Hudson's Blog

Nov 19, 2007 - The World of Car Magazines

I've been collecting car magazines since I was about 8. Of all of the magazines I have purchased and have been given in all those years, few have left my possession. Which means, my library currently holds somewhere north of 2,400 individual issues of some 200+ titles.

The earliest magazines I have date back to the 1950s and of course I get magazines weekly now. I even have reprinted issues of magazines that date back over 100 years. Almost all of them are in English but I have some in French, German, Italian, and Portugese. I'm sure you're getting the point that I like to read about cars.

With this many magazines, I've developed my own taste for what's good and what's bad. As with any product, when you find something good you keep going back and when you find something bad, you avoid it! Let me share some of these highlights and lowlights:

Car Previews: In the days before good spy photographers, Photoshop, and the internet, magazines had to hire artists. These people are rarities today (David Kimble comes to mind) but all of the top magazines had these artists. In the opening pages of Motor Trend or Car & Driver, you'd find sketches of upcoming vehicles. And Argus Publishing produced an annual magazine (cheap paper, all interior illustrations in black and white) that highlighted the upcoming model year's products. The 1977, 1978, 1979, and 1980 editions featured the Big4 domestic manufacturers showing the changes in their products sketched in pencil; some of these illustrations took liberties on potential designs including the AMC Pacer 4-door and Ford Granada "Ranchero" pickup. But every May or June, I'd buy the next one. The 1981 edition added imports.

Sports Car Graphic: One of the magazines (along with Car Life) that was absorbed by Motor Trend over the years. I can't vouch for the original, but Motor Trend relaunched the magazine in the late 1970s. It featured a number of rehashed articles from Motor Trend along with a few newer articles. This was one of the first perfect bound (no staples) magazines that I can recall. It had a nice simple layout and some artwork and articles that were superior to the standard fare in Motor Trend, but Sports Car Graphic only came out quarterly at best. I think they may have published eight or ten issues.

Classic Automobile Register: They launched this upscale magazine to great fanfare at the New York Auto Show about ten years ago. A very nice quality publication with some big name writers who followed William Jeanes from Car and Driver. While Automobile magazine looked to take the genre upscale, CAR attempted to take the magazine even higher. This bi-monthly magazine fell into trouble after a year or so, skipping an issue or two. Finally, Hachette Filipacci offered subscribers subscriptions to Car and Driver or Road & Track (or extensions, in cases like mine where we already subscribed to both).

AutoPhyle: Not to be confused with AutoWeek's annual AutoFile publication, this one was much more rare. I remember purchasing this magazine at Tower Books because it looked interesting: no advertising, relatively rare classic cars, interesting new cars, and perhaps they could use an asipiring writer like me. I got the magazine home and started reading, and boy was it bad. A coworker told me that it looked like a standard Macintosh layout for the publication, which was printed on very nice stock paper for being a relatively cheap ($3.50) ad-free magazine. The writing was poor compared to my novice writing at the time. The photography was average-to-good and featured some new products but seemed to cover mostly collector cars of friends of the editor or writers. Years later, I found someone selling the entire run of the magazine, which lasted eight or nine (quarterly) issues for just a few dollars. I own that collection...to keep as an example of how NOT to produce a car magazine. So sorry if you worked on this magazine...I really am.

EB: Romano Artioli relaunched the Bugatti brand in the early 1990s. He also launched a number of high-end related products as part of this lifestyle associated with the exclusive brand. In part to market these products and in part to promote the global roll out of the Bugatti car, Artioli launched the magazine EB (the initials of the brand's founder Ettore Bugatti). Such a high-end magazine couldn't be just a magazine so EB was not only perfect bound, but hard bound. It came out twice a year (two semesters a year, according to the publication) and prominently featured the Bugatti EB110 coupe and the Bugatti EB112 sedan along with furniture, jewelry, and other assorted Bugatti and EB-branded items. If you're into the short-lived Artioli-era Bugattis, this magazine is a must.

Car: When Car and Driver and Motor Trend were in the prime in the 1980s and early 1990s, I found them to be lacking. Especially after I discovered the British magazine simply entitled Car. Beautiful two-page spreads showcasing one feature of a vehicle such as the brake intake ducts of a Lamborghini Diablo illustrated this magazine made it one of the most attractive mainstream car magazines. Legendary LJK Setright wrote for the magazine until he died in 2005. Among my all-time favorite articles appeared in Car; written by famous spy photographer Hans Lehman, the article outlined his trek across the United States in search of future products (including the yet-to-be-shown first Saturn sedan) and a new car for his collection (the then new Porsche 911 Speedster). The magazine has since gone down in quality, but it still ranks among the best magazines in the genre...but far from its peak!

