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Are print magazines' days numbered?
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Ashley



Joined: 02 Jan 2008
Posts: 1426
Location: Near Stroud, Glos

PostPosted: Sat Mar 02, 2019 3:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My son’s ‘41 Business Coupe got itself on the front page of Custom Car. No I hadn’t heard of it either, but it did mean I have to go into a Newsagent and look for it. I was astonished that there are still so many magazines available when I haven’t bought any for years, though I did used to subscribe to the Automobile.

TBH I don’t like them because they give the impression of being written to support advertisers of which there are too many and to push up prices.

IMO the golden age of magazines has long gone. After the war, huge numbers of all sorts of interesting new cars appeared and the mags seemed to have attracted some very knowledgeable, often highly qualified journalists to write about them. I have a series of Motor Year books from 48-56 and they’re brilliant, a valuable resource, but most of what I read now........
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Penman



Joined: 23 Nov 2007
Posts: 4751
Location: Swindon, Wilts.

PostPosted: Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi Rick
Did this prog, first broadcast on 28-02.19 prompt the thread?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002r7c
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Ray White



Joined: 02 Dec 2014
Posts: 6286
Location: Derby

PostPosted: Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Many years ago there was a serious magazine called 'Veteran and Vintage'. When it went to the wall it's place was taken by "The Automobile".Introduced in 1983; I began collecting them. I have every copy from Vol. 1 No. 1 up to a few years ago. Over 30 years of collecting and I hardly ever revisit them. That's a lot of magazines and I would sell the collection. Buyer would collect from Derby.
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Rick
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Joined: 27 Apr 2005
Posts: 22429
Location: UK

PostPosted: Sat Mar 02, 2019 7:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Penman wrote:
Hi Rick
Did this prog, first broadcast on 28-02.19 prompt the thread?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002r7c


Nope, just happy coincidence. More likely prompted subconsciously by being surrounded where I'm sat by piles of recently-acquired old magazines Smile

RJ
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MikeEdwards



Joined: 25 May 2011
Posts: 2464
Location: South Cheshire

PostPosted: Sat Mar 02, 2019 7:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I used to buy a lot more car magazines than I do now - in fact I tend to trawl around the NEC classic car show now to see what issues I can get from the magazines own stands, usually either free in exchange for an email address, or a nominal charge. I have loads and loads of magazines and I'm trying to bring myself to get rid of some.

PC is a good example - I've got loads of issues from the 80s and 90s, most of the how-to articles in those have been repeated, in much better print quality, or in videos on the web which in some cases can be much more useful.

I took some from home to put in the shed in plastic boxes with sachets of silica gel. I have filled five or six plastic boxes so far, yet the pile at home doesn't seem to have reduced at all. Are they breeding while my back is turned?
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Ray White



Joined: 02 Dec 2014
Posts: 6286
Location: Derby

PostPosted: Sat Mar 02, 2019 7:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MikeEdwards wrote:
I
I have filled five or six plastic boxes so far, yet the pile at home doesn't seem to have reduced at all. Are they breeding while my back is turned?


...they get up to all sorts if left to their own devices... Laughing
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Rick
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Joined: 27 Apr 2005
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Location: UK

PostPosted: Sat Mar 02, 2019 10:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

One magazine in particular, which I buy from time to time, has a game that I play which I've titled "spot the editor", as he appears to be extremely fond of photographing himself and shoehorning said image(s) onto as many pages as possible. The contents of the mag are occasionally interesting, so this minor point I can just about overlook.

RJ
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52classic



Joined: 02 Oct 2008
Posts: 493
Location: Cardiff.

PostPosted: Sun Mar 03, 2019 9:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My loft insulation can be read as a history of motor car publishing and a monitor to how my tastes changed through the years.

Hot Car, Custom Car, Cars and Car conversions. Next came 'Car' a magazine which single handedly stripped the UK motor industry of any dignity it had left!

Then Practical Classics, during the Peter Simpson era. They still make a good read when I have occasion to venture into the attic. Haven't bought a PC since they raped that poor old Marina Coupe for the General Lee project!

