107 replies to this topic

[Henk Vasmel]

Reading the thread about the demise of Road & Track brought back some nostalgic feelings.

I would like to find out which magazines we used to read (subscription, regular buyer or occasional reader) to find out what was happening in Motorsports before the days of the big bad internet. Of course dependent of location and period. If enough people answer we could make a list of most popular choices.

 

I am living in the Netherlands, and fortunately I can read several languages, so a wide choice was available for me.

 

Some highlights:

From the Netherlands: Autovisie

From Germany: Auto Motor und Sport, Sport Auto and Rallye Racing

From France: L' Automobile, Sport Auto

From the UK: Motor Sport, Autosport

From the USA: Road & Track

From Italy: Autosprint.

 

Not all of them made it to the subscription level. And there are many more with only a few or even a single copy. Most of them I still have.

 

Please no magazines about the history of motor racing, that's another subject, and please no rants about how bad they were.

Edited by Henk Vasmel, 22 January 2019 - 18:23.

[E1pix]

-- Competition Press & Autoweek
-- Formula/Racecar
-- Road & Track until Round 1980.

Later, I adored Racer and had every issue, until they lost two original images (including one run as a double-spread) and told me to pound sand.

[opplock]

There used to be a very good magazine in New Zealand called Motoraction. Editor David McKinney. I subscribed until I left there in 1981.  

 

I first read Motorsport more than 50 years ago. No longer having to buy copies at school jumble sales I have a subscription despite the watch adverts.

 

I also enjoyed the Aussie magazine Sports Car World (apologies if I've got the name wrong - it was 40 years ago). Writers included David McKay (Scuderia Veloce) and Romsey Quints.

 

Low Flying is essential reading for "certifiable loonies" (DCN).   

Edited by opplock, 22 January 2019 - 19:22.

[StanBarrett2]

 

Some highlights:

From the Netherlands: Autovisie

From Germany: Auto Motor und Sport, Sport Auto and Rallye Racing

From France: L' Automobile, Sport Auto

From the UK: Motor Sport, Autosport

From the USA: Road & Track

From Italy: Autosprint.

 

I often had Autocar and Motor (UK)  in the 60's and 70's both having decent GP reports and good technical articles by knowledgeable writers.

Then of course the cutaway drawings by Vic Berris, John Hostler, Dick Ellis and Brian Hatton which highlighted the tech F1 stories.

[D28]

Whatever becomes the fate of a print R&T, a remarkable consensus for this forum seems to be that the RIP  tag remains appropriate.

 

In the 60s-70s I also enjoyed

Sports Car Graphic

 

1980s

Sports Car International  A really quality mag with in depth historical articles on people and cars. The quality of paper and photo layout was  excellent.  Very little in the way of advertising, which of course led to its demise. Can't remember the original publishing schedule, but at some point it became bi-monthly. Published 1986-2008

 

Present

The only subscription I have left is Vintage Motorsport , Very well written historical features, bi-monthly.

Occasional counter purchases of  Motor Sport, though it is difficult to find consistently.

Edited by D28, 22 January 2019 - 20:14.

[john winfield]

Motoring News from 1970, with the occasional Autosport and Motor Sport.  I liked Competition Car too, the short-lived magazine produced by Justin Haler and Chris Witty between 1972 and 1975(?).

[nexfast]

I subscribe Motor Sport and Autosport (the  latter, I confess digital  for the sake of space) and buy most issues of Autodiva and Automobilsport (English version). Ocasionally AutoHebdo and Autosprint. In the past Car & Driver, Sport Auto, L'Automobile. Quatroruotte, O Volante.

[Ray Bell]

No mention of Racing Car News yet?

This magazine covered every race meeting, major hillclimbs and rallies and carried some technical and personality features from late 1960 through to the eighties, with coverage of some international events too.

It was very much our 'bible' as we devoured the details from race meetings all around Australia. Which put a heavy load of responsibility on me, of course, when I started to be the one writing many of those in 1972.

opplock... I'd have thought it a rare event for David McKay to write for Sports Car World as he normally contributed to Modern Motor, while Mike Kable did a lot for the former. 'Romsey Quints' was, of course, Bill Tuckey and his humour was good reading.

