In just one short month or two, we’ll know whether Eddie Alterman will be subsumed by the don’t bite the hand that feeds borg at Car and Driver, or not. Motor Trend’s editorial boosterism is trending it towards a straight path from letterbox to circular file. Road and Track still can’t make up its mind (between simple and complex boredom). Etc. In the race to the bottom, both in terms of editorial dependence and circulation, no one wins. Of course, I have a dog in this race: us. I’m hoping that TTAC will emerge as the new Car and Driver when this adverpocalypse ends. And in just one short year or two, we’ll know. Meanwhile, we’ve got a free car mag subscription of your choice to give away, which is almost what they’re doing anyway. Anyway, FYI, it’s courtesy of subscription.com. All you have to do: in 800 words or a LOT LESS, tell us which car magazine sucks least and why. I will choose the winning comment by 9am tomorrow, based on the usual criteria: sarcasm, cynicism and general snarkiness. Oh, and again, TTAC’s overlords have put the subscription idea on ice. Thanks to you. Grazie.
C&D because they have John Phillips. I’m anxious to see how Eddie takes over from Chubby Cheddar, but apparently not anxious enough to reup my sub, which just lapsed last issue.
I’m assuming you mean domestic buff books, as our English friends are producing quite nice stuff. The only car mag I still sub to is Hemmings Sports & Exotic, yeah I’m getting old.
A free car magazine subscription; isn’t that a bit redundant these days. Grassroots Motorsports is pretty good. It actually has original content. Of the major magazines C&D still probably sucks the least, even if this is possibly the last really good writing that it contained.
R&T has Peter Egan. Probably the best of the big three – at least last time I read one – years ago.
Another one I like is Grassroots Motorsports too – shame my mail man steals them.
Practical Classics is brilliant but oh so expensive here.
Going outside of purely automotive magazines Cycle World might be the best mainstream magazine; you get Peter Egan (in a condensed, one page version – sometimes he needs that discipline) and Kevin Cameron, probably the most interesting, brilliant tech writer in any magazine.
3rd vote for GRM. There are good magazines out there, you just have to stray from the press release regurgitators.
What makes this even harder to stomach is that both the Car & Driver and Road & Track of my youth were both so cool
C&D had a bit more attitude, but they were the only magazines in the late 70’s that I would read – that did not have nude women – that is.
I remember one of the two ran the one of the cross country races in a rental car – after their press car Audi did not show. They even included picking up and dropping off the car at the airport – yeah unlimited mileage!
You’d never see anything like that anymore. Too bad.
Road & Track.
Why?
1. Home of the late, lamented Henry N. Manney III: greatest automotive pundit – ever!
2. Current home of Peter Egan.
3. Long-time home of Dennis Simanaitis – a brilliant writer of things automotively technological.
robb report, tee hee
The sad thing is, the answer is probably Consumer Reports.
Well, I bought the Robb Report 2009 Luxury Automobiles issue, more than I buy any other magazines on the topical shelf at the bookstore. Well, I did buy Automobile Magazine’s 2009 book – it is suitable for coffee table use.
CAR, if only for the excellent photography. My wife just got me a subscription after a hiatus of a couple of years.
EVO, because they still hoon (a bit) – my Barnes & Noble coffeshop choice of reading material
My Automobile and C&D subscriptions have lapsed, although I think C&D still sends me a copy every month.
Grassroots Motorsports
“Family” owned and run.
The writers, editors and other crazy members of the staff are all deeply involved in the magazine, cars and their readers. They are all genuinely a little nutty and would fit in here right away and I suspect some are likely registered here.
They sponsor the 24 Hours of Lemons, the Ultimate Track Car Challenge, their own $200x Challenge event, the $2009 West Coast Challenge event and the SDGrand Challenge in San Diego, the Mitty, plus they are the official magazine of NASA (The racing organization, though they are based in Florida, hmmm…)
They don’t pull punches in their reviews or “sell out” Much like the folks here at TTAC. However they are simply a great group of people who genuinely love cars and having fun with them.
Check them out: http://www.grmotorsports.com
Swede
No_slushbox thanks for the link to John Phillips. I remember the escalade article. Hilarious! Agree C and D is the least offensive. They seem to be watchdogs { Patrick Bedard anyway} for NHTSA propaganda and redlight camera legislation. After that its just(not necessarily in this order} ugly women named Winnifred selling aftershave, ads for expensive mats, tire ads, a GM special advertising section disguised as an article, male enhancement for those who cant afford an escalade, BMW articles and finally, Honda articles.
CAR http://www.carmagazine.co.uk hands down.
http://www.roddersjournal.com/
The Rodder’s Journal.
It’s expensive, 1/2″ thick, has gorgeous photography, and doesn’t revolve around thinly veiled advertising puff-pieces. It’s well-put-together, and has fantastically in-depth articles about gorgeous cars.
