91 replies to this topic

[Doug Nye]

Sad news I've just heard - not knowing how old it is - that 'Road & Track' magazine is closing down, no longer to continue printing in hard copy form.  Over many years I rated 'R&T' as being - by a country mile - the very best English-language motoring magazine.  

 

No more...I dare not read a computer in the bath. Am I alone in regretting its loss...( though in truth it has been diminished to a comparative load of umbala in recent years)... ?    

 

DCN 

Edited by Doug Nye, 19 January 2019 - 19:00.

[E1pix]

Thou are not alone, that's really sad.

I have nearly every issue from 1 through the '80s or so, though now on loan to a restoration and research shop in Milwaukee.

Wasn't Rob Walker a reporter forever there? Same guy as the team owner, or not?

RIP, R&T.

[Doug Nye]

Absolutely right - Rob hand-wrote their Formula 1 reports - and he was followed by Innes Ireland...and preceded by the wonderful, utterly individual Henry N. Manney III, amongst others.  Graham Gauld - often here - was a great friend of Henry's, and 'my' photographer Geoff Goddard was half of a double-act with Henry over many years...  We have seen the best of it, boys - motoring and motor racing fun that is - we really have...

 

DCN 

[StanBarrett2]

Wasn't Rob Walker a reporter forever there? Same guy as the team owner, or not?

RIP, R&T.

Yes,  THE Rob Walker.............I devoured his GP reports.

Owner of R.R.C Walker the F1 team

Edited by StanBarrett2, 19 January 2019 - 19:50.

[E1pix]

I wonder how well any of us then really knew how lucky we were to witness what we did... and how it would change.

I was born in '60 but would swap that for '40 in a minute. The '60s and '70s were fabulous.

Edit: I have a Graham Gauld book on Jimmy Clark. At least I think I do, been almost six years since laying eyes on our books (all 48 shelf-feet of them).

Edited by E1pix, 19 January 2019 - 19:31.

[ensign14]

We have seen the best of it, boys - motoring and motor racing fun that is - we really have...

 

Tempora mutantur...we are at least able to see most of it now.  The idea of watching Indycar live, let alone Japanese F3 or whatever, was ludicrous a generation ago. 

[StanBarrett2]

Sad news I've just heard - not knowing how old it is - that 'Road & Track' magazine is closing down

 

DCN 

Ist issue June 1947, I managed to get a reprint when it was run some 15 / 20  years ago ?

 

 

 

I have most anniversary issues and have managed to purchase some years that I was missing.

 

A pity it stops, it was staple diet for me as a young man, one of the better magazines, with great writers .

 

I was called to task a few years ago on TNF when I said it wasn't what it used to be.

 

I think it may have been Pete Lyons who questioned my saying that

[LionelB]

Very sad news indeed, Doug. I've had a subscription to R&T for more than 50 years, and completely agree that it was one of the finest English automotive magazines - was being the key word, as it had declined substantially in recent years causing me to abandon my subscription.

During its Golden Years, it had the most knowledgeable, entertaining and informative journalists such as Henry Manney III and Rob Walker - the latter being the same Rob Walker that was an F1 Team owner/principal.

As a Canadian racing photographer/journalist, I was privileged to be on their masthead for a number of those years, and even more privileged to have known those two superstars of motorsport, Henry and Rob.

As I titled my recently published book "The Golden Years of Motorsport", they truly were.

R.I.P.  R&T.

Lionel Birnbom

Canada.

 

[Graham Gauld]

Absolutely right - Rob hand-wrote their Formula 1 reports - and he was followed by Innes Ireland...and preceded by the wonderful, utterly individual Henry N. Manney III, amongst others.  Graham Gauld - often here - was a great friend of Henry's, and 'my' photographer Geoff Goddard was half of a double-act with Henry over many years...  We have seen the best of it, boys - motoring and motor racing fun that is - we really have...