Classic Cars and C&SC vie for attention during the 80's boom, in some months I must have bought both of them! Somewhere along the way we see a few copies of Your Classic. I liked it but, I must have been on my own 'cos I think that one folded.

Not sure when I stopped, some time around the Millennium I guess. Prices went up, content went repetitive. New staff writers became journalists before car enthusiast. Not quite sure.

I buy 2 or 3 a year now. Ease the boredom of a holiday flight or the armchair days between Christmas and new year. Strangely, I find Classic Car Weekly the best of a bad bunch.

Will they die out? I think not, There's little that's new in the marketing game and someone will rediscover the intimacy of the printed word. Then off we go again.
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badhuis



Joined: 20 Aug 2008
Posts: 1390
Location: Netherlands

PostPosted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 10:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

52classic wrote:
New staff writers became journalists before car enthusiast.

Interesting you think like that. I feel the opposite was going on, there is just too much car enthusiasm and less thoroughly written articles.

I have always enjoyed Car magazine, the early years of Practical Classics. In the 90s Classic and Sportscar were pretty good, they provided real background stories of car development and such, undiscovered stories you did not find in the books. Often they took the trouble to actually speak to the men who were working on the cars back in the years.
Nowadays you never see that, only stories of happy classic car owners and "testing" restored cars.
One exception is The Automobile, the only one currently I have subscribed to.

The boxes of 80s and 90s full of classic car magazines I have disposed of years ago. However there still are some boxes of 40s, 50s and 60s full of Motor and Autocar which were bought at jumbles years ago. Still need to look into that, maybe when I am older and have more time Very Happy
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alastairq



Joined: 14 Oct 2016
Posts: 1950
Location: East Yorkshire

PostPosted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 2:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I used to enjoy the articles by LJK Setright...especially during the 1960's, when, as-a-lad, I had a subscription to the US magazine Road & Track...[birthday pressie usually]
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alanb



Joined: 10 Sep 2012
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Location: Berkshire.

PostPosted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 2:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

alastairq wrote:
I used to enjoy the articles by LJK Setright...especially during the 1960's, when, as-a-lad, I had a subscription to the US magazine Road & Track...[birthday pressie usually]

LJK Setright Now there's a motoring journalist I haven't heard of for a while, he was able to make the most mundane cars sound interesting and the interesting exotic whilst still giving an honest view and accurate description, I loved reading his articles.
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alastairq



Joined: 14 Oct 2016
Posts: 1950
Location: East Yorkshire

PostPosted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 2:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

His father invented the Setright ticket machine...something I used in anger during my early bus driving days..loved it!...so easy to flick off a ticket with one hand....[as a one-person-operator]
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Norseman



Joined: 09 Jan 2019
Posts: 78
Location: Essex UK

PostPosted: Sun Mar 10, 2019 2:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've subscribed to Classic Car Weekly for several years but I'd never buy or sub. to the glossy publications at their cover prices these days. The only time I get to read those is if they are 'recycled' to me, having been bought by friends Laughing
I'm not a lover of on-line reading, there's nothing like the proper read of a publication that's dropped through the door !
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Norseman



Joined: 09 Jan 2019
Posts: 78
Location: Essex UK

PostPosted: Sun Mar 10, 2019 3:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

alastairq wrote:
His father invented the Setright ticket so easy to flick off a ticket with one hand....[as a one-person-operator]


And equally easy to cost yourself money if you forgot to zero the high value dials before issuing a ticket !
I was a conductor on Eastern National back in the 'sixties.

nb: also used both Gibson & Almex machines over the years, as a London Transport conductor & Green Line OMO driver.
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lowdrag



Joined: 10 Apr 2009
Posts: 1585
Location: Le Mans

PostPosted: Wed Mar 20, 2019 8:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'd put a picture up, but Flickr won't let me even though I haven't reached anywhere near the free limit. But have you seen the new magazine that has just launched? Led by David Lillywhite, he who started Octane, it is called Magneto. I received a complimentary copy of #1, and it is well researched and written, if somewhat highbrow. And since it will be quarterly, it may well avoid regurgitating the same things all the time.
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