The screwy thing is, I’m not even into high-dollar hot rod/leadsled/whatever builds, but I love this magazine/quarterly-coffee-table-book.
I would have said Autoweek, since it had good timely racing coverage, a good review every week, and the funny back page. Now that Autoweek has gone bi,every other week I feel like my spouse is off cheating on me.
I’d have to say Car and Driver now, mostly based on its 10 Best/Worst etc. issue. Plus every now and then they do an in-depth technical article that beats the competition.
Honorable mention to Auto News. TTAC and the rest would only have half as much news content if it weren’t for links to Auto News. (I’m still too cheap to pay for it though.
Evo trumps the lot. Those guys recognise that cars aren’t interesting because of numbers but rather because of how they make us feel through the combination of power, handling and desireability. Top notch production values and an honest writing style cap it off. Can’t stand magazines that think reprinting the spec sheet constitutes a review.
I prefer Automobile magazine when I can find it (doesn’t seem to be on as many news stands as C&D and MotorTrend). I like the editorials, and find the photography/layout to be superior to the other mags as well. Although, it does bug me that they don’t print all performance data, or even things as basic as 0 – 60 times for all cars.
C&D does well with the data and specs, but I find the criteria they use to review models suspect at times, as well as the impressions they get.
Motortrend has the nice section in the beginning where they cover all of the auto shows and industry rumors, but lately there has been a lot of fluff.
Road & Track just doesn’t appeal to me because they spend too much time on exotic sports cars and on motorsports, two things that don’t particularly interest me.
When it comes down to it though, no website can ever replace the car magazine completely for me simply because I don’t have a monitor, mouse, and keyboard readily availible across from my toilet.
Automobile is probably the best car mag. For a while, MPH was on a roll, but they folded within a year. Shame.
If you want to feel good about your car, MT. Negatives are delivered in the least-offensive way possible. MT is also inevitably capable of the fastest acceleration times (whether by virtue of testing procedure or skill), and they seem to be on a first-name basis with John Hennessey, the guy who builds Veyron-squashing Vipers.
C&D has become a list of attributes. There’s no passion, nuance, or editorial perspective to any of the car reviews. The information is usually there, but there’s no panache to the delivery. Even so, it’s usually easier to coax out what’s wrong with a car than it is with MT, even if both magazines seem to thrilled that any vehicle has progressed beyond a 1950s standard.
I don’t often read R&T, but their content is an extended version of C&D. Excellent data panels, awful website design.
The best traditional magazine is Automobile. Better perspective, better writing, stronger critique. Online, Edmunds is another one that doesn’t pull any punches. Compare their full test of the 2010 Mustang GT with that of MT and tell me which you’d prefer to read before buying one.
I’m at a loss why someone would voluntarily leave Motive for Car & Driver.
My subscription history is limited to three magazines, Car & Driver, Motor Trend and Automobile. I do a little thinking out loud and try to offer a cogent conclusion.
C&D:
1. Under Csere, and thanks to a couple of the techsters being able to operate a slide rule, had developed the irritating habit of trumpeting how much they think they know in nearly every article while talking down and condescending to the readers.
2. Techsters make for dull writers. Unimaginative, uninspiring copy.
3. Predictable car-vs-car test features. Ferrari vs Porsche vs Corvette, BMW vs Audi vs Infiniti, Mazda 3 vs GTI vs Subaru ad infinitum.
4. No one is being groomed to compliment and eventually follow the brilliant John Phillips, the only writer in the stable.
Motor Trend:
1. Consistently teetering on the brink of style over substance.
2. A blatant apologist for Ford. Question: Does each car magazine pick manufacturers to support? Review C&Ds history with BMW and Honda, Motor Trends history with Ford and Mazda and Automobiles history with Chrysler and Toyota.
3. No writer on staff to rival Phillips or Ezra Dyer.
4. Trying a little too hard to be young and hip.Or is it rad? Or sick?
Automobile:
1. The bastion of “No boring cars” has stayed mostly true to the course.
2. Always more editorial effort placed on (good) writing about the experience of driving interesting cars.
3. Too much harumphing about wealthy subscribers, too much pissing and moaning about the imagined evils wrought by Ralph Nader by crusty ol’ Davis.
4. Smart enough to hang on to Jennings and Kitman. Even smarter to give Dyer a long leash.
5. Too much Photoshop lipstick on the pics. Flirting with high style and the art of style over accurate content.
6. Have grown to appreciate Cumberford. Analysis of car design is educational and entertaining.
I’ll keep all three but it looks like Automobile gets my vote for the cream of the current crop — fellow scribes and car goobers writing well about interesting cars.
“Winding Road“, great photography, about the same level of content as the other buff books, but no trees were hurt or killed in the publication of that inanity.
It must be Roundel because every other print magazine has spent the last decade chasing it in an attempt to become the new official magazine of BMW fans.
evo is my favorite, with CAR, MotorSport & Autosport filling out the top four. UK magazine blow the doors of US magazines no matter the subject matter.