 

DCN 

 

As you say Doug this is sad news though the magazine has dwindled somewhat over the past twenty or so years. I was roped into Road and Track by Jim  Crow when he became Editor. Prior to that Jim was Editor of the California Sports Car Club magazine and for some reason he gave me an intermittent column in the SSCC mag around 1959. By that time I had already met Henry Manney under strange circumstances.  I did some work with well known London PR magager Alfred Woolfe who had the Lotus account and was an even earlier pal of Henry Manney. In addition to his PR work Alfred, ironically, set up a British version of Sports Cars Illustrated and Henry wrote the occasional article for him. As Henry was working for R & T at the time he adopted the pen name Henri B Gentilhomme. One day when visiting Alfred he introduced me to Henry and the three of us went to Speedwell Engineering where one of the directors, but probably the hardest working one ( Sorry John Sprinzel) , was none other than Graham Hill. We had a hilarious lunch that spread into most of the afternoon. Thanks to Jim Crow and Henry I wrote the occasional piece for R & T and met both John Bond and his wife Elaine when John took over the magazine. Many years later I visited the R & T offices and admired the fact that they looked out over a marina and it seemed so professional.  As Doug says these were magical times with some magical people and Road and Track launched many good motoring writers back then. Sad and I was about to sell off one of my bound volumes of R & T from back then but I think I will keep it now.

[elansprint72]

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got 'till it's gone... etc.

[dbltop]

I received an offer for a discounted subscription for R&T and Car and Driver just last week. Now I'm glad I took so long to consider it. When Peter Egan retired, R&T lost it's best writer. I'm betting C&D won't last long either.

[West3]

Yes, when Peter Egan departed, I decided to cancel my subscription. A sad day to be sure, but not unlike losing a dear relative after a long period of declining health, and acknowledging the inevitable.

 

R&T was my introduction to a world of exciting machines, exotic locales and entertaining, thought provoking automotive writing. Bit of a gateway drug, actually. Saw my first copy in 1968 at the impressionable age of fourteen. It remained a hugely satisfying form of information and enjoyment for decades and was the preferred litmus test for what constituted a vehicle worthy of respect or interest. Have a mostly complete collection dating from 1952 from which I still occasionally pull out a copy. Nothing like getting getting "knocked back into reverie of Former Days", as YrFthflSvnt once put it.

[Doug Nye]

Silly of me - dim in the extreme - but in mentioning merely the magazine's long associations with Rob Walker, Innes Ireland and HNM III above, I totally omitted giving credit to the late great Phil Hill and the outstanding American photo-journalist John Lamm.  

 

Their 'Salon' track-tests and numerous other features really boosted 'R&T' into the stratosphere for a huge proportion of the readership - including me - and it was always a privilege (and fun) to work with them.  

 

Phil's connection with the magazine went way, way back to its early days - once including a front cover featuring his just-acquired Ferrari - and yet the recent people 'in charge' hardly seemed to know of him.

 

And just how much original archive material has been ( or will be ) lost unless someone who understands clears their offices...?

 

DCN

[Ray Bell]

Phil Hill's track tests were great, too...

 

The personal information in Rob Walker's race reports made them unmissable, his close relationships with, not only his own drivers, but with many of the drivers made those reports unique.

 

Humour was another side of Road & Track which I enjoyed. I stopped it in about 1992 as my son moved to America and promised me he'd get a subscription there and send them out every few months. I don't think he ever did.

[Jack-the-Lad]

I started reading R&T in the 1950s. It was my introduction to interesting automobiles and racing in Europe. I practically idolized Henry N. Manney. I devoured the writing of Rob Walker, Pete Lyons, and the photography of John Lamm and many others. I learned a bit about fantasy and gentle parody fron Stan Mott. What a great masthead. Then there were superb specialists like designer Strother McMinn contributing. I can't remember all the bylines, but I read all their stuff. For many years a (mostly) pre-war classic Salon would be featured every month, including a beautiful illustration in the center page which would be taped to my bedroom wall every month. I'll never forget the April issue road tests, the superb road test data panels (Tapley data!). For a while they were playing with those Tom Swift jokes....Swifties, I think they were called. I made one up and sent it to them, intended to be a letter to the editor. In their typical, but charmingly starchy way, they took it as a submission and sent me a rejection slip! I was devastated. God, how I wish I'd kept it.....