[Allen Brown]

I read Motor Sports from cover to cover every month, Autosport from cover to cover every week, and Motoring News ... well, you get the idea.  Also Autocar and Motor in the library when I was supposed to be studying, and my languages teacher gave me his old copies of Sport Auto.

 

Then the wonderful Grand Prix International appeared.  Only later did I discover the joys of Formula and On Track.  Much later came Echappement, Autosprint, Auto Hebdo, Racing Cars News, etc.

 

I know the biggest surprise here to anyone that knows me will be the preposterous idea that I ever learnt a foreign language.  I didn't.  I tried, but I failed.  

[retriever]

The Railway Magazine. Well, somebody has to go off topic!

[GMiranda]

Motor Sport, Autosport UK, Autodiva, AutoHebdo

[Bob Riebe]

I will try to list them as I subscribed but will probably fail:

Air Progress

Sports Car Graphic

AutoWeei & Competition Press

Car LIfe

Air International

Automobile Qurarterly

Air Classics

Motor Trend

Popular Science

Trains

Road & Track 

Classic Car

Special Interest Autos

What is now Collectible Automobile

 

 

at this point I forget which came first

 

Autosport

Classic & Sports Car

Motor Sport

CarMagazine South Africa

Street Machine Australia

Hot Rod New Zealand

Classic Car New Zealand

Mustang

Popular Hot Rodding

Hot Rod

Hemming 's Classic Auto

Hemming's Muscle Machines

Hemming's Auto News

Car Craft

 

And I know I have probably missed a half a dozen

Edited by Bob Riebe, 26 January 2019 - 20:32.

[sabrejet]

Cross & Cockade: probably the best-produced magazine I've read. Always very well-researched articles with references, great photo reproduction and all done by a small band of enthusiastic people. Its subject is World War One aviation and sadly there is not a comparable motorsport magazine. It's my undoubted favourite, and since Air Classics has been cited above, I'm going to claim it!!!

[moffspeed]

Motoring News was the place to go in the 70's before it took a nosedive. It was the most authoritative source of motor sport news in the UK with the possible exception of the Llandow and Pontypool hillclimb reports - which were courtesy of a spotty teenager otherwise known as me. I still remember laboriously phoning my race reports in on a Sunday night. The classified section was a great source of both decent performance cars/bits at a time when there was little alternative.

 

However my most cherished magazines were those Earls Court motor show special editions of Motor and Autocar.   Each the size of a phone book and with massive colour BMC adverts covering the whole range of 300 (or whatever) cars/vans on offer. Kept me going for weeks...

[B Squared]

On Track was a long time favorite. Early Competition Press & Autoweek, as well as R&T. Numerous others that have also come and gone.

[Sterzo]

Was brought up properly by my Dad, who bought the yellow-covered Motor Racing (published by John Blunsden) in the fifties, plus intermittent copies of Motor Sport. He was given a pile of 1958 Autosports which he passed on to me.

 

Since 1 Jan 1966 I have subscribed to Autosport and Motor Sport. Have no intention of stopping, and anyway my daughter wouldn't let me. She subscribes to F1 Racing which I read also.

 

In 1967 I moved to the Hammersmith/Chiswick border in West London, within walking distance of Chater & Scott's bookshop. Oh dear. My Autosport and Motor Sport collections extended backwards to 1950 and I have odd copies of The Motor covering the 1904 and 1905 Gordon Bennett Eliminating Trials. Also a copy or two of Speed from the thirties, in which E.K. Rayson was tipped as a future top driver. Odd copies of: Auto Hebdo, the excellent Sport Auto, F1 News, Car & Driver, VSCC Bulletin, who knows what else.

 

Oh, what about Road and Track? In Praed Street, Paddington, almost beneath the small upstairs office of Autosport, a shop assistant searched the Pet Section for the mag. "You did say Rodent Rack, didn't you?"

 

Space is the enemy, and two forum members have saved my rafters by relieving me of some of the weight.

Edited by Sterzo, 23 January 2019 - 13:23.

[StanBarrett2]

 

Oh, what about Road and Track? In Praed Street, Paddington, almost beneath the small upstairs office of Autosport, a shop assistant searched the Pet Section for the mag. "You did say Rodent Rack, didn't you?"

 

 

As brilliant as when a chinese fish and chips chap asks if you want  'sore finger ' ?  