Of the US magazines, Grassroots Motorsports is the only one worth paying for while C&D is worth reading while cooling one’s heels at Discount Tire.
Consumer Reports, I use the ratings and actually buy automobiles.
The only periodicals I look forward to reading are Collectible Automobile (despite their need for a proofreader; Top Gear; and Sports Car Market.
I, too, lament that the incomparable John Phillips is the only writer worth reading at C&D, which has become the Norma Desmond of car mags — old, hideous and convinced it’s still relevant.
The best American car magazine out there right now is Keith Martin’s Sports Car Market. Admittedly, it is not one of the “(once) big 4” buff magazines (C&D, R&T, MT and Automobile), but it delivers great stories on all kinds of cars, thoughts on collectibles, interesting articles on odd motorcycles, and (most importantly) a sense of individuality and uniqueness – with a touch of humor. I pay more for this magazine and look forward to it more each month than all the others combined.
As for the others: I have been reading or scanning them all for years and they are all in decline. Car & Driver was the best, but it has been declining for a while- the latest issue is all John Philips and Tony Swan. Philips is great, but one writer cannot carry the magazine.
R&T used to have great writers, but only Egan remains. He is the sole reason I even bother to look at it now (RF – if you can sign up Egan for TTAC your worries are over!). Now it is just a thin shell of glossy pics. This really saddens me since I remember R&T and C&D in their heyday of the 70’s and 80’s.
Automobile has a couple of good writers and carries interesting stories. I currently like it best of the four traditional mags.
Motor Trend just sucks – always has and always will. It has not gotten any better since changing staff over the last couple of years. I never buy this one – I only borrow it from a friend and rarely read it all the way through. It cannot die soon enough.
For me: Sports Car Market and Automobile live. Find a good place to park Peter Egan and John Philips and the other magazines can (and probably will) die.
Last time I picked up a Motor Trend, I felt like every article I read was a rewrite of a press release. I can tell the difference between that and real journalism.
However, I still pick up Automobile pretty regularly. I like Ezra Dyer’s writing a lot, and they do some really cool features – like the “top driver’s cars of all time” issue from last year, or the Nissan GT-R vs. Hummer race. I feel like it’s the most enthusiast-oriented magazine out there.
Pat Bedard has almost single-handedly dragged C&D into the muck. His silly, self-important rants have gotten so tiresome that now I just skip right past them every month.
Once R&T and C&D ended up under the same umbrella, they quite obviously started sharing resources. It shows in their comparison tests – same cars, similar tests, sometimes even the same month.
As others have noted, their decline is sad. They were both decent pubs a couple of decades ago. Now, I think R&T narrowly edges out C&D for “sucks least”, partly thanks to Egan and Simanaitis.
Car and Driver, as far as the glossy mags go. The only reason to read the glossies instead of TTAC is the instrumented tests, and Car and Driver’s are the best by a small margin.
Yes, Consumer Reports would probably be the most help actually buying a car.
I like Top Gear in some respects, but its expensive to get in the USA and it has a bit too much fluf, but I like some of the reviews better than USA mags. Teknikens Värld is an excellent mag if you read Swedish, other than that C&D is fluff I subscribe to for some reason, but honestly never pay much attention to. MT is a disgrace lately IMHO.
May favorite US magazine is 0-60. It seems to be modeled after the British mags like CAR. To bad it is only a quarterly. They even use better paper to print the thing on. For those of you not familiar wit this magazine, I would highly recommend it. Give it a try if you can find it.
I love CAR and Top Gear as well, I just can’t justify a $100 subscription, or $10 at the newsstand.
Car & Driver for sure. One of the best investments I ever made.
Soichiro H.
Favorites: Automobile and Sports Car Market. I second no_slushbox’s comments regarding Cycle World – some of the best technical (Cameron) and “theme” (Egan) writing out there. Los Angeles Times’ Dan Neil is always a joy to read too.
Car and Driver, from a long ago.
Reason being that, in the halcyon days of print-media, Car and Driver consistently had the lowest 0-60 time for a given make & model, compared to the other magazines. Also, the test sheet format was consistent over several years, not happenstance.
The early year magazines test reports had a plot of time versus velocity, so you could see where the shift were, which helped, for example, to explain the 240Z’s performance (shift into third at 62 mph, 0.5 seconds). We figured the sample cars may have been limping when returned tot he manufacturer, but at least the test data was comparable between models because all had been flogged without mercy and the introduction of bias due to NVH was thus avoided.
I miss the R&T of yesteryear. I let my subscription to that run out recently. I can’t seem to get rid of my MT sub. It ran out a few months ago, but I’m still getting it. Let’s see, Angus MacKenzie’s doing another creative writing column this month (Pg. 8). “I’m high in the hills of north Wales, a rolling, open landscape dotted with, sheep,” ad nauseum. That Automobile seems pretty good, I see that at the barber shop occasionally. I haven’t paid for one of them yet though.