Edited by Jack-the-Lad, 19 January 2019 - 22:40.

[GMiranda]

That's so sad..... The market is pushing so hard to have everything digital, that's so sad people loosetheir interest in reading on paper.

I have 30 but I am too old guard, problem is the number of cartridges I use on the printer......

 

My dream, one day, is to have a magazine in paper. About motor racing history.

[PCC]

Very sad indeed. I remember devouring Rob Walker's reports as a boy; his effortless and drily humorous style made a big impression on me. He was also a consummate insider - he knew virtually everyone well. If I remember correctly (not a sure bet, believe me) it was also in R & T that I drooled over the work of Werner Bührer, which alone was worth the price of admission.

[Tom Glowacki]

I started reading R&T in the 1950s. It was my introduction to interesting automobiles and racing in Europe. I practically idolized Henry N. Manney. I devoured the writing of Rob Walker, Pete Lyons, and the photography of John Lamm and many others. I learned a bit about fantasy and gentle parody fron Stan Mott. What a great masthead. Then there were superb specialists like designer Strother McMinn contributing. I can't remember all the bylines, but I read all their stuff. For many years a (mostly) pre-war classic Salon would be featured every month, including a beautiful illustration in the center page which would be taped to my bedroom wall every month. I'll never forget the April issue road tests, the superb road test data panels (Tapley data!). For a while they were playing with those Tom Swift jokes....Swifties, I think they were called. I made one up and sent it to them, intended to be a letter to the editor. In their typical, but charmingly starchy way, they took it as a submission and sent me a rejection slip! I was devastated. God, how I wish I'd kept it.....

 

All of that, and Peter Egan's column and occasional feature stories, the track tests by Phil Hill, and later some by Sam Posey, are all long gone.  The sad fact is that none of what we're all recalling here, or some equivalent thereof, has been seen between the covers of R & T since about 1980.  Since then it has been a compendium of road tests, comparison tests, and new car introductions.

[Rob G]

Sad news indeed. Coincidentally, just a couple weeks ago on a whim I looked up the big four American automotive magazines on Wikipedia to learn about their histories and present states. I had a semi-subconscious inkling that either R & T or Automobile were sliding towards oblivion. Hopefully the others will survive.

[Jack-the-Lad]

Sad news indeed. Coincidentally, just a couple weeks ago on a whim I looked up the big four American automotive magazines on Wikipedia to learn about their histories and present states. I had a semi-subconscious inkling that either R & T or Automobile were sliding towards oblivion. Hopefully the others will survive.

For many, many years I was a loyal reader of Road &Track, Sports Cars Illustrated (later Car and Driver), Sports Car Graphic, Competition Press (now Autowek), Automobile, On Track, and a few more obscure titles. Now the only American periodical I get regularly is Cavallino and occasionally Vintage Motorsport.

[D28]

At the official site, no announcement has been made about ceasing a print edition; Hearst has a subscription offer still up. Perhaps the decision has been made, just not publicized yet.

Surprised to hear of this, but publishing realities for quality Auto magazines are well known; Sports Car International covering the same general market and subject matter was forced out of business about a decade ago.

 

I purchased most issues religiously from 1961 to the late 90s. I discovered it and racing at a local airport circuit about the same time. For years R&T was the only locally available source for race reports from Europe, F1, major endurance races and so on. Also it covered production and testing of European cars when they were universally ignored in other publications.

 

I have several boxes of old issues and they still make for good reading. My focus now is on the Salon articles rather than the current races or road tests, these historical pieces remain relevant. To the list of great writers mentioned already, the name Eoin S Young may be added, he was a columnist there for a few years. 

