Revamped (May 2013) 'Motor Sport' magazine

As a reader of the iPad version of Motor Sport, I do have to say they need to invest in a bit more bandwidth, or whatever it is they need to do to speed up download times. It takes me something like 45 minutes to download each issue. Other magazines, where the download size is maybe half that of Motor Sport, take me only a minute or two at most.

As a reader of the iPad version of Motor Sport, I do have to say they need to invest in a bit more bandwidth, or whatever it is they need to do to speed up download times. It takes me something like 45 minutes to download each issue. Other magazines, where the download size is maybe half that of Motor Sport, take me only a minute or two at most.

I tried the iPad version myself and didn't like it.
Hurt my eyes after a bit.
And I couldn't wet my finger tip before I turned the page.

As a reader of the iPad version of Motor Sport, I do have to say they need to invest in a bit more bandwidth, or whatever it is they need to do to speed up download times. It takes me something like 45 minutes to download each issue. Other magazines, where the download size is maybe half that of Motor Sport, take me only a minute or two at most.

A magazine primarily dedicated to history trying to keep up with today's technology, but not quite? Ironic.

Having just received my copy of May's Motor Sport, I now know what you're all talking about! I don't mind it at all - I'm growing tolerant of today's misuse of apostrophes and other grammatical errors, but I don't see why they had to edit and prune Jenks' article on his Elan trip. Sacrilege!

Edited by RogerFrench, 30 April 2013 - 03:27.

Glad to see the June issue has a whole page devoted to reviews (has somebody with clout been listening?), but I'm more critical of the lack of depth in individual reviews than the actual number of books/DVDs reviewed (quality over quantity, if you like). Even if they reviewed just ONE book or DVD per month, but did it in more depth, devoting at least a whole page to it, I'd be very happy. It is clearly unfeasible to cover every book or DVD released (and most are rubbish anyhow), so why not judiciously select one or two new or recent releases each month and let somebody go to town on the review(s)? Or even ask readers to send in their own reviews and print them if they're up to scratch, like the letters pages? Cheap as chips either way.

Liked the focus on the 911 in this issue, by the way. Perhaps Mr Elford could be asked to follow up with an article on his experiences 69-71 (with the 917s and 908/03s in particular)? I did buy his autobiography a couple of years ago and I've read it a couple of times, but it never gets boring to hear about eras like this again and again from the people at the sharp end, while they're still around. The Rosemeyer article made me think that soon the '50s and '60s will pass into the same obscurity - nobody who was around at the time (as an adult, anyway) will be there to 'go to'. All we'll have is books and old mags (and some grainy old film footage). 1937 may as well be 1837, and it won't be long before 1957 or even 1967 go that way too. Please get as many interviews done as you can with these people, MS.

Having read the first two revamped issues now they've dropped through my door, I'd have to say that the new style is not particularly to my taste as the typeface and layout gives me the feeling that it's now just another car magazine, not a view I held about Motorsport previously, maybe I'll warm to it over time. My main criticism would be the ever increasing road car tests... not that I'm rising to the bait laid by Andrew Frankel in his Dacia review, because it's not that one review that forms my opinion, as I'd rather not see any road car reviews or tests at all if I'm honest, I don't want to read about the latest 911 or Audi road car in Motorsport magazine, I'd buy Auto Express or something similar for that.

I'd rather see a few more modern experiences of driving historic race machinery, but I accept that if the road car tests bring in more advertising which enables us to continue reading the other contributors articles each month then so be it. Although I must say that when I saw the number of pages devoted to this section the feelings of doubt started to creep in about whether I'll renew my subscription next year.

As much as I was looking forward to the racing 911's article that the cover promoted I was slightly disappointed when I realised that although it was written by Quick Vic himself, it was almost a direct copy of the text in his 'golden era of motorsport' book (which is one of my favourites admittedly). I suppose there aren't many ways to tell the same story, still enjoyable to read but I hoped for something more. Although for those who hadn't read his book previously, I'm sure they thought it was great. I'd like to see him feature as a guest writer more in the future as I really enjoyed the bit he wrote for the Nurburgring article a while back. Not over keen on the comic strip items either, although I do like the actual artwork, but I feel it's short changing the drivers featured a little... it would be nice if it could be linked to either any book reviews about the same people or just have a proper feature.

I'll be interested to see if the content remains the same sort of split in the future issues, as it is becoming a compromise for me as for the value of reading the excellent Nigel Roebuck and Doug Nye articles amongst others, against the sections I'd normally bypass until the last scrap of every other piece had been read.

edited for typo (one of many I'm sure)

Edited by DampMongoose, 30 April 2013 - 11:56.