[RCH]

Every copy of Motor Sport since Nov. 1962. Also odd copies of Autocar and Motor until I discovered Motoring News which as Motorsport News I still buy but it's a poor shadow of its former self. The ones I really miss, not yet mentioned on here, are Cars & Car Conversions and Rally Sport.

[MCS]

Motoring News from 1970, with the occasional Autosport and Motor Sport.  I liked Competition Car too, the short-lived magazine produced by Justin Haler and Chris Witty between 1972 and 1975(?).

 

I thought Competition Car was wonderful. Somewhere - but no idea where - I am pretty certain I have all of the issues.

 

Apologies to change track as it were, but what happened to the Formula Three book by Haler and the Formula Two book by Chris?

 

Not been around for a while, so Best Wishes and Good Health to all on here for 2019 and beyond.

 

Mark S

[ensign14]

Grand Prix International had three basic incarnations:

 

-Grands Prix only, and appeared only after GPs.  Sometimes two in one;

-a really expensive fortnightly edition which was utterly fantastic.  Covered GP, Indycar, Group C, IMSA, in exhaustive detail;

-a mix of the above two, with focus on GPs, but also F3k, bits of others, and even speedboats.

 

I've a near complete run of them. 

 

I've also a complete run of Speedworld International, which had the prose of William Court (good), and line drawing caricatures by Gregor Grant's son (not good).  Only lasted a couple of years but it was decent.  (Obviously, got them in retrospect...)

[moffspeed]

Another one to remember but not necessarily celebrate - Hot Car magazine.

 

I think I bought a copy in 1970 - but only because it had a strange flexible (record) disc free on the cover. Yes, you too could listen to Tony Lanfranchi commentating on the birth of a great new racing formula, forget F5000 we now had the groovy Formula F100.  Even to this day I remember the recorded engine bay sounds of this brutish machine (although the stylus did skip a bit over the flimsy vinyl).

 

Somewhere I still have my cherished Le Mans 66 L.P. but I think the flexi disc hit the bin just under half a century ago...

Edited by moffspeed, 23 January 2019 - 14:38.

[Michael Ferner]

Hustler, Playboy, Big 'Uns...

[Bob Riebe]

I knew I forgot the biggest and bestest: National Speed Sport News.

That and some of the regional short track rags were great for keeping up on local sprint car, modified and stock cars.

I was surprised to find that Hawkeye Racing News is still going , cover Iowa region  tracks, subscribed for a few years till USAC stock car series went belly-up.

 

On Track , yep that was one I missed in my list.

My late cousin used to subscribe to, or worse, actually went to a news- rack and bought issues each and every  month, several U.K. aeroplane magazines and train magazine so I got to read them for decades till he died  a few years ago.

We used to have Shinders new-racks here that carried magazines, of all types from all over the world, including those not in English, that is how I got acquainted with U.K.magazines then the net came along and I checked out the world till postage went up the ass and out the mouth, though I may try another magazine or two down under again.

 

Mikey you would have loved Shinders, the back room had Big Flabby Floppers, Dykes with Dicks and ....

Edited by Bob Riebe, 23 January 2019 - 15:57.

[RA Historian]

I have subscribed to many mags over the years, starting with Road & Track. First issue 1956, have every one since.

 

I am not going into the car mags, as opposed to racing, such as Motor Trend, Car Life, Motor Life, etc., That is a different subject.

 

Add Sports Cars Illustrated/Car and Driver to the sub list along with Competition Press/Autoweek, every issue since July, 1958.

 

Regular newsstand purchases included Sports Car Pictorial, On The Grid/Today's Motorsport, Sports Car Guide, Sports Car Digest, and occasionally Motor Sport and Autosport, with the occasional The Motor and Autocar also. A newsstand downtown carried the English mags, and I would pick them up occasionally.

 

More subs included Indy Car Racing, Formula/Racecar. Have most issues of those. 

 

Every issue of Forza, for ten years or so.

 

I had every issue of Racer mag, by subscription, until a few years ago. They irritated me by sending me a renewal notice trumpeting a "loyal subscriber discount", which was $15 per year more than what they were offering non-subscribers.! That annoyed me and I did not renew and have not looked back.

 

Having been a member of the SCCA since 1967 I have every issue of Sports Car from then on, plus I have filled in back issues starting in 1960. (Disclaimer, I have been a Contributing Editor since 1980).