 

I gradually moved away from R&T as the content no longer interested me as much. But it was definitely the link to get me enthusiastic about motor sport in the first place. Like others have mentioned, I consider myself hugely fortunate to have come of age about the time R&T was at its peak as a chronicler of happenings in the racing world. Many hours of interesting reading have been provided by the writers at R&T.

Edited by D28, 20 January 2019 - 01:23.

[E1pix]

Tempora mutantur...we are at least able to see most of it now.  The idea of watching Indycar live, let alone Japanese F3 or whatever, was ludicrous a generation ago.

Funny, relatable, or ridiculous, I gotta say I enjoyed reading Rob Walker's GP reports, or Pete Lyons Can-Am reports in Autoweek, far more than watching many of today's blaring, rock 'n' roll racing telecasts. And I love rock 'n' roll (at least the real brand that mostly died with Zeppelin).

[JacnGille]

Wow!!! Sad news to go with a rainy day.

[404KF2]

I enjoyed R&T in the seventies but by the early eighties I was losing interest and dropped the subscription, even though it was still better than the somewhat trashy Car and Driver, which I unsubscribed from around the same time.  Car and Driver sent me snarky letters a few times for over a year demanding why I didn't renew my subscription, the arrogant dickheads!  I tried reading R&T a few times in bookstores in recent years but the subject matter (new cars) bores me and the writers were generally not good.

 

I started reading CAR (loved the Good, the Bad and the Ugly), Echappement, L'Auto-Journal, Autosport among others in the early eighties and later in the eighties I had a couple of years' subscription to Motor, which then was merged with Autocar during my subscription period.  Those weekly magazines sure make a huge pile after two years.  I did enjoy them more than the US publications, partly because the cars they tested were of more interest to me.

 

Henry Manney III was great fun (though I mostly read reprints of his old stuff, like the Mille Miglia account he wrote), and Paul Frère was good until he started making the odd embarrassing mistake that made it past the editors in the later 1990s.  Their April Fool's road test was always fun.  My favourite R&T Salon was of the Peugeot L3 bis.

 

As D28 says, I see nothing official about it yet but the OP I'm sure has it correct.

[D28]

Funny, relatable, or ridiculous, I gotta say I enjoyed reading Rob Walker's GP reports, or Pete Lyons Can-Am reports in Autoweek, far more than watching many of today's blaring, rock 'n' roll racing telecasts. And I love rock 'n' roll (at least the real brand that mostly died with Zeppelin).

Agreed. My first 20 years or so following F1 was totally without TV coverage and i didn't feel like it was a wasteland. Good reporters like Henry Manney or Innes Ireland made you feel as if you were there watching the race. TV was nice but not essential for following the sport. 

Edited by D28, 20 January 2019 - 04:32.

[West3]

Assuming this isn't one of those "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" things, and in keeping with the post-script theme of this thread, how about celebrating one of the great, unsung parts of classic R&T; namely the last page, i.e. "PS". I always looked forward to seeing that final photographic tidbit, usually accompanied by an amusing caption. Here's one of my favorites...
 

 

"Good Tires", Bob mused, casually lighting a cigarette, "But certainly not great tires."
 

[raceannouncer2003]

As a boy, I would watch with my brothers (similarly addicted) as the postman approached our house, to see if "it" had arrived.  Ah, there it was, in its brown wrapper, I think, with the R & T logo.  Whoever brought it in had to wait till the others were there.  Only then, the wrapper was removed and we would go through it together page by page.

 

Oh, and the photos.  Beyond the cover, for so many years, the world was black and white.  And then, in the late fifties, the reds of the Ferraris and Maseratis and the greens of the BRMs and Vanwalls came to life.  The world was an even better place...

 

Vince H.

Edited by raceannouncer2003, 20 January 2019 - 06:44.

[West3]

Or, for that matter...