I currently receive Car & Driver, Motor Trend, and Road & Track. I got the MT subscription when I went to their car show.
I have to agree with everyone who says that evo is the best. I bought an issue when I was in Italy, and it was great. Much better writing than any of C&D, RT, MT. Automobile comes close. Sometimes.
How much does a US subscription cost?
Car & Driver for sure. One of the best investments I ever made.
Soichiro H.…
That was awesome. Used to really like C&D, but their new format is lame. Change for the sake of change is stupid. Can’t believe that anybody who actually LIKES cars would put CR on the list, though. I hear they were getting ready to produce an sister publication: Whirlpool & Maytag!
CR is an interesting case. While I am happy to mention it to every customer I have looking at a car that gets a favorable review or a recommended buy rating, some of the things they come up with are confusing and just plain odd.
For example, they rate trucks based on driving impressions and ride, but actual payload, towing, and work capability, if included at all, are not weighted much, leading to odd circumstances like a Honda Ridgeline outperforming a Ford F-250 (which, in all honesty it will do if you are looking at driving dynamics and fuel economy, but in any other category, not even close). Also in some categories vehicles that end up with a higher score are not recommended while lower scoring vehicles are, even if price is very similar. Plus, they have the most bizarre list of negatives I have ever seen, including lots of stuff that I have never heard anyone complain about on certain vehicles ever.
When I used to work in home theater sales we all had equally odd reactions to CRs sometimes off the wall ideas, the magazine telling people to buy products that we all knew to be inferior products.
I don’t know how exactly CR gets its info, but I believe a lot of it is sent in from actualy consumers (hence the title). The problem is a lot of people are idiots who don’t know quality from crap, and as the old saying goes the plural of anecdote is not data.
I can handle Automobile.
C&D makes me cringe. Too many memories of their glory daze.
An Idea: Now that the sub issue is dead (for now), capitalize on the goodwill feeling by adding a paypal $1 tip button.
Your change had given me a warm and fuzzy sense about the future. I may even vote for a Democrat in an upcoming election.
Motor Trend, by far.
Over the years I have never seen a magazine so devoted to echo whatever the Big 2.4 wanted, their “Car of the Year” is the new Detroit launch, comments have no objectivity, they always like the cars Detroit makes, and endlessly repeat PR as editorials and reviews.
No reason to name the Detroit-3 Press as a car magazine.
I stopped buying car mags and subs about 5 years ago but up to that time far and away C&D always garnered my interest more than the others. Editorial writing under Czaba Czere and that is done from memory so may be wrong spelling was real great and the columns were always enjoyable and carried nice bits of humor too. I always got a kick out of Blunderbuss Yates too and would dearly love to know the real story behind his brief stint at TTAC.
These past 5 years have been spent browsing the internet sites and only of late had I subscribed to this site but have been lurking for those same years. Other than Jalopnik which I find cumbersome to read there really is no content that I find of interest other than this one.
The truth wins out.
Once in a while I still enjoy an issue of Hemmings Motor News just to keep up on pricing of classics. Never owned one but always have enjoyed reading of them and collecting fine prints.
I had hope for MT when the latest editorial staff took over a couple of years back…the writing seemed to improve along with the aesthetic makeover. Then they began the long slide back to glorified press release.
Car & Driver foolishly changed their design layout in what looked like a panicked response to Motor Trend, but more importantly, their writing deteriorated. Pat Bedard replaced D.E. Davis and LJK Setright as the most insufferable automotive writer in print, with his constant “get off my lawn” rants about liberals and mass transit. The entire magazine seemed to lose any sense of wit, playfulness or irony.
A few months back I picked up a copy of Automobile magazine with a cover story entitled “cars we need now,” featuring high mpg Japanese and european cars. Although a bit of a valentine to Ford, it actually addressed an issue that was on everyones’ mind at a time when gas prices were spiking. Interesting stories and columns by Kitman, Dyer and Jennings were worth reading, and the layout and photography seemed subdued in comparison to the trying-too-hard styles of MT and C&D.
Recently they sent me a 12 month subscription offer for 6 bucks! At that price, they have my vote.
I might have even paid ten.
Best car mag of the bunch is Grassroots Motorsports, by far. Light on car reviews but great tips and general banter about amateur racing–what could be better than that? Autoweek was a good one until they went to every other week. Both are far more practical than TTAC as bathroom reading, until I get one of those really thin laptops anyway.
My two favorites are Sports Car International and Top Gear magazine. CAR is great to glance at, but rather bland to actually read. SCI really impressed me when they pretty much slammed the Solstice right out of the gate. While all of the mainstream mags were gushing all over it, SCI was the only one with the guts to say it was lousy, with a transmission straight out of a tractor.
Edit: Apparently SCI is dead. Too bad.
My vote’s always been British CAR.