Another cracking read this month , especially lunch with Win Percy who sounds one of the nicest men who ever raced a car . His Tom Walkinshaw anecdotes are certainly revealing , as is his account of the support he got from the racing community after his botched operation.What I found especially shocking was that Win had exactly the same surgical procedure as I had last year. I am now fully back to normal and poor old Win was paralysed.

Yes, there's a lot of good stuff in it this month, so I've made it the one copy per year that I tend to buy nowadays.

Having been trying to help DCN and Mike Oliver with pictures of Lotus 25s, I'm delighted to see Doug's article..........but now I'm even more confused, if possible! I shall read it again.......and again and again.

But I'd still like to know what this car started life as:



The 1967 Parnell-FVA (or a version of it, not apparently owing much to a Lotus 25 except the nose section)


Paul M

Edited by Macca, 01 July 2013 - 15:34.

Paul,

The Parnell F2 used, I am sure, the monocoque tub of Mike Spence's 1966 F1 Parnell-team Lotus-BRM 33...the car we came to know as R13. Its front end was modified to accept Les Redmond-style outboard-coil/damper suspension as used successfully on the 1966 Parnell-BRM sports car. Its rear bay housed a standard 1.6-litre Cosworth FVA 4-cyl engine. The car has come down to us today via some 40 years display at Donington as Lotus 25 'R7'. In fact R7 exited the scene in 1965...fate as yet unconfirmed, although - I have just been told this morning - it was written off due to a testing accident while being driven by "some Dutchman". This rings the faintest of bells...and the name Rob Slotemaker springs to mind...but I really hope that thereby I am not doing his memory a grave disservice?

While we thought for years that R3 was the 'lost Lotus 25' in fact it survived, went to New Zealand and thence to John Dawson-Damer as what he, and we, thought was 'R4'. Explaining the full story in just three magazine pages was never ever going to be easy. But having discovered the error it would have been wrong to ignore it. Sorry it's confusing.

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 02 July 2013 - 16:19.

As a reader of the iPad version of Motor Sport, I do have to say they need to invest in a bit more bandwidth, or whatever it is they need to do to speed up download times. It takes me something like 45 minutes to download each issue. Other magazines, where the download size is maybe half that of Motor Sport, take me only a minute or two at most.

Maybe they have upped their capacity because I've just downloaded the November 2011 issue in around two and a half minutes. The day does have to be young though to read it on my little iPad mini otherwise its quite a strain when my eyes are tired.

One advantage of the downloaded edition must be that you don;t have to take a craft knife and cut out the 20-odd extraneous pages of watch advertising that blighted the middle of the latest print edition.

 

Who the hell buys these ugly and stupidly overpriced bits of bling anyway?  Surely not sensible MotorSport readers?

Nothing wrong with Andrew Frankel.

I know him reasonably well and he was in one of my cars at LMC.

Gives short shift to idiots but that is reasonable.

The car tests at least have an opinion rather than the writer making sure he doesn't screw up the chances of another free lunch.

D C N is from same school and a good very straightforward fellow although he occasional does accept unusual historical stories!

Andrews brother Richard ,a good bloke,is even more straightforward! It may be him some of you have bumped into.Great fleet of family cars and they use them.

One advantage of the downloaded edition must be that you don;t have to take a craft knife and cut out the 20-odd extraneous pages of watch advertising that blighted the middle of the latest print edition.

 

Who the hell buys these ugly and stupidly overpriced bits of bling anyway?  Surely not sensible MotorSport readers?

One must bear in mind that advertising, in this case watch ads, is the life blood of magazines. Without ads, no mag. While I, like many, will not buy any of these watches, I appreciate the fact that the watch makers feel that there is enough of an audience of potential buyers that they do spend the money on ads. The price of any magazine is held down by the presence of ads. Skip over them, don't read them, even cut them out if that is your predilection, but do not forget the service that they perform in the delivery of what you are reading.

Because of a cock up in the Subs dept of this esteemed organ I have two copies; one read , one unopened. If anybody wants it please contact me and I will stick it in the post. No payment needed- put  a quid in the next charity box you see.

 

 

 

Now claimed !

Edited by john aston, 13 November 2013 - 16:38.

Who the hell buys these ugly and stupidly overpriced bits of bling anyway?  Surely not sensible MotorSport readers?

 

One might conclude that insensible readers of Motor Sport are the target market for the magazine.

 

The magazine needs readers, who might not be you and me. The magazine seeks aspirational people; folks who buy a (what the bloomin' hell) BRM watch. 

