To link alongside Mark's thread on tv car programmes - what are you views on the best car magazines out there - current and previous.
My money's on CAR magazine at the moment, closely followed by Autocar.
Steve
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Got a soft spot for Motor Sport, but my favourite (yonks ago) used to be a mag called Buying Cars. Think its where Quentin Willson first took a bow and where a guy called Richard Willsher used to dispense sound used car repair experiences.
Needless to say, it got bought out by one of the big publishers and completely ruined...
Without in anyway wishing to seem fawning, grovelling etc, I also look forward to Saturday's Telegraph for Andrew English's pithy observations and those of some geezer in the trade whose name escapes me...
Car's not bad by any means, but it's a bit up its own exhaust pipe appearance-wise sometimes. And how many of us really base their buying decision on the finer points of lift-off oversteer?
Autocar's obsessed with exclusives, and my experience of 'exclusives' is that they are of interest only to the journalists who write them.
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any mag which has more or less exclusively features on standard cars I and most other punters are likely to buy - ie no convertibles, 4x4s, sports cars, exec cars etc etc. Bought diesel car recently which was very readable
Splodgeface
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I used to read Car but it got a little dull for me. I much prefer Evo which is a bit more humourous but still provides in depth knowledge and gives you a feel of what the cars are actually like to drive. I like the long term tests that they do and I think the short article writers are pretty good.
I also read Classic Cars mag which again I find to be well written and informative. It usually has a few cars which I could quite fancy owning and realistically afford. The buying guides are excellent too. I do spend a lot of time day dreaming while I am reading it though, especially trawling through the cars for sale :-)
I also have a sub to Cars and Car Conversions with is a good in depth look at properly modified cars without all the pink neon, blondes and dodgy bodges. CCC also seem to have an actual understanding on how cars work and how to get the best out of them without blowing them to bits!
teabelly
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>>I also read Classic Cars mag which again I find to be well written and informative
I love that magazine. My wife usually hides it though. Something about keep getting ideas in my head and rushing off to spend money.
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I usually buy What Car every month, occasionally Top Gear, Auto Express or Autocar if there's a feature I'm interested in or I just haven't had a fix of motoring recently. Used to buy Car Import magazine before it turned into Car Buyer. But I like Diesel Car the best - it has a character all its own. Phil Llewellyn writes articles about his various trips which (endearingly) tell you far more about how he spent his weekend than about the car he was driving. Bob Cooke takes 4x4s into interesting places and reminisces about his army days. Dr Diesel insults everyone who writes in asking for advice. Antique cars or engines are featured every month. Also has loads of useful information about the cars and honest, genuine road tests (with their own tested mpg/0-60 times rather than quoted "official" figures) - eg they liked the Golf PD 150 but didn't try to convince that it was faster overall than the Civic Type R they compared it with. Sometimes it seems a little middle-aged, but at the same time they do a Superchips feature every month. It has an identity none of the others can touch. Long may it continue!
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I just subscribed to Classic Cars; Practical Classics is fine to see just how far some can go in converting a heap of rust and wreckage back into a car, but it's nice for the less resourceful to see cars which are intact to start with.
I have a vast box of old Motor Sports buried upstairs but I went quite off that when it stopped covering current motor sport, and became a another vehicle (no pun intended, it just happened) for expensive dealers' advertisements with scarcely any small ads where there used to be pages of them.
Is there a Jap cars mag? It would be good to have the more sporting specimens, not in one of those embarrassingly vulgar productions which one has to have a brass neck to buy, and then smuggle into the house!
Tomo
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Auto Sport.
Bike and car sport. Awesome!
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Yes, CAR magazine used to be my favourite mag, and it was the only mag I ever bought a subscription to. But I stopped subscribing about 5 years ago. Perhaps I was getting older or the editors were getting younger, but the mag certainly seemed to lose its edge for me.
Now, I get MotorSport now and again, and Autocar most weeks + MCN and the occasion F1 mag when the season starts.
BTW, anyone remember LJK Setright? He used to write for CAR and various bike mags, but I don't seem to see his name on articles any more.
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>BTW, anyone remember LJK Setright? He used to write for CAR and various bike mags, but I don't seem to see his name on articles any more
Yep, old 'Handlebars' (as per his moustache), remember him well, when I had a subscritpion to CAR in the late 60's and then it really WAS a good mag.
I vote for Autocar now as a good train read and least dumbed down.
CS
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Yes I remember LJK Setright. He had a lovely turn of phrase on occasion. My favourite was about a prototype aircraft which was a three quarter sized DH Mosquito produced towards the end of the war for research into high speed flight. LJKS described this as 'Two high speed engines hotly pursued by an airframe'
He also used to write some interesting articles on subjects such as alternative engine balance strategies for V8s. Bit of a change from todays dumbed down 'does the colour suit my tie and is the badge a VW' which todays non technical world majors on. (Sorry for the rant. My wife and daughters are convinced I am Victor Meldrew incarnate.)
SR
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Well, I understand your rant! When I was a lad at school, knowing how an engine worked, how to fix one etc etc was "the thing to do". The ability to fix your own transport was considered to be a manly activity, along with smoking behind the bikesheds. Several of us who had access to a bit of land had our own bangers when we were in our early teens.
Now it seems that not only do loads of people know absolutely zero about their cars, but they are not remotely embarrassed by this. I have one mate who has had a Laguna for 9 months and he hasn't even looked under the bonnet yet. I mean really...
I think that too much motoring journalism is written in such a way as not to exclude readers who are ignorant of even the very basics. I would love to read a mag that had features of a more technical nature.
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As cars are less and less 'user maintainable', private owners of new cars have less and less incentive to look under the bonnet, owners of company cars even less so.
If you are selling a magazine about new cars, manufacturers will invite you to product launches, loan you cars, send you promo material, whatever, to keep their latest car in your mind and your readers eye.
If you are selling a magazine that has more relevance to those of us in the real world, manufacturers won't be interested (your readers dont buy new cars, and probably don't have their cars serviced at dealers), you won't have the support, you won't have the advertising revenue.
In the current commercial environment, it is more profitable for a publisher/TV company to have a 'cozy' relationship with manufacturers. That said, you say that Top Gear is in a position to cover more 'real world' motoring issues. But it doesnt.
I have to grow old - but I don't have to grow up
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