Incidentally, at least last time I looked, Automobile’s content was from many of the same writers and so if you like Automobile you would probably enjoy CAR even more.
Car is slicker, printed on higher quality paper, has better photographs and has the lovably sardonic British writers who are my favorite journalists in the world.
And they are fearless. At about the time our buff books were talking about how great GM’s latest monstrosities were, CAR said “The new Rover 800: Not good enough”. The 800 was just as crucial to Rover as the GM monstrosities were to that hapless organization. CAR was honest. Our American magazines were not.
The real pity is the $100-odd a year subscription and $10 an issue on the newsstand. If you’re not financially challenged, it’s worth it, but ouch.
D
I used to enjoy Car & Driver; from about 1965 through 1990 or so it was a great magazine, they had a great stable of writers: Brock Yates, Larry Griffin, Don Sherman, Bruce McCall and Leon Mandel to name a few. It was frequently irreverent but it was certainly never boring. Unfortunately, their writers have either moved on, retired or died. Today, Car & Driver is simply a shadow of its former self. Things aren’t any better at Motor Toones, whose “journalism” reads like press releases and Road & Track who sole function seems to be selling ad space. Time for all of them to go belly up.
In a word, the answer is-
CAR
(Its from the UK for those of you unfamiliar and it can be picked up at your friendly major bookstore chain.)
Runner up, Hemmings.
Peter Egan is almost worth the price of admission to R&T (and Cycle Guide), but not quite.
Automobile Magazine is a hollow shell of its former self, Motor Trend always was, and Car and Driver is too interested in the pedantic rants of its long in the tooth columnists.
I liked CAR back in the 90s (when I could afford it-$10.00 now)
Is it still similar?
no_slushbox- Occasionally when I feel “into” motorcycles I’ll pick up CW. In the past I thought they were too crotch rocket focused, but they seem to be OK now.
Consumer Reports is by far the best mag for car reviews. Not so much for writing.
Nullomodo- all CR tests are done in house.
You say that they were recommending HT equipment you “knew” was inferior. Is your “knowing” the truth?
This is going to be fun…
I used to go to B and N / Borders and reguarly spend about $100 about monthly on just car mags.
I started out just reading R & T back in 92 when the magazine was interesting. And Ive had a sub to them ever since.
I did almost always pick up C % D for the future stuff but they never had a sub of mine.
Automobile.. was a mag id pick up if I’m going somewhere and somehow I havent read enough car reviews.
Motor Trend always has the future car stuff.. but extremely weak on actual articles and interest.
Auto Week was a poor monthly I thought about but picked up every so often, cause somehow a weekly car mag that only had to show spy shots caught my eye.
———–
Autoweek.. I havent bothered with since the internet, and I find DUTCH pointless and bothersome.
Motor Trend is as boring to look at now as Autoweek and the concepts are only of SUVS (which I despise)
C / D is / are / am is one of the worst mags out there. Csaba Csere has to be extremely opinionated and pointlessly off guard. He’s been around for the longest time and I find the whole affair extremely aggravating. Not to mention.. THEY TEST SUVS.. and do horrible road tests. And as much as I do love the Honda Accord.. the damn car doesnt need to win.. its test every year!
Automobile got bought out by a French company and i believe C and D did also. That tells me the same company is running both.. and therefor printing EVEN less valueable information.
SO all I have is R and T mostly because I need to read something while I am going to the bathroom, and that mag does its best to help me shit, and keeps me informed. The editorials are decent, the Ampersand changed.. the whole mag changed over. They are a lot more into racing, and cars than the rest.. and generally piss me off the least.
I also pick up CAR from Europe on a sub because I find it informative and its the least ignorant / arrogant of the british mags.
I am.. however still receiving a free sub from my father-in-law, and I almost always use it to clean the cat box or to wipe my ass.. after I’m done.
I also read Intersection.. and would love a sub to that, because its a lot about design, and culture.. than just the times and laps of the American Mags.
SO.. in about 15yrs time, I went from spending $100 month at the book store.. ON JUST CAR MAGS that were able to give me a decent slice of life, to getting 1 US car mag sub that is the least irratiting of them all.
And the rest.. I find through THETRUTHABOUTCARS.COM.
And..for the record..
So many car mags suck. There isnt enough substance, enough actual car information and no artwork. Im tired of looking at cars I cant afford, charts upon charts of boring lap times, and tours of factories I wontn ever see in my life time.
And to show how much CAR MAGS DO SUCK….
I subscribed to Motor Trend CLASSIC.. for the year it was in publication! I came upon this GEM like a SEMI hitting a squirrel!
The artwork was amazing.
The stories were fantastic.
The reviews and comparisions.. were so unbelievable I couldnt put it down.
THAT.. was the one mag, I LOVED READING.
I didnt take it to the bathroom.. cause I didnt want it to smell.
Worst part..
It got canned cause of advertising dollars..
An they offered me Car and Driver as a remaining sub.
What a waste of good money.
