I have been regular Autocar (nee Motor) reader/buyer now for 15 years or so and have regarded it as the number one car magazine , but is it?
Quick scan of my local newsagent middle shelf reveals many other periodicals devoted in one way or another to the car industry. Some i've heard of, some i haven't
So which is best? What's your favourites and why?
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Octane.
I subscribe to Autocar but it seems to be not such a good read lately (bit boring?).
I have recently joined a few car clubs and have been impressed with the mags they produce especially Vintage Sports Car Club.
Also finding that you can get cheaper, instantanious and better independant info on cars from enthusiast sites on the internet. RSOC and AMOC being good examples.
Part of the trouble with magazines is that they cannot really cheese off the person supplying the car, so they are not really independent. i.e. How many times have TVR or Aston produced cars of much better quality than the last one according to the mags, only for a new one to come along and the car the magazines praised three years ago is lambasted for poor quality. How many times has the Golf GTI been beaten in roadtests only to be top of the pile when a new competitor comes out?
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Forgot. Octane is good because it embraces cars as a life style and has brilliant photography and prose. A bit like the old SuperCar Classics used to be.
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Yet another good talking point - thank you Imagos.
I've had Autocar since 1962 and I enjoy it, but there's no doubt that supercars and coupes generally are given priority - maybe that's what most readers want though I'm not convinced. As I've said recently in another thread, I think they have too many young male testers who think that ride and handling in extremes are the single most important feature to judge a car on.
Car - gets more coffee-table by the issue, and I've given up buying it regularly. Best for those who pipe-dream about supercars. It was better and more varied in the days of Steve Cropley (who is good in Autocar) and Gavin Green - they love many different types of car and can put this over.
What Car and Test Drive - quite similar: plenty of copy about cars that you and I might buy, and the tests are full and detailed. BMWs don't always win as they do in Autocar. Some might find the writing a bit pedestrian, but they do their job, which I take to be helping us to choose our next car.
Diesel Car - I quite like this as it is wide-ranging and fair. Good full road tests, although they don't do enough petrol v diesel comparisons - nor do other magazines, which is silly as a lot of us make just that decision each time we buy a car.
Auto Express - too superficial though they are trying to improve.
I liked the comment someone made in a recent thread - if you read people's comments in this forum you don't need a car magazine! Couple this with HJ's road tests and you could argue that that's all anyone needs.
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I used to like What Car?, but just recently they have started inserting so many advertising pages (which are thicker than the normal pages and which often open out) that it is becoming tedious trying to find the next normal page. I'm aware that adverts help to keep the price down but I just wish that they would put them all together at the back.
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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i just read this forum for half hour with my brekkie every morning, much better than ANY mag.
even fiesta ;-)
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Quite like Car Mechanic and Auto Express, though not too sure about its new format!
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Amazing thing about Autocar is it's been going for 110 years!
Sometimes they get critisism in their letters page saying the hacks are all frustrated racing drivers with too much emphasis on handling etc. I can see there point but that's Autocar's raison d'etre a more technical aspect rather than how many cup holders it has.
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You're probably right, Imagos, though I think it's a pity that in a magazine that'e been there all this time they can't be a little more 'generalist'.
The probable reason behind it is that Autocar and What Car are published by the same company.
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I haven't bought a car mag for years now. I used to get Auto Express but found it a bit "Tabloidesqe", printing rumours and hearsay as fact. Practical mechanics was a must have before it became illegal to open your own bonnet.
From an intensive study of magazines left in various waiting rooms, Autocar would top my list followed closely by Top Gear.
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I bought Performance Car religiously for about 10 years from around '89 whilst the likes of Clarkson used to write the inside back page column (can't remember title). After it's demise, I started buying it's successor Evo for a few years.....now I hardly buy any car mags, unless for a specific feature of interest at the time.
IMO, the photography in Performance Car was miles ahead of the competition at the time and similarly with Evo when it was launched, though the other mags have caught up now.
