked at how the quality has plummeted is putting it mildly.  It's a comic, printed on bog paper with photographs of a quality you could take with a 10 year old phone.
I cancelled the recurring sub the day the first issue arrived and I haven't even bothered opening the last couple, binning them when they come through the door like junk mail.

Sad.

[Jazoli]

I used to buy a lot of mags until I discovered Readly, £10 a month for pretty much every mag you'd ever read delivered through an app, it must have helped in the decline of print sales. 

[Split_Pin]

Ive never read Practical Performance car as I'm not really interested in them.

In terms of magazines, I cancelled my Practical Classics subscription years ago. I had subscribed to Popular Classics since January 1990 and moved to Practical Classics in 1996 when they merged but latterly I was  getting tired of the sterile articles. The final straw was when John Simister basically said anyone that works in an office is wasting their life and you are a much better person if you fix things with your hands for a living. 

As a now home-based office worker who enjoys keeping cars as a separate hobby and does quite well from using his brain, I resented that.

Times have moved on, it will be more environmentally friendly when all formerly printed news/topical media moves online 

[sierraman]

I sometimes might buy Car Mechanics if I’ve got a long journey, to kill a bit of time. I don’t know who it’s aimed it in fairness, a lot of the buying guides are very poorly researched, just generic information basically. 

[bunglebus]

And yet the shelves in WH Smith's are heaving with Your Tortoise and Houseplant Digest.

Some are making it work, Street Machine relaunched a few years ago, and there's a VW mag called Hayburner that not only knock out a thick, perfect bound magazine every quarter, it's free for subscribers other than postage. They have sidelines in printing clothing and selling accessories etc too, and are very active at car shows. One way or another there's still demand and a viable market

[sierraman]

1 minute ago, Split_Pin said:

Ive never read Practical Performance car as I'm not really interested in them.

In terms of magazines, I cancelled my Practical Classics subscription years ago. I had subscribed to Popular Classics since January 1990 and moved to Practical Classics in 1996 when they merged but latterly I was  getting tired of the sterile articles. The final straw was when John Simister basically said anyone that works in an office is wasting their life and you are a much better person if you fix things with your hands for a living. 

As a now home-based office worker who enjoys keeping cars as a separate hobby and does quite well from using his brain, I resented that.

Times have moved on, it will be more environmentally friendly when all formerly printed news/topical media moves online 

I’ve encountered that before, a massive chip on their shoulder that unless you have a job throwing telegraph poles into skips or building the Bristol Suspension bridge single handed you are in some way less of a person. 

[DavidB]

I used to read this in the 00's, it was really in the spirit of Autoshite, I remember someone doing the cheapest possible campervan conversion with a Sherpa. Retro Cars was good before it changed format to a hipper 'slammed to the deck wide wheels wit matt black paint' version.

 

[motorpunk]

2 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

it will be more environmentally friendly when all formerly printed news/topical media moves online 

Putting aside the printing things on trees and planting more even trees argument....

Can't people see that online content is mostly crap? It's either riddled with adverts, or buried deep in some FaceBook-style domain where your personal, digital profile is scrutinsed and sold to? It costs to create good quality content, the things we like to read, with good insight and nice photography. You can either pay a few quid and get something nice, in your hands, or sift through a billion tones of pixels looking for something good online. It's an impossible scenario. No-one wants to pay for stuff online, that's what kills things. Even forums are dying now as FaceBook and social media hoover up the world's attention. Look at the 'orrible, prolonged death throes of PistonHeads.

My own magazine, MotorPunk, went the other way - we had (and still have, actually) a very large online readership but it actually costs us money to produce it. Many folks said they'd pay to have a print copy (which would help us to cover our costs) and, so, we made a quarterly magazine for one year and put our heart and soul into making what we thought was great content. And for every 100 people who said "Cool! We'll buy it!" maybe only a quarter of 'em actually did. And so it never created the sales needed to make it viable, nor the volume to attract advertisers. It was bloody great fun, though. Back copies still available from the publisher. 

I will admit that standards could be higher, in print. I still believe if it's good enough, people will buy it. But the end result will be something like that of local newspapers online - a tiny snippet of 'news' (recycled celebrity shit they found on Twitter, usually) buried under a billion inane adverts. Do you really want that?

As an aside, for every 10 people who say they'll miss PPC (and mags in print in general), I reckon only 1 of 'em ever bothered to subscribe. They were the first magazine to print my work and so I'll miss 'em, but I am not surprised. Sad times.

Harrumph. 

 

[Split_Pin]

If I found something where the writer's personality is evident in their prose, I'd absolutely pay good money to erase the adverts and be able to read it properly.

I used to really like Nick Larkin's style. He would write what he felt and thought rather than gravely stick to the subject. I also used to think Danny Hopkins was a good laugh and he could never be serious in a photoshoot which was great. That's just my opinion though as I like a sense of humour and humility in written articles.