 

Have subscribed to Vintage Motorsport since 1993. Subscribed to Vintage Racecar for a dozen years until they went digital last year, and I have not looked at it since. I simply abhor reading on line and will not do it.

 

Then there was the best ever, the late and sorely missed On Track. No other mag has ever come close. It ran for 20 years and I have every issue. (Another disclaimer. I wrote for them regularly and they published what must have been well over a hundred reports and articles.)

 

But alas, with the word being that R&T is going digital, that will disappear from my list. That leaves only Sports Car, Motor Sport, Vintage Motorsport, and Autoweek. And that is sad.

 

Tom

Edited by RA Historian, 23 January 2019 - 16:21.

[john aston]

I worked out last year that I'd bought over 7000 magazines on cars and motor sport and can still remember the very first - a copy of Autocar in Spring 1967 featuring  the Sunbeam Tiger. I read every word , even the impossibly tedious  'Industry News ' and spent hours reading the classifieds. 

 

I've bought scores of titles but the highlights are -

 

CAR - up to mid 70s it covered motor sport in its trademark iconoclastic manner ; the design was superb  and so were the likes of Setright, Bell , Manney , Blain and Llewellin . Its road car stuff was light years ahead of any UK magazine

 

Autocar- all things to all men . Its race coverage in the 60s was superb and having Eoin Young , Innes Ireland , John Miles et al helped . A bit too grown up and sober

 

Motor - a tad racier in prose - but only a tad . Roger Bell, RAB Cook and , much later, the incomparably brilliant Russell Bulgin , the man whose prose  made most hacks look like amateurs 

 

Autosport -my weekly bible from 1970 until the mid 90s when  its topped being about motorsport and became a cliche drenched F1 fanzine . Pete Lyons was wonderful as F1 writer , and I greatly enjoyed Roebuck too

 

Motoring News - for my inner anorak . I think if I saw a copy from the early 70s it would look as if it came from another galaxy. Design and print clarity not a priority .Your man Mr Arron's F1 reports were  a delight - a sport which needed his irreverence 

 

Cars and and Car  Conversions - its saving grace was some seriously good writers (even Bulgin(for a time ))   and  its strengths and weaknesses mirrored MN

 

Car and Driver and Road and Track both felt like turning on the lights after the black and white earnestness of Autocar and the tetchy stuffiness of Motor Sport . C and D were the Stones to R andT's Beatles 

 

Motor Sport - the sacred cow for many . As a young man I found it entranced and infuriated in equal measure. I found most of Bill Boddy's text either dull or preposterous (but would love to have met him as he sounded a wonderful eccentric) ; DSJ has been beatified post mortem and whilst I disagreed  with so much of what he said I adored reading about his adventures. And was delighted to have been able to tell him as such once  . The magazine drifted aimlessly at times but (heresy alert ) I liked it most of all , and by a big margin , on its mid 90s grand relaunch. It is still my favourite - but I do wish it'd drop all that crap about The Market

 

Octane - if one can ignore the hilariously awful guff which our very own Alan Partridge ,  Robert Coucher , writes there's some very good stuff if one also ignores the fawning rubbish about  Salon Prive etc  

 

Classic and Sports Car has a bit more dirt under its fingernails and I do very much enjoy reading Simon Taylor

 

The rest? EVO is for people who think their mate's Civic Type R is the fastest car around any racetrack you care to name, who use loathsome terms like 'hoon ' and petrolhead' unironically  and who have wet dreams about hypercars like Chirons and similar  silly follies. F1 magazine is for people who think motor racing and F1 are synonymous and spend too much time on line and watching telly . 

 

Of course the reality dawned on me years ago that I find the car magazine an addictive subject in its own right- and , as I've said more than once , if I'd saved the money I have spent on magazines I'd be able to buy a secondhand Ferrari - trouble is , without having read them, I wouldn't know which one to have bought ,        

Edited by john aston, 24 January 2019 - 07:25.

[2F-001]

Autocar, and more particularly perhaps, Motor were my introduction to reading about motor sport in a periodical in my pre-teen years. My father would liberate a few copies that his colleagues had donated to the staff lounge at work once the others had flipped through them.