 

[john aston]

I too enjoyed R&T, but in my younger days I did find it a tad staid compared to  Car and Driver , which , at its best with the wonderful David E Davis was the pick of the crop for me. With CAR (in its glory years, which ended about 30 years ago ) it transformed the style and look of the car magazine .       

Edited by john aston, 20 January 2019 - 10:51.

[proviz]

So glad now that in the late 80s I had the good fortune of visiting R&T's Newport Beach offices and meet Joe Rusz, even getting introduced to their "resident Finn" Ellida Maki!

I have all the issues from 1960 to October 2012 when the subscription ran out without warning. It was meant to automatically kick in again every 12 months, but not realizing my credit card details had changed (easily forgotten as that didn't happen out of my own initiative) they could not charge renewal and having finally realized what had happened it proved impossible to get any kind of reply from the publisher. So they just happily let another subscription slip away.

Would be nice to hear if you people feel it might be worth the trouble to get those missing issues from Nov 2012 on.

[JoBo]

VERY sad news! I have numerous issues from the 50s and 60s. Great stuff!

 

But what happened to their photo archive? THAT must be a real treasure....

 

JoBo

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by West3
Or, for that matter...
 

I was going to mention the PS page too...

The only one I can clearly recall was an E-type Jag with a sticker on it, "Why do the English drink warm beer? Because they have Lucas refrigerators!"

[Tim Murray]

But what happened to their photo archive? THAT must be a real treasure....

According to a post in this earlier thread on Road & Track magazine their archives went to the Revs Institute:

Subscribers to Veloce Today will have learned from Michael T. Lynch's article, that the R&T archives have been acquired by the Revs Program at Stanford University. " ... online ... future ... " Seems like good news.

[StanBarrett2]

If I remember correctly (not a sure bet, believe me) it was also in R & T that I drooled over the work of Werner Bührer, which alone was worth the price of admission.

It was actually the Werner Bührer pieces which attracted me in the first place.

[DCapps]

I finally let my subscription finally lapse around 2000 when I realized that I no longer found that there was really not much of interest in the magazine any more. Although I gave away all the issues from some point in the latter 1980s when the rot truly set in, I still have all my issues from the very early 1950s until then, with very few gaps. It was an acquired taste sort of magazine for the most part, often more than a bit snooty and smug, which was mixed in with some wonderful stuff that no one else ever thought of doing or at least doing well. I was blessed with an off-and-on relationship with HNMIII that dated from his years in Europe. Thanks to Mr. Manney -- I was later coaxed to call him "Mr. Henry" by his wife Annie, I was allowed to visit the R&T offices a few times as well his home not that far away. To this day, HNMIII remains one of the few gods in my book; in person, he was, as Graham can vouch for, something of an Odd Duck, but once he thought you were okay, he was quite an experience, almost the personification of his writing. Even today, I find myself picking an issue or two -- or three or four... -- off the shelf and becoming immersed in them. Perhaps my disillusionment with R&T came when it increasingly became more Road Than Track, and often seemed more akin to bedside reading for Gordon Gekko than mere mortals. The few issues I have read over the past few decades did not inspire confidence. Farewell, R&T, I am glad I knew you...

Edited by DCapps, 20 January 2019 - 15:13.

[ray b]

wow

 

it became JUST an other car mag  

but in the 50-60s R&T was the bible

my dad sold most of his cars in their marketplace

I began following f-1 thru R&T months after the events even before HNM started

but he was THE MAN

AFTER JOHN BOND RETIRED THE DECLINE STARTED

 

one of my best trash picks was the first ten years of bound R&T mags I found in about 63 and still have

[RA Historian]

If this report is true, and I am afraid it is, it is farewell to the mag for me. As I posted elsewhere, I simply refuse to read mags on line. I detest having to scroll up and down, backwards and forwards, enlarge the copy, decrease the copy, and on and on. I want something I can hold in my hand, read and reread, and then store for future reference. 