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Have been reading Autocar and before that Motor since I was 10 - I am now 45. Autocar has become fixated with high powered sports cars and running a clapped out Maserati for £100 per week. I dont have £100 a week to waste on a car but I do like to know whats new, the best value etc. It may seem silly but a motoring magazine must strike a balance between information and imagination and Autocar simply isnt doing this at present. I a close to stopping my weekly order.
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"Otherwise I still buy Autocar and Auto Express for the news, buy 'What Car' occasionally for its handy databank (quicker then looking something up in my own database while I'm answering an e-mail) and I do the Q&A for Used Car Buyer which has been taken over by the publishers of '4x4 and MPV Driver'.
HJ"
Don't rely on them too much HJ!
Many, many of the technical facts and (especially) equipment facts at the back of What Car? are woefully out of date. One example:-
I initially was choosing my new car from the back of What Car?'s spec sheet on each model, comparing cost vs. equipment to give myself a short-list.
If I had relied solely on this I would not be going to pick up my new S60 Volvo tommorow. I would have bought a SAAB 93, dismissing the S60 as miserly on it's standard spec (it is far from that!).
The pic of the car is 10 months out of date (face lift June last year) shows a colour no longer available, it claims Climate Control £750 extra (no, standard on all models), traction control £620 (no, standard along with DSTC ((Volvo's ESP system)). It is things like this that irritate me when they continue month after month when the latest BMW is shown with an accurate listing before they are available in showrooms!
Moany git mode off------click! After all I get a new car tommorow - Yippee!!!
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I subscribe to 'evo' and the American 'Automobile' magazine.
'evo' is in my opinion the best enthusiast magazine in the UK, and 'Automobile' is interesting for the opposing view of the motoring world from the other side of the Atlantic. Plus it has columns by Phil Llewellyn and Jamie Kitman, who will be familiar names to many.
I used to read CAR back in the Nineties during the Gavin Green era, and it was that publication that got me into motorcars in a big way. Monthly columns from George Bishop and LJKS were eagerly awaited. It went steadily downhill and I don't think I've bought an issue in two to three years, I've given up reading it in WHSmiths too.
I've been impressed with recent issues of 'Octane', and might even subscribe during a moment of weakness.
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"I used to read CAR back in the Nineties during the Gavin Green era, and it was that publication that got me into motorcars in a big way. Monthly columns from George Bishop and LJKS were eagerly awaited. It went steadily downhill and I don't think I've bought an issue in two to three years, I've given up reading it in WHSmiths too."
Couldnt agree more. Car in the late 80's early 90's was a fabulous read (even LJK - at least I could guffaw at his buffonery)
Went down hill in a big way very quickly. Now only by car mags when there is a major car launch or its car choosing time.
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Motor and Autocar reader since 1968. Yes, this meeks issue is infested with sports cars. But are we not enthusiasts getting our vicarious thrill from readng about the latest and best cars.
There is even a review of the latest booted Focus for those interested in such things.
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I wasna fu but just had plenty.
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There isn't a good one.
Which is the least worst?
I used to enjoy Motorsport in the days of denis jenkinson (am I that old?) but now it is a shadow of its former self.
Top Gear - written for 9 year olds.
Autocar - nothing in it and what there is is boring.
Car Mechanics Some decent articles, but a lot of boring ones. OK for anoraks.
EVO and the like - one long yawn.
What car - Lots of data, I flatly refuse to believe they measure all those capacities and dimensions. Too concerned with price on the road - what about the two essentials r's - reliability and residuals. Their recommendations are just not realistic, otherwise how could they ever suggest a French car?
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Car, but you'll have to travel back to the 1980s. Frightening how many of them are dead. I think LJKS is still going strong. I'd read the back of a cornflake packet if he wrote it.
John
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Still get CAR (have done for 32 years) but close to stopping the subscription now. You all know why.
Used to read Car & Driver from the US. Much more irreverant than anything else, but as I haven't been to the US for a while, I lost interest.
Thought Test Drive was OK, the issue I read, better than What Car. Haven't heard of Octane - can someone tell me about it?
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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While owned and edited by John Kerswill Diesel Car was excellent. Reasonably objective road tests plus features like taxi talk and some stuff on light commercials. Regular columnists included Stuart Bladon (taking the Parking Adjudicators for a test drive!) and Phil Llewellyn.