[Bren]

5 hours ago, bunglebus said:

And yet the shelves in WH Smith's are heaving with Your Tortoise and Houseplant Digest.

Some are making it work, Street Machine relaunched a few years ago, and there's a VW mag called Hayburner that not only knock out a thick, perfect bound magazine every quarter, it's free for subscribers other than postage. They have sidelines in printing clothing and selling accessories etc too, and are very active at car shows. One way or another there's still demand and a viable market

As far as I am aware street machine ceased due to covid - I have not seen it anywhere since.

[DaveDorson]

As the resident pineapple and modified old Volkswagen fan, I've recently re-opened my subscription to Hayburner magazine, because they support the classic VW community, and I really like being a part of that community.

I got sent my "free" (you pay for the postage only, it's a quarterly mag), and I have to confess I've not managed to sit down and read it yet.

[Datsuncog]

Retro Cars also had the plug pulled due to fears over how Covid might impact on magazine sales, I believe - publishers Kelsey nixed it back in 2020, just after I'd taken out a subscription, ironically enough.

I'd bought the first issue back in 1996 and kept on with it for a few years, though eventually found it was all getting a bit 'slammed and glammed' and kinda lost interest. But it had taken my interest again just before it folded, as it had started to feature - well - a number of cars from these fair pages. But sadly it wasn't to be.

I used to browse PPC on the shelves at Tesco, but I don't think I was ever moved to buy a copy.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I read all the mags on Readly and I’m amazed at how much regurgitated shit is in these sub prime “ classic”  magazines .  Lots of articles using the same pictures as everyone else, obviously aimed at trying to get advertisers to increase their spend” Because we’ve got a big Boxster/ Rover 75/ Spirit/ SLK article this month”  Writing yet another MX5 history or a what to look for on the S-Type feature must be soul destroying, assuming there isn’t an algorithm on Cheapskate Publishing For Idiots. Com

At least Octane, C&SCand Classic Car have some interesting columnists and nice adverts to look at.

[83C]

17 hours ago, Bren said:

I used to buy a few magazines but now I am just down to car mechanics. I had every issue of practical sportsbikes but I even knocked that on the head. They are expensive.

I only bought PS when it got amalgamated with Performance Bikes. When the PB segment got canned and the ex-PB editor started spouting nonsense about modern bikes being too powerful for the road etc I sacked off PS. They also got shot of their best writer (John McAvoy) and with him the stuff worth reading. 

Can’t say I’ve read PPC for a while, sad to see it go though. Was great reading about Charlie Broomfield's 27 litre SD1 and the daft roof chopped R-R Shadow.

[Rocket88]

I used to get it regularly, but it seemed to get thinner with every issue. Used to enjoy Holman’s rants

[HMC]

I remember it’s early days as will Holman and his colleague were previously on pc just beforehand.

I wonder if the readership base was eroded by other more established mags becoming more open minded- for instance pc used to have a lot of readers that were perhaps older and not into more modern classic vehicles and very into originality.
 

Now pc is a lot more open minded and un snobbish about both, to its credit- but that sort of tread on one USP of PPC, to my mind at least.

[HMC]

9 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Ive never read Practical Performance car as I'm not really interested in them.

In terms of magazines, I cancelled my Practical Classics subscription years ago. I had subscribed to Popular Classics since January 1990 and moved to Practical Classics in 1996 when they merged but latterly I was  getting tired of the sterile articles. The final straw was when John Simister basically said anyone that works in an office is wasting their life and you are a much better person if you fix things with your hands for a living. 

As a now home-based office worker who enjoys keeping cars as a separate hobby and does quite well from using his brain, I resented that.

Times have moved on, it will be more environmentally friendly when all formerly printed news/topical media moves online 

My interest in PC started at the same time as you, and at the same age. I used to really love it, partly as at that age it was the way get as close to owning and driving an older car, without being able to or having anyone in the vicinity that did.

 

[stuboy]

i used to read, fast ford, performance ford, readers wives, total vauxhall and twist n go magazines, but cancelled it all as just piled up in the corner unread.

[HMC]

I’ve been a subscriber to PC, C&SC, Mercedes enthusiast and some professional journals.

Im currently a subscriber to private eye, but nothing else. They have resisted much online presence and seem to revel in the old school, old tech newsprint format. 

[bunglebus]

I had the same problem with Volksworld, Ultra VW, Street Machine and Custom Car. Cancelled them all, think I burnt myself out as I went on a mission trying to get a complete set of everything so I had Custom Car from #1 in 1970, Street Machine from #1 in 1979 plus loads of other titles such as Hot Car. I had thousands and it got too much, sold the whole lot to someone.

Funny enough having mentioned Hayburner earlier, they've just put on Facebook that the cost of publishing an issue has gone up by £2500 in a year, so they're offering space in the mag at £5 a square inch! Might send a pic of one of my toy VWs in...