‘Model Cars’ was the first thing I bought and read regularly - that was focused a lot on fairly big-league slot car racing but also had modelling stuff and articles and scale drawings of (mostly race) cars.

Discovering MotorSport and Autosport in 1968 was a revelation, although it was while before I took either every month/week; the realisation that there were magazines (more so in the case of the latter) devoted almost entirely to the sport really did change my life!

Does anyone else recall a relatively short-live UK mag called (I think) ‘Automobile Sport’? Had a  predominently blue and yellow cover/masthead IIRC. I wish I still had those, I do remember some good content.

Like John (above) I read a lot of CCC, and enjoyed Russell B’s writing. I used to have a huge stack of CCC but have only kept selected articles.

‘Speedscene’ (the Hillclimb and Sprint Association mag) I took for a long time. I only stopped because when my membership came up for renewal one year, they didn’t remind me - it lapsed and due to some other real-life distractions I never got around to renewing it!  

During the 80s I began collecting old copies of ‘Road and Track’ and ‘Car and Driver’ - mostly from the 60s and principally for Chaparral stuff, although they contained much else of interest, especially C&D. As someone who has made a chunk of his income from various Editorial Design commissions, I also love some of those Car & Driver issues as inspiring examples of the craft.

My father took Motoring News for many years (now Motorsport News?? - is it still going?) but for quite a while it has been utter garbage in every respect, content, tone, layout, repro… A sad and total decline. Simon A was the real bright star there; we used to love his summaries of the non-finishers in the F3000 races - very droll, but I always wondered if some of the drivers mentioned therein might have given him an ear-bashing!

I”ve kept a few odd copies of C&SC and Car; never liked Evo at all and have never read Octane.

Currently, I just do MotorSport every month, the German mag ‘Automobilsport’ often, and pick up the odd copy of others such as Autosport, Racecar Engineering and Race Tech and maybe F1 (and mags on all sorts of other subjects) now and again.

I don’t want to think about the amount of money I’ve spent on books and magazines over the years…

Edited by 2F-001, 23 January 2019 - 21:58.

[Ray Bell]

And nobody has mentioned Motor Racing Australia, have they?

This magazine tried to balance current detailed race reporting with tech features and quite a bit of history.

It lasted from about 1991 to 2010, I think...

[Paul Hurdsfield]

I thought Competition Car was wonderful. Somewhere - but no idea where - I am pretty certain I have all of the issues.
 
Apologies to change track as it were, but what happened to the Formula Three book by Haler and the Formula Two book by Chris?
 
Not been around for a while, so Best Wishes and Good Health to all on here for 2019 and beyond.
 
Mark S

I too thought CC was great, I had every issue until a house move forced a clearout, but I did manage to keep a few of the more memorable ones.

[404KF2]

France:

Champion (circa 1969-1971) - great stuff

Sport-Auto (especially until the late eighties) - also very good

Echappement - in the old days it covered all kinds of local motorsports in France and their comparison tests were really good

L'Automobile - staid but solid

L'Auto-Journal - thorough and also sexist with the cheesy "le point de vue de madame" in each road test

Super Chromes - crap customizing magazine, but I learned in it back in 1982 about a new club in France for the 404C! (which I joined and I still belong to) so I love it only for that

Gazoline - decent classic mag

 

Germany:

Auto Motor und Sport - good solid reporting and thorough tests

Oldtimer Praxis - a good friend in Germany sends his old ones to me, nice owner restoration histories

Oldtimer-Markt - ditto, good articles on models

 

Canada:

Canada Track & Traffic - it was great and covered interesting models that were not sold in the USA

 

Great Britain:

Motor - I really enjoyed until it disappeared

Autocar - Not as good as Motor in the day but still decent

Car - used to be brilliant with spectacular photography and great writers

Autosport - I bought and enjoyed some in the seventies for the Le Mans coverage but as modern racing generally leaves me cold, I don't read it much if at all.

Classic and Sportscar - good articles but practically smothered in advertising of overpriced classics

Cars and Car Conversions - wild and crazy stuff in the eighties!  (Maybe still, I don't see it anymore in Canada)

 

USA:

Road & Track - quite good in the '70s but lost the plot in the eighties

[2F-001]

Another UK one I forgot to mention... 'Historic Race and Rally'; there weren't many issues but I've kept all the ones I had - a very high standard, I thought, and extremely well produced.