 

I owe a lot to R&T. It was the first car magazine I read. I was in grade school in 1956 when the boy in the next desk brought a copy to school, the one with the D Jag on the cover. I borrowed it, devoured it, and have every copy since.  It introduced me to the world of sports cars that existed beyond my neighborhood, and I am thankful for that. I stuck with it through thick and thin. It sputtered a big through the years, but its drastic decline came in the years when Thos Bryant was the editor. He simply ran it into the ground, making it little more than road test monthly. I feel that the sale and house cleaning a  number of years ago has resulted in a much better mag, but like all my age, I have nostalgia for the past and long for the old John R. Bond days.

 

I have every copy from 1956 to the present, plus a smattering of copies from 1953-55. I was tempted many times during the Bryant fiasco years to drop the subscription, but did not, mainly because I did not want to break the chain stretching back to my early childhood. Maybe it is now time to sell the lot.

 

I am saddened by this, as it is another part of my life and youth that will be gone.

 

I used to subscribe to up to ten mags a month. Now it is down to three, Motor Sport, Sports Car, and Vintage Motorsport. That is it. As I said before, online is not the same. I was a long time subscriber to Vintage Racecar, but have not read a word of it since it went on line only early in 2018. 

 

 

Tom

Edited by RA Historian, 20 January 2019 - 17:26.

[Jack-the-Lad]

[/quote]

I too enjoyed R&T, but in my younger days I did find it a tad staid compared to Car and Driver , which , at its best with the wonderful David E Davis was the pick of the crop for me. With CAR (in its glory years, which ended about 30 years ago ) it transformed the style and look of the car magazine .

I agree. CandD was transformational. David E. Davis, jr., Brock Yates, Jean Shepherd, Warren Weith, Jan P. Norbye, etc. They were great writers who happened to love cars, and weren't bullied by advertisers. They were the right bunch at the right time...savy, irreverent, and slightly naughty. Where Road & Track took itself a bit seriously, Car and Driver took almost nothing seriously.

Edit: I failed to mention Bruce McCall, a true genius, and the man who inspired my signature line.

Edited by Jack-the-Lad, 21 January 2019 - 14:39.

[E1pix]

AFTER JOHN BOND RETIRED THE DECLINE STARTED

As I said, but it's BonHAM. ;-)

[group7]

Sad news, I just picked up the February 2019 issue (a mere shadow of the best days) only because it had an piece by Peter Egan on the road trip in his freshly restored Morgan. what a great writer, his columns touched something deep inside, to which I could relate, I've heard that from many others as well. I was glad to meet him at Elkhart a number of years back, and have him sign his latest compilation of articles. I heard he was having some health issues and was happy to see him in print again !  Many others on the masthead over the years made great contributions. I could go on, Henry Manney "your faithfull servant" was another favourite. We have the memories, and my collection of back issues which I dip into from time to time, from the first, into the eighties, after which like Mr. Capps states, the rot set in.

 

Rest in peace R&T  

 

Michael, in Canada

Edited by group7, 20 January 2019 - 22:12.

[Bob Riebe]

For many, many years I was a loyal reader of Road &Track, Sports Cars Illustrated (later Car and Driver), Sports Car Graphic, Competition Press (now Autowek), Automobile, On Track, and a few more obscure titles. Now the only American periodical I get regularly is Cavallino and occasionally Vintage Motorsport.

I read or subscribed to all of those also.

For me car magazines started to decline when Jerry Titus gave up being editor of Sports Car Graphic to go racing full time; Auto Week & Comp. Press started to go downhill shortly there after .

I resubscribed to AutoWeek  a few years ago and now find it pathetic most of the time.

I subscribed to several magazines from the U.K. and Australia for awhile also in the past twenty years.

The Aussie mags reminded me most of what U.S. magazines used to be.

 

Now I am down to just Hot Rod, also a shadow of ten years ago and the rags put out by Hemmings which are still enjoyable to read.