 

And all of us have worked out that you can run an Austin 7 racer for a few years for the cost of a watch.

 Motorsport, I have allways supported it, apart from the "Red" period.

 

But now......

 

Have just read the Ron Tauranac interview...

what clown did do that one ??

Apparently the Ralt RT1 is a spaceframe car not a monocoque to make crash repairs easier for smaller teams.

 

yes, sure....

 

I mean, somebody gets a chance to interview one of THE most signifcant living race car designers and is not even able to keep proper notes ? Better send the tea Lady then, next time

what a wasted opportunity

 

I love the "Lunch with" series, sometimes the only part of the magazine that I really read, usually 5 times.

 

Rudolf

Edited by Rudernst, 29 December 2013 - 22:18.

I can well recommend this month's Motor Sport.  As good a history for the already-informed of European motor racing since the 1920s as you will find.  All sorts of things in there which were new to me, or which I had never thought about.

 

And the pic on page 213...is Louis Wagner doing a handbrake turn?  In 1908?

I'm only half way through but I have to agree with ensign14. It's an issue to put on one side to catch more nuance on rereading.

I'm only half way through but I have to agree with ensign14. It's an issue to put on one side to catch more nuance on rereading.

 

Now, this isn't something I'm proud of, but there are still pages in their 70th & 80th year editions that I haven't read yet. Me? Slow??

Now, this isn't something I'm proud of, but there are still pages in their 70th & 80th year editions that I haven't read yet. Me? Slow??

Well stop wasting time here and get on with it, slacker!

I got stuck for a long time on page 43 of the 90th anniversary issue. Light grey type on a light grey background didn't work when four colour printing presses were introduced and doesn't work in 2014. So I still don't know where to buy a new McLaren...

 

More seriously though, the green 'un has a typography problem in editorial content. Standard type -- black on white -- is normally fine but the designers do not understand when/how it is appropriate to overlay text on a photo. White text overlay on a black and white photograph is difficult to read -- so make body text a smidge bigger if it is more than a few lines. A black text caption at the bottom of a photo might mess up the pic so that I don't paste it in my scrapbook -- but please make it easier to read the caption, because I no longer keep a scrapbook. Black text overlay on colour photographs is often worse than how black and white photos are treated. Just don't type over cars or incidents.

 

The magazine is designed to be read on paper and proofing needs to be conducted accordingly. Monitors project light; paper reflects light. 

 

I'm not suggesting any change that a graphic or web designer does not comprehend as readable design.

Good news is that Motor Sport are going to be producing some collections of photos from the LAT archive and the first volume is available for pre-order

http://shop.motorspo...aign=60sinfocus

Talking to a Motor Sport staff man at the weekend, he tells me that they have come up with a lot of fascinating stuff that hasn't been published before, and hasn't even been catalogued in the archive

Looks like a 'must have', and at a soothing price

I remain to be convinced: Motorsport Magazine is still a shadow of its former self and I imagine this effort will be in the same vein.

I remain to be convinced: Motorsport Magazine is still a shadow of its former self and I imagine this effort will be in the same vein.

Irrespective of your views on the magazine, I strongly suspect you will be proved wrong on your latter point, sabre

Irrespective of your views on the magazine, I strongly suspect you will be proved wrong on your latter point, sabre

 

Well I shall give it a go and see... Intrigued.

Well. sabrejet. I can tell you that your reservations have proved to be unfounded (as I suspected). My copy arrived this morning and it is absolutely superb..As Damien Smith says in his foreword: "Our brief was simple: to unearth wonderful photographs, whatever their subject, that capture the essence of a magical decade" This has been achieved in spades.

 

I have no hesitation in recommending it to everyone on this forum. A quality production, with captions by Simon Arron and Gordon Cruickshank, and at a most soothing price.

 

Terrific value. 'Nuff said

I remain to be convinced: Motorsport Magazine is still a shadow of its former self and I imagine this effort will be in the same vein.

Stop making the title into one word. It's two words! Grrrr!

 

....  My copy arrived this morning and it is absolutely superb..As Damien Smith says in his foreword: "Our brief was simple: to unearth wonderful photographs, whatever their subject, that capture the essence of a magical decade" This has been achieved in spades.

 

I have no hesitation in recommending it to everyone on this forum. A quality production, with captions by Simon Arron and Gordon Cruickshank, and at a most soothing price.

 

Terrific value. 'Nuff said

 

Thanks Alan - now ordered.

 

Good to see you at sunny Snett on Sunday, btw.