 

And US: Vintage Motorsport - I have quite a few of those - there were three series of articles I was especially keen on collecting (Can Am, Trans Am and Chaparral).

 

Grand Prix International has been mentioned a few times. It was quite striking when it appeared because of the quantity of colour imagery; but I never warmed to it much - for a magazine majoring so heavily on photography, the layout and reproduction was shite.

[john winfield]

I thought Competition Car was wonderful. Somewhere - but no idea where - I am pretty certain I have all of the issues.

 

Apologies to change track as it were, but what happened to the Formula Three book by Haler and the Formula Two book by Chris?

 

Not been around for a while, so Best Wishes and Good Health to all on here for 2019 and beyond.

 

Mark S

 

Mark, I'm not sure about Chris Witty's Formula Two book but Justin Haler died in 2011. Perhaps someone here knows what progress he had made with the Formula Three work, or whether another writer is developing what Justin had started.

[john winfield]

Motor Sport, Autosport UK, Autodiva, AutoHebdo

 

I have great affection for AutoHebdo, not least because one of their photographers gave me a lift from Rouen to Reims back in 1977. Not an easy hitch on a Sunday evening, so the lift was much appreciated. And I was back in time to revise for Monday morning's Economics exam (borderline pass).

Edited by john winfield, 24 January 2019 - 12:44.

[proviz]

Regarding Witty's F2 work, due to the huge amount of research necessary the publisher has been predicting it to come out late this year.

[moffspeed]

Octane - if one can ignore the hilariously awful guff which our very own Alan Partridge , Robert Coucher , writes there's some very good stuff if one also ignores the fawning rubbish about Salon Prive etc

Classic and Sports Car has a bit more dirt under its fingernails and I do very much enjoy reading Simon Taylor

Brilliant assessment of all the magazines. Classic & Sports Car seems to have drifted away from the motor sporting theme and seems more interested in Series 1 Land Rovers and 50/60's porridge such as Vauxhall Crestas and Morris Oxfords these days. I now prefer Octane which runs more motorsport stuff and has lost at least some of its elitist pomposity (with the exception of one contributor...)

One real nag about most car magazines these days - you get stuck into a multi page spread about a particular car/specialist identical in layout to the rest of the magazine. Halfway through the article you get the nagging feeling that the prose is just a bit too gushing and the lack of critical perspective a bit mystifying. Then you look to the top of the page and there you have it in a subtle font "Advertisement Feature". Grrrrrr...

Coming back to Octane's Pseuds Corner AKA "The Aesthete". Here is a recent description of the provision of a 3rd row of seats in the Audi SQ7, a mundane item you might think, but no :

"The pleasure here comes from the immaculate execution. There is proof here, if proof were ever needed, of Le Corbusier's belief that "design is intelligence made visible".

"For me this third row of SQ7 seats takes its place by Santiago's Porta de la Gloria. And I do not mean to be blasphemous".

Comparing this magical Audi 3rd row with the corresponding Range Rover versions : "Playing repeatedly with the Audi's 3rd row I found myself mumbling, 'Come over here Gerry (McGovern). Stop polishing your Church's loafers! Put your bloody Bulgari catalogue down and take a look at this!'


And heading up the same article, just to explain why we are all petrolheads :


"There is endocrinology to consider as well. Acceleration and speed excite glands whose secretions change, perhaps enhance, our perceptions. Meanwhile danger is itself a stimulus which sharpens the reactions. Speed thrills".



So next time you drive your SQ7 tractor complete with extended family to a day's racing at Silverstone you can thank Mr Aesthete for explaining what a jolly good car you own and also be grateful that he has provided a medical perspective as to why you enjoy watching cars driving noisily around in circles.

[RA Historian]

I don’t want to think about the amount of money I’ve spent on books and magazines over the years…

Oh boy, isn't that the truth !!!

[D28]

Oh boy, isn't that the truth !!!

Your list was very extensive and impressive. Just wondering if you looked at Sports Car International at all?

As I posted, it was one of my favourites, but not mentioned by many others.

[2F-001]

Your list was very extensive and impressive. Just wondering if you looked at Sports Car International at all?

As I posted, it was one of my favourites, but not mentioned by many others.