In order to narrow the field and to keep things far in this challenging question I will only refer to American publications. My criteria for minimal suckiness by an automotive magazine are pretty simple. I want articles that are down to earth and useful to the average enthusiast but they must still be entertaining.
Car and Driver essentially eliminated themselves from this competition when they claimed a BMW M3 was a better sports car than a Nissan GT-R or a Porsche 911 Turbo. This article could have been entertaining had the writers not decided to kowtow to their accountant overlords.
Now you will likely expect me to say that my favorite buff book is Consumer Reports because it is down to earth and unbiased. The fact of the matter is Consumer Reports is no more a car magazine then it is a vacuum cleaner magazine. Yes they publish an annual automotive issue and their annual new and used guides are found in every gearhead’s bathroom library. But this does not make them a car magazine. Consumer Reports is a publication that is not aimed at car guys, but at the average car buyer. Because of this target audience, they highly recommend the appallingly boring and mediocre Lexus SC430 but they turn their noses up at the Lotus Elise. While this is not as big an offence as the crimes performed by Car and Driver, it prevents them from sucking least.
The magazine that sucks least is not one magazine but two rival publications. Motor Trend and their competitor; Road and Track are head and shoulders above their competition. While this equates to being Budweiser in a sea of Pabst Blue Ribbon it still is an achievement.
So why have I selected these somewhat random publications from a sea of mediocrity? The main reason I chose them was because they do a feature that is very rare these days but one that is a favorite of myself and many other car freaks. These magazines have long-term test fleets.
The best way to learn about a car is not to drive it at or beyond its limits for a day on a track. It’s not to live with it for a week. Use it for at least a year as a daily driver. Pass it around a publication’s staff. You may find out that the annoying noise the wipers make at 130mph is not as big a deal as the fact that the sports seats numb the driver and passenger’s back and ass if they sit for more than hour without getting out to stretch. The fact is you can make these long-term fleet articles interesting if you run interesting cars. Yes a Jag XF is interesting. But interesting and fun doesn’t have to be expensive. A year’s worth of articles about a daily driver Yaris or Jeep Compass would be me boring to read than topsoil catalogue. On the other hand, many people would likely want to read about how the Chevy HHR SS or the Honda Fit stack up as daily drivers.
Now some of you might argue that Automobile runs this feature. Yes they do, but they don’t even do it in a half-assed way. They are at most using a quarter of their collective asses. They buy whatever the other buff books or Edmunds.com put in their fleets. They also don’t keep archives of their fleets. So while I can see how a 1996 BMW Z3 held up to a year’s worth of use and abuse by the crew at Road and Track or how Motor Trend’s 1999 Audi A6 Avant, handled its servitude I have no idea how the cars from even last year’s Automobile fleet held up.
Motivemag has a small long-term fleet. I think it is maybe two cars, a 135i and Jetta TDI. These are two very different cars that most enthusiasts have strong feelings about. They may hate one or the other but the fact is they are passionate about the car. But the fact is they have it and they post updates. I hope this feature will be accompanying Mr. Alterman to Car and Driver. If he brings the kind of panache and humor that we have seen in his pieces like Motive’s secretary special comparison, I may have to reverse my opinion in a few months. But that is a big if, until then, Road and Track and Motor Trend can rest on their mediocre laurels.
[edited by Jeff (paragraphs needed)]
Road and Track:
Why?
Peter Egan
Dennis Simanaitis
Gordon Murray
Grassroots Motorsports all the way! And its associated forum is the best. True car-lovers, and it doesn’t matter how obscure your mechanical problem is… someone on there knows how to fix it.
I love those guys!!!
I still get Car & Driver, have since the late 60’s, but I agree with most that it surely ain’t what it used to be.
I really enjoy Hemmings the most nowadays. Maybe I’m just a nostalgic old fart.
Hemmings puts out a pair of magazines which I regularly read cover to cover, just like I used to do with both C&D and R&T in the 1970s. Both of the Hemmings mags are descended from the prior title Special Interest Autos. Now it is two magazines, “Hemmings Classic Car” which covers interesting American cars and “Hemmings Sports & Exotic” which covers the imports. The names stink because they don’t really communicate what the magazines are all about, but the magazines are terrific. Both are very much in the mold of the UK’s “Classic & Sports Car”. If you enjoy interesting automobiles roughly 20+ years old, these are more than worth your time and dime.
As to C&D, R&T, MT and Automobile Magazine …. boring and not worth my time anymore. I literally wouldn’t take a free subscription to any of them. Even the online e-mag Winding Road has become a snooze.
If I could only subscribe to one automobile magazine, it would have to be CAR. Best writing, no bullshit, brilliant photography. The layout of the book is very clean and crisp.
Runner up- Keith Martin’s Sports Car Market. SCM is a treasure trove of fodder for “if I won the Lottery” car conversations.