Went downhill after being sold to Future and has continued to be near indistiguishable form the lad mags ever since.
There must still be a market for a literate Car mag with a wide ranging content.
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When I lived in the US I enjoyed 'Car and Driver'. Good variety of articles from exotic to mundane.
Can find in UK occasionally - find it in Borders and read over a coffee.
JAJ
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When I first bought a 4wd (back in 1993) I read OR&4WD (Off road and four wheel drive) from cover to cover. Then I got a bit bored. I suspect the mag has since disappeared.
These days I regularly read Test Drive and really enjoy it. OK, I admit that the next 3 copies will only cost £1 due to their special promotion, but I genuinely enjoy this publication.
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Autocar has too much industry stuff in it these days; if I want that I can get it better and sooner in Automotive Week, the US/Global trade paper.
What Car is now poor value; as someone else has said far too many intrusive/annoying ads and advertorials and an overwhelming amount of impenetrable data. Get it back to basics, chaps. A fatter mag that costs more isn't a better read. Less is more.
Test Drive - what's the point?
Top Gear and Car - still some refreshing flashes in TG but the novelty value has worn off. Car? An object lesson in how big publishing companies smother wit, style and originality and replace it with a marketing-led magazine-by-bean-counters. Old-style Car's The Good, the Bad and The Ugly section was a refreshing assault on marketing pomposity. Now it's just another data section.
Some of the niche publications work because they know their stuff but if you're not up the exhaust pipe of a particular sector they're meaningless.
The only mags that vaguely talk my language are Octane and Motor Sport. Octane because I'm on the verge of an insane decision to waste some hard-earned moolah on a late 70s Aston V8 (surprisingly cheap now, but shockingly expensive later), Motor Sport because it revisits the great eras of sportscar and F1 racing.
There doesn't seem to be any unanimity in this thread on what is the best mag, so change the title slightly: Car magazines...who is the best writer? There, I suspect, we'll find some interesting answers.
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so change the title slightly: Carmagazines...who is the best writer? There, I suspect, we'll find some interesting answers.
Russell Bulgin was a motor writing genius until his unfortuate demise.
Alan Henry for his inside knowledge of F1
BBC radio hack and freelance magazine contributor Maurice Hamilton
They've all written for Autocar btw.
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Agree, Morris Ox (though I preferred the Austin Cam, my first car many years ago....)
Motoring writers - I always enjoy Steve Cropley (Autocar) and Gavin Green (various): Car was a great magazine when they were successively in charge. They love cars - not just supercars - and can communicate that to the reader.
Phil Llewellin (freelance) is hugely readable - he writes as if he were a friend, and never fails to interest, whether he's writing about cars or his travels.
I'm sure many will nominate the rabbinical Leonard Setright - a it too long-winded for my taste. It's still possible to write with style without going over the top.
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>>Motoring writers - I always enjoy Steve Cropley (Autocar) Car was a great magazine when they were successively in charge.
Steve Cropley knows his stuff and yes your're correct avant he's a proper enthusiast not just a supercar man.
However i feel his wings are clipped slightly at Autocar. His only direct contributon i can see is his weekly diary which is becoming slightly tedious, he's been doing this format for many years now.
His best days were undoubtably at Car magazine, I've a 1982 copy where he writes a full 6 pages on the virtues of a car market not ready for the New Ford Sierra.
Outstanding journalism.
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Steve Cropley, consistently good over a number of years.
George Bishop, ok he should have written posts on here, as he often wandered off motoring so would have fitted in perfectly, but still none the less a good read.
You all know what I feel about LJK,
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I've always been a fan a Big Georg Kacher, he was another one from the glory days of CAR and, like Llewellyn, contributes to Automobile Magazine.
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Nobody will own up to Max Power, then?
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Nobody will own up to Max Power, then?
Max Power wasn't too bad when it first started, but then very quickly became a boy racer mag rather than a car modification magazine, now it is just a jazz mag that the supermarkets insist are sold in sealed wrappers.
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