I have a single issue of that... one that focused on Chaparral (if I'm thinking of the same magazine...).

[Charlieman]

Cars and and Car  Conversions - its saving grace was some seriously good writers (even Bulgin(for a time ))   and  its strengths and weaknesses mirrored MN

CCC was the magazine to find advertisers who could add one more bhp to your Mini than a good service could find. There was more to it and I learned from the magazine.

 

I'm off to the cupboard to find the CCC edition with four home brewers racing F750 Reliant engine cars. 

[kayemod]

I don’t want to think about the amount of money I’ve spent on books and magazines over the years…

 

 

Yes, that is so true, but at the time I never regretted any of it, though, I'm sure most of us can say exactly the same thing, on all kinds of subjects.

 

Over the years, I've bought/subscribed/been sent free contributor copies of many different publications, on many different subjects, it's easy to spot a trend. Photography, Amateur Photographer, Personal Computer, Reinforced Plastics (fibreglass), Motor Sport, Autosport, Motoring News, Motor, Autocar, Road & Track, GQ, Alfa Magazine, Alfa Romeo, Mercedes Benz Magazine, AUTO Zeitung, MB Gazette, Model Cars, Model Maker, Model Boats, Marine Modelling, Ships Monthly, Motor Boat & Yachting, Scale RC Modeller & Ships in Scale (US), auf Deutsch der Schiffs Modell und der Schiffs Propeller (German), Private Eye, Viz when it was funny, and last but by no means least The Lady (yes I know, but they paid well), and probably others I've bought or contributed to that I've long forgotten, and I haven't mentioned the ones I only read today online.

 

A single magazine has stayed the course, almost all the way from reading my Dad's copy in the late 50s, Motor Sport, but I'm waiting to see next month's re-hash before I renew my subscription for that one. Much of it has remained excellent, but If only MS would pension off one contributor, who should have Pseud's Corner all to himself each month.

Edited by kayemod, 24 January 2019 - 19:57.

[john aston]

Moffspeed - I must admit I love Stephen Bayley . In a good way, there is something of the Long John Kickstart in his prose. His recent piece on the eternal appeal of the 911 was one of the best pieces I have read for years. I even emailed him and told him so - bloody ingrate hasn't replied. 

 

What I like about his writing is that he doesn't abuse the language as so many of his peers do . I feel queasy when I see  'likely' (as in 'he will likely win the race' ) or 'parlay' written by anybody born east of Maine and .I come out in a rash when  I read  'sat'  instead of 'sitting'.    

[moffspeed]

Totally respect your views John and realise that Bayley has more than a touch of Setright (to whom I have softened over the years) within. However it is just a bit too flowery for me, after all we are describing cars rather than works of art/architecture.

 

However I had the misfortune to pick up a copy of an alternative Classic Car Magazine (which will remain nameless -not C&SC/Octane) as a means of occupying me during a recent European flight. The wholesale slaughter of the English language/grammar was remarkable as was the shambolic editorial content. On the positive side, counting out the factual errors and spelling mistakes kept me busy during an unpleasant episode of turbulence....

[Bob Riebe]

Your list was very extensive and impressive. Just wondering if you looked at Sports Car International at all?

As I posted, it was one of my favourites, but not mentioned by many others.

That again rings the bell of the many magazines I read that were occasional buys.

I greatly, greatly regret having disposed of my piles of orphan magazines, bought some time repeatedly or here and there but not subscribed to

 

My cousin and I for several years would drive 60 miles just to go to Shinder's to check the magazine rack every month

Edited by Bob Riebe, 24 January 2019 - 21:03.

[DCapps]

That again rings the bell of the many magazines I read that were occasional buys.

I greatly, greatly regret having disposed of my piles of orphan magazines, bought some time repeatedly or here and there but not subscribed to

 

My cousin and I for several years would drive 60 miles just to go to Shinder's to check the magazine rack every month

 

Bob's list pretty closely mirrors mind for the most part, plus a few others, such as the Sports Car International, for instance. I still have no end of magazines such as US Auto Sports, The Alternate (one of the best and, well, eccentric & eclectic periodicals I have ever come across), Auto Sports, Motor Sport Illustrated, and at least a dozen or more magazines not yet mentioned, many from the early 1950s.