C&D used to be the best but it is the magazine world’s equivalent to the high school hottie that become a shagged out hag, pining for the good old days…
I dont see any much difference between Motor Trend, Car& Driver, Automobile and Road&Track. All of these come most likely from the same owner and deal with the same cars and issues.Anyways, I can`t afford to buy them in my fucked up Latvia where greed of those monkeys who sell the car mags has gone wild. They sell it for about 8-9 dollars a piece, while a salary averages 700 bucks a month here. Hope they choke from gluttony motherf…!
I’m at a loss why someone would voluntarily leave Motive for Car & Driver.: Because print magazines come with bigger paychecks (still… barely?
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If we’re talking about print-only magazines, the one magazine I still buy with any regularity is EVO.
EVO has, and has had, some fantastic drivers/writers, great photography, and a publisher who well and truly loves cars. And it shows in what they produce.
EVO Magazine isn’t a magazine. It’s sitting down in an English pub with a dozen other motorheads, listening to them tell tall tales of fantastic drives over a few pints. It’s standing out in the pre-dawn light in a cold parking lot with those same blokes, cars burbling away, glistening in the darkness, hinting at what’s about to follow.
And whether those cars are sportscars, exotics, rental cars or bangers, what follows is wonderful.
At the same time, the magazine is a gorgeous coffee-table photo-book of the drive itself.
EVO satisfies on so many levels that it’s worth the rather expensive subscription. The only thing missing, really, is for it to be printed on heavier stock and sold in a hardbound edition at the end of each year.
One thing I forgot to say in my earlier posting was that my all time favorite auto scribe was Thom McCall of Mechanics Illustrated fame. Loved his trunk test. Okay so now you all know I am really really old.
Is it permissible to suggest a magazine that is actually good – not just less sucky than the others? If so let me suggest Rod and Custom.
Rod and Custom obviously focuses on a narrow segment of the auto scene, namely (you guessed it) Rods and Customs. This narrow focus has kept it on track all these years.
Photography is good. Often there are articles about historic cars or famous builders. Good tech articles. Of course, you have to care about Rods, and/or Customs to want to read it, but then you’d have to care about the financial condition of the auto industry, or branding strategy, to want to read half of what’s on TTAC. R&C is a tightly focused brand.
C+D for 35 years, but I let my sub lapse 3 years ago when the format changed and the writing got sillier.
Automobile for the last 5 years, I really enjoy the design studies.
The net ruined it for me – I’m at TTAC, Autoblog, Jalopnik and Edmunds daily.
Until I allowed my subscription to lapse last year, I really enjoyed Autoweek but it has now gone the way of C&D, R&T, Automobile, and a number of Hemings pubs in my household. I would nominate for the car magazine that sucks the least: Winding Road, the online magazine with slick photos, good writing and believable editorial content. It’s delivered to my inbox monthly and while it’s not as convenient as the print versions, it is less expensive.
While not a “car” magazine in the strict sense of this discussion, Autosport is head and shoulders above any such publication. I agree with others about Grassroots Motorsports. I still like to read Car and Drivr and Road & Track, despite the recent redesign of the former and the general thinness of the latter.
If we’re including performance magazines, HOT ROD and CAR CRAFT are both still excellent publications with lots of good stuff to read… A little heavy on the ads, but that’s what sells em.
As far as the “buff books”, none of the above. They’re all awful.
EVO Magazine is the only buff book I read, but it’s $16 to buy it off the shelf here, thanks to being from England. Fantastic photography, great writing that makes you feel like you’re there driving the car, and NO BIAS. It really is refreshing. North America needs an EVO.
The 2 Brits (Top Gear and CAR) are the best. Lush trim size, lush color/coated stock, intelligent writers and copy. They cover many cars we can’t get in the US which to me is an added bonus.
I have never seen a magazine change its design more than CAR does though. Every time they get an new editor, which is frequent. It’s $11 at my newsstand now, and that makes it over $12 with tax…too much. I don’t get it every month like I used to. I also used to save auto mags. But after lugging 30 years worth in several moves, I’ve given that up.
Collectible Automobile is great also. (And worth keeping.)
Automobile Quarterly is the best US publication, but not cheap. And only 4X year. And hardbound; not really a magazine. But awesome writing.
Hemmings is much better. Since they began losing the classifieds revenue, they have made it more of a magazine with articles and color.
I gave up Autoweek when I discovered TTAC.
And for those interested in the car books Golden Age, I encourage readers to inspect any of the marque books from Brooklands Press from the UK. (Available on Amazon) They are basically reprints of “back in the day” road tests from all the major car mags.
They have hundreds of titles and most are edited by one R.M. Clarke. Younger readers should check them out to see how excellent car mags used to be (even Motor Trend!)