I had looked at a few Road & Track in the past few years and to me they were edited by the snot face punch punk glitz that is a cancer in most of todays U.S.magazines; I put the substance of most magazines in the same state of mind from the seventies when dudes would jack up there cars so they looked like the new Pro Stock drag racing class, all show, no go.

[Ray Bell]

That was what defined 'dudes'?

Which Aussie mags?

[Bob Riebe]

Sorry two were from New Zealand and one from Australia

Aussie- Street Machine

New Zealand- Classic Car and Hot Rod.

[David Birchall]

Very sad to hear this.  R&T was a major influence on me in the seventies-by the early/mid eighties Thos Bryant had ruined a great magazine.  I was so keen to write for R&T that I entered journalism school in 1975-of course,  I should have just simply tried writing for them...  The very first time I participated in the Monterey Historic races in 1978 I arrived at Laguna Seca driving a borrowed Austin A55 pick up towing a borrowed delapidated  trailer (actually the trailer for "The Hairy Canary" Cobra) and drove into the paddock area, to see a distant figure with his arm raised.  I drove towards him and as I reached him I recognised the hacking jacket, the cord trousers and the boots-it was Henry Manney!  He was my hero, my saint and the best thing about R&T I thought, although I enjoyed Rob Walker, Phil Hill, Innes Ireland.  

RIP R&T

Edited by David Birchall, 21 January 2019 - 18:25.

[dbltop]

I totally agree with Jack the Lad, C&D was always an entertaining read, especially Yates. R&T was where you went to get the F1 reports, no other North American magazine did it as well as they did. Walker and Ireland were well known to Europeans, but through the magazine they brought F1 to America. 

[Sisyphus]

It is like hearing of the passing of a once close friend who has been in declining health for many years. 

 

I have my several decades of R&T from the 60's thru the 80's in the basement that I've moved around the country with me.  Some great writing and photography from those days. 

 

Don't think anyone has mentioned the Cyclops series which I greatly enjoyed.  Some of the race car tests--the McLaren Mk1B, F5000 Eagle, DB1--were amazing.  A series of 1/25 scale model drawings of all the 1962 F1 cars.  The Cliff Haworth F3 series.  Just some great work in those classic days of racing and R&T.  Not so much in recent times but F1 has gone downhill for me, too, so I suppose it is time to say so long to R&T as well.

[Seppi_0_917PA]

Here is exactly what is saved at Stanford University:

Guide to the Road & Track Magazine Records 1947-2012 1 of 3 pages
 
 
And here are the photos available on-line:

Road & Track Archive

Total Items: 7,624 (7,490 added within the last six months)


Count me as another one with boxes of issues 1950s - 1960s.

[West3]

Don't think anyone has mentioned the Cyclops series which I greatly enjoyed. 

 

Ah yes, the inimitable Stan Mott, whose weirdly brilliant Cyclops series was an inspired flight of fantasy.

 

 

Allegedly he is still around and kicking. For those who have an interest, not to mention unlimited amounts of spare time, here is a website devoted to the car and its creator:

 

http://sbiii.com/cyclops/cyclops.html

[GreenMachine]

Came here to mention Sat Mott and his inspirational Cyclops.  Just one of the many attractions already mentioned that made me an avid reader back in the 60's and 70's.

 

Great memories, and thanks to Seppi I might get to refresh them  as it looks like being too hot to work outside today ...

[mariner]

So sad to hear it is gone. A really class magazine in every way. As a teenager who then only dreamed of going to USA it was my window into another world.

 

The internet has brought us so much extra stuff often free to view but that makes print distribition very uneconomic these days.

 

I have many old copies including the F1 tests 

 

Mind you the situation in UK on print magazines seems to be different. Every time I go into W H Smiths more specialist car mags have appeared. Not so much racing related but every kind of road car . In a big Smiths there must be 40 or more. Different from a Barnes and Noble in USA .

 

How do they all survive in UK?