[RA Historian]

Your list was very extensive and impressive. Just wondering if you looked at Sports Car International at all?

As I posted, it was one of my favourites, but not mentioned by many others.

I picked up an issue or two at the newsstand over time, but  was not impressed enough to subscribe.

[Jerry Entin]

From Willem Oosthoek:



Nobody has mentioned Racing Pictorial yet, a glossy magazine that came out every three months with Spring, Summer, Fall and Annual editions.



Published by Ray Mann of Indianapolis, it covered USAC, NASCAR, IMCA, NHRA, CRA, etc. Especially attractive were the color photos of all cars on the Indy 500 grids and the NASCAR Grand National participants.



I have them from #3 [1961 Color edition] until the magazine folded by the mid-1980s.

[Bob Riebe]

OH, the one I really regretted letting the subscription run out Automobile Quarterly,     

Edited by Bob Riebe, 26 January 2019 - 20:31.

[RA Historian]

From Willem Oosthoek:



Nobody has mentioned Racing Pictorial yet, a glossy magazine that came out every three months with Spring, Summer, Fall and Annual editions.


 

I picked one up at the newsstand every now and then. However, their edition with a tasteless full color cover color photo of the MacDonald/Sachs fiery crash turned me off completely and I never bought another copy.

[Doug Nye]

Oh dear - am I to be pensioned off? Perhaps deserved, since my favourite magazines currently, and for some years past, are actually 'Aeroplane Monthly' and 'Flight'... 

 

I used to take 'Autosport' and 'Motoring News' religiously and have long unbroken runs of them both, right from launch to around 1997-98 - at which stage perhaps I grew up or they became too limited in scope and adolescent in outlook for me to bother with...

 

The shelves here also groan under 'Motor Sport' also bound from launch until 2000-ish, loose since, but with two 1920s volumes incomplete...  Sadly, now that it's all on-line, the value of such bound print runs has tanked, but that's not why I assembled them.  Ditto ('The...') 'Autocar' and 'Motor'.  'Autocourse' cum 'Sporting Motorist' was quite good and I thought 'Motor Racing' was often excellent - but then I'm biased where that one's concerned...

 

For sheer over-the-top loony-tunes sensationalism, the Italian 'Autosprint' probably deserves a prize in perpetuity.

 

'Auto Italiana' fascinated me through the 1950s/60s until its closure. I loved 'Autoweek' for its window upon an exotically alien world - and I greatly prize my long bound run of the pioneering 'La France Automobile', 1898-1911, while just wishing it was longer. 'The Automobile' makes great efforts in areas too many ignore - 'Classic & Sportscar' maintains decent standards, and 'Octane' can sometimes excel.

 

Otherwise I am a new subscriber to 'Racecar Engineering' - which for some years I have quite admired secretly from afar.

 

But for the moment, here's another interesting edition of 'Flypast' magazine - founded, incidentally, by our late ex-'Motoring News' editor friend Mike Twite (MLT) - who lost his life in the August 19, 1984, air crash of 32 year-old Vickers Varsity T1 'G-BDFT' at Marchington, Staffordshire.  Quiet Mike was a good bloke, and quite a talented occasional racing driver...  However, the poor fellow just ran out of luck.

 

DCN 

[pete366]

I enjoyed a lot of the ones mentioned, but one I used to really enjoy was F1 which is still being published.   They used to be irreverent and make fun of Flavio Briatore and others without worrying about whether thy would ruffle feathers.  I believe it was Matt Bishop who was the editor who went over to the other side and is director of communications for one of the teams.  Obviously it was only F1 but it was on my to read list if only to find out what was really going on.  It is more of a shill for drivers and teams now.  

[dwh43scale]

Autosport was a fixture in our house and provided light relief between lessons at school in the mid seventies. CAR in its (independent) pomp and dalliances with Motoring News, Rally Sport, CCC featured. Never read Motorsport at the time for some reason - perhaps I didn't feel old enough !

 

Commuting into London for a fair bit of my working life gave plenty of opportunity to read magazines and books (pre-podcasts).

 

Four Small Wheels (hence my TNF handle) while it was published.

 

These days a subscription to Readly provides access to all I need to dip into from time to time (and well worth considering if you can handle reading on a mobile device).

Edited by dwh43scale, 26 January 2019 - 17:42.