One thing I forgot to say in my earlier posting was that my all time favorite auto scribe was Thom McCall of Mechanics Illustrated fame. Loved his trunk test. Okay so now you all know I am really really old.…
I was a very young boy when I discovered my older brother’s stack of Mechanix Illustrated and I remember Tom McCahill. He was a wise ass; somebody wrote in with problems with his car and Tom told him to buy a horse. A reader complained about his advice and tom asked him “what do you have against horses?” Anyway, Mechanix Illustrated is what kick started my intrigue into mechanical things. Sadly, this magazine went the way of today’s car mags, basically becoming a shadow of it’s former self. MI went from “how to rebuild a wiper motor” to “how to change your oil”…
Top Gear wins. You get to read about cars that we don’t get here.
Also, many of the mags for fans of certain cars are good because they have useful info. Even the ad’s are useful because they tend to be salient to the reader.
I used to like Autoweek, but then went downhill long before they became Auto-biweek-maybe. I’ve let my subscription lapse.
Car & Driver? Meh. Their graphic redesign really stunk up the place.
Of all the dead-tree magazines, I prefer CAR.
collectible automobile:
the writers were actually in the companies while those great cars were being designed.. they know how and why each car changed year by year. they have cool studio shots of clay models, with varitions on the b side.
intersection:
lifestyle + cars, a good mix. 3% of car buyers are enthusiasts.
auto & design:
like car-styling, but italian, and has that european edge.. you get rare designer interviews with new car development articles..
Best car magazines in the US?
2nd John Horner: “Hemmings Classic Car” which covers interesting American cars and “Hemmings Sports & Exotic”
Also, given my love for old cars, one of the other best car magazines just happens to also be the largest circulation collector car magazine (mostly it apparently goes to insureds, hence it has a captive audience) – but I understand it is now available to the public by subscription (normally $12 a year for 4 issues, right now it’s $8 a year as a special)
I’m talking about Hagery’s magazine. It’s largely about old cars, put out by the largest collector car insurance outfit in the country. My latest issue just arrived; it’s a quarterly magazine.
Go to
https://shop.hagerty.com/s-9-hagertys-magazine.aspx
The other magazine I buy when I feel like it? (May buy a subscription). Collectible Automobile.
They just did their 25th anniversary issue; you may still be able to catch it at a book store or magazine stand.
For modern cars? Consumer Reports may be somewhat dry but they parse out facts rather than emotion, and help a lot of people to decide on what is a good car for them – new or used.
I’ve used them for several years now, after finally ‘giving up’ on American cars (which they largely and seemingly accurately, pan when deserving – as they also do any brands, to be honest).
I also like CAR from the UK but it’s rather expensive. We could use an American edition of CAR magazine, in fact.
Catching up on this thread a bit late, and anything I would say about it has been said. (Good job B&B!) anyway, it also introduced me to Grassroots Motorsports, which as of just now I’m a subscriber. (of course the first issue won’t be here until between April 27, 2009 – May 26, 2009) Hopefully it will be worth the wait.
Accords: I like it that you read Intersection. So do I, with pleasure, now and then.
What about Carl’s Cars? I’m surprised nobody mentioned that magazine. It’s pretty good, in a wacky way.
http://www.carls-cars.com/flash.html
Oh how the mighty have fallen! I grew up on c&d and r&t. I always thought MT was barely better than tp. I stopped my subscription to R&T and C&D about 10 years ago when I finally figured out that 0-60 times just weren’t what driving was all about. The Brit’s are so much better at conveying what is enjoyable about driving, that I now only read magazines from across the pond. Problem is, there has been a shake up there as well. Last year when Jethro Bovington and Richard Meaden left EVO for The Drivers Republic, it put a serious dent in the talent pool over at EVO. Chris Harris leaving Autocar had a similar impact. Those three writers are the best at what they do in my opinion. The only American writer that can even be mentioned in the same breath with them is Peter Egan. I will periodically pic up R&T to read his column, but don’t ever bother to read anything else in the magazine, because it is simply a reformatted press release. A damn shame.
So, I still subscribe to Autocar, and I pick up Evo nearly every month, and I reluctantly read Drivers Republic. I say reluctantly, because I still prefer a nicely crafted paper magazine to a webzine. But when the three best automotive writers int he world all work at the same place, you are kind of obligated to give it a shot.
Michael
In the US, GRM is a standout of just being a very honest magazine. Easy read, fun articles. No big glossy pics and big ads masquerading as actual journalism.
My fave mags that are imported would be (in no specific order)
1) CAR (I believe it’s Performance Car now?)
2) EVO
3) Top Gear (duhhh.. :D )
1 & 2 both have amazing photographers. Their pics alone put the american mags to shame.
3 just doesn’t care what you, or anyone else thinks. And it’s got Clarkson.
I have been getting; Road & Track, Motor Trend, Car Craft, Hot Rod, Automobile, and Car & Driver for the past 10 years.
You will actually learn something from Car Craft. This year I’ve let them all lapse.
Now I just troll Jalopnik and TTAC.
“Automobile” magazine – the editorials are usually pretty funny – Jaime Kitman and Ezra Dyer are great.