Well. sabrejet. I can tell you that your reservations have proved to be unfounded (as I suspected). My copy arrived this morning and it is absolutely superb..As Damien Smith says in his foreword: "Our brief was simple: to unearth wonderful photographs, whatever their subject, that capture the essence of a magical decade" This has been achieved in spades.

 

I have no hesitation in recommending it to everyone on this forum. A quality production, with captions by Simon Arron and Gordon Cruickshank, and at a most soothing price.

 

Terrific value. 'Nuff said

Interesting.  Hopefully, they have unearthed the whole archive.

 

I spent probably far too long drooling over the LAT photographs several decades ago than I should - but it was absolutely irresistible (which is why I have always found their website so frustrating).

Hopefully, they have unearthed the whole archive.

You have to consider what you are looking for. The magazine archive has been scanned via optical character recognition (OCR) which allows it to be searched. If the OCR gets it wrong, you can look at an image of the page to make sense. I've not looked at recent editions, but I guess that they have been reproduced from a digital source. OCR is clever but it mistranslates if there is is a crease on the page or when the paper isn't completely flat. Lots of MotorSport OCR translations have been corrected so contributions from DJR (sic) are usually readable.

 

If you search for the Fuzzi hill climb car in MotorSport's index, try a search using the S or 7 in place of Zed. Or do it the old way, flipping through pages.

Interesting.  Hopefully, they have unearthed the whole archive.

 

I spent probably far too long drooling over the LAT photographs several decades ago than I should - but it was absolutely irresistible (which is why I have always found their website so frustrating).

I was told by one of the compilers of this publication that they had unearthed lots of material which hadn't been listed in any index, and which has never seen the light of day before

They will also be using some 70s pictures I have  supplied to them from a friend's adventures with the March team in 73. It is an extraordinary archive with some wonderful shots of drivers just hanging out in pits and paddock as well as some evocative car shots.

You have to consider what you are looking for. The magazine archive has been scanned via optical character recognition (OCR) which allows it to be searched. If the OCR gets it wrong, you can look at an image of the page to make sense. I've not looked at recent editions, but I guess that they have been reproduced from a digital source. OCR is clever but it mistranslates if there is is a crease on the page or when the paper isn't completely flat. Lots of MotorSport OCR translations have been corrected so contributions from DJR (sic) are usually readable.

 

If you search for the Fuzzi hill climb car in MotorSport's index, try a search using the S or 7 in place of Zed. Or do it the old way, flipping through pages.

I am not looking for anything.  My comment was based on the fact that I have seen the physical archive, not the subset of it that appears on their website.

I was told by one of the compilers of this publication that they had unearthed lots of material which hadn't been listed in any index, and which has never seen the light of day before

Sounds good, Alan.  I will look forward to seeing it!

I bought and enjoyed the last couple of issues, but in the new one just out there is an article about the 1966 F1 season with a superb full-page picture of the pit-lane at Brands.........from 1964.

 

And in the regular 'you were there' section there is a photo of people posing at Spa in 1966 with what is captioned as Bandini's 3rd-place Ferrari..............but it's actually Barlini's mock-up from the film 'Grand Prix'.

 

You can't get the staff.......

 

 

Paul M

 

Edit: the mis-captioned 'Ferrari' is in an excerpt from a new book about when drivers were cool, or some such....

Edited by Macca, 02 December 2015 - 21:06.

You can't get the staff...

I've made enough harsh comments about Motor Sport magazine recently that nobody could take me as a shill for them.

 

Motor Sport can't get the staff because it has never had many staff. Most contributors are independents. A magazine that publishes loads of content has a limited number of eyeballs to check copy, and often the eyeballs which check the body text don't see accompanying photos. 

 

I have a gripe about the "You were there" section too. The photos are always very small. I think it is insulting to readers that we can't understand the limitations of an amateur using a limited function camera. 

 

Edit: Motor Sport magazine's problems are about economics. I reckon the staff and contributors do a good job.

Edited by Charlieman, 03 December 2015 - 15:17.

And in the regular 'you were there' section there is a photo of people posing at Spa in 1966 with what is captioned as Bandini's 3rd-place Ferrari..............but it's actually Barlini's mock-up from the film 'Grand Prix'.

You can't get the staff.......


Paul M.

I wonder if the mistake was already made in the captioning in the "Gasoline and Magic" book where the photograph originated?

Bill P

Edited by bill p, 03 December 2015 - 18:11.

I wonder if anybody has a good home for some Motor Sports (and some other car reads) . I am  decluttering after a house move and have most copies available from 97ish relaunch . No charge of course - just haven't the heart to bin such lot of good reading(Cue comments about how it was better in 1902 etc )