Auto Katalog: Published every fall by Auto Motor und Sport, this annual magazine illustrates almost every vehicle built around the world. There are a handful of manufacturers not listed and a number of "manufacturers" who are no more than kitcar builders, but this German-language publication shows vehicles from China, India, and Iran as well as all of the major manufacturing countries. In the days before the websites such as Global Auto Index, this was the only way to identify obscure vehicles. Finding the magazine is the toughest part.

Automobile Quarterly: As an automotive historian, my dream has been to write for Automobile Quarterly. Very few car magazines will publish articles ranging from 5,000 to 8,000 words long, but that's typical for AQ. The landscape format of this hardbound magazine also makes AQ rare in the publishing world, but it allows for better framing of pictures of cars. With over 45 years of history, the magazine has covered a wealth of topics with some of the world's greatest writers listed among its contributors. You can find back issues of AQ at many flea markets, usually in really good condition...and I recommend that you pick up a few copies when you see them. That is if you like to read the true stories of automotive history.

Collectible Automobile: Published six times a year, Collectible Automobile is among the best of the newsstand car magazines. The only advertising in this magazine is for publications, typically automotive, from Publications International, the publishing house in charge of CA. One of the reasons why I like this magazine is that my work has appeared in its pages a few times, but even before they accepted my first article I admired this magazine. The bright glossy pages show off the excellent photography, either new or from their vast archives, and illustrate the stories brilliantly. Their articles have been nominated for and won numerous awards (including an award for one of my articles). While the oversized format of the magazine doesn't work well for storage in typical magazine holders, you'll want it on your coffee table anyway. This is good reading.

6:00 am | Categories: car magazines, car, car and driver, road and track, automobile quarterly, motor trend, eb, bugatti, autophyle, car previews, collectible automobile, classic automobile register, sports car graphic, motor trend Comments (0) | Permalink | Alert Administrator

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Jul 31, 2007 - Oh, the People You Will Meet!

The September issue of Car and Driver arrived the other day and one particular road test gave me a flashback.

I’ve been working in and around the automotive industry for a number of years and it always amazes me that there is such a wide variety of abilities in the people who are supposed to be the face to the public and the media. There are people who you will go out of your way to see at every event and there are people you will avoid as if your life (and more importantly, your sanity) depended on it. I remember a woman who worked at Honda that everyone spoke of in only the most glowing terms and there were similar people Subaru and Ford. But unfortunately, it’s the people on the other end of the spectrum who you tend to remember the most.

This particular issue of Car and Driver features a test of a Slovakian kit car that looks quite exotic. So exotic, in fact, that I went out of my way to catch a look at one a snap a picture or two.

I was walking around a car show where the K1 Attack was shown. As I walked over, I noticed that someone was being interviewed just in front of the car. The videographer was setting up so I quickly snapped a picture before they were ready for the camera to roll.

As I walked away, the interviewer tried to impress his interviewee by making some disparaging remark about any shmo with a camera, obviously trying to put himself on a plane higher than me. He was obviously younger than me so I was to assume that, unless he had being interviewing people since he was in diapers, I had more experience than him. But because I didn’t have an entourage or a broadcast-quality video camera, I must be one of the unwashed masses. I felt secure enough that I didn’t have to flash the media credentials in my pocket just to make myself feel important.

And because I’m a nice person, I didn’t embarrass this cub reporter in front of his “big interview.”

Now, as I’m reading what I’ve written, I feel like you, the reader, are going to get the wrong idea of me. I love working in this industry. Aside from that rare person, I’ve enjoyed the company of most automotive people (media, PR, and others) that I’ve met along the way. I do not, in any way, want you to think that I think highly of myself, because I don’t.

But when others put me down, I will get a bit defensive.

There’s a pecking order in this industry, and you’re made aware of it quite often. There are precious few people you must bow down to, but you also know that your experience and stature places you on a certain rung of the ladder. Just because you have a cameraman with you doesn’t put you near the top and just because you carry a lowly digital camera doesn’t mean you’re on the ground floor.

If I were to run into you at a car show, I would treat you just as you would treat me. If you’re taking a picture, I will step back and help prevent others from stepping into your frame. But I would hope to have you treat me just the same. When someone acts as if they’re more important than anyone else around them, they’re not going to get any special treatment from me.

I’ve been surprised by the people who are nice to me and sometimes equally surprised by the people who weren’t.

There was a gentleman from a Washington DC TV station. You wouldn’t know him to see him, but if you lived in the area, you would know his voice. We ran into each other a few times and each time he would re-introduce himself as having “an old car and a young wife,” and then proceed to show me a picture of his ’59 Rolls-Royce.

Another car show, another DC personality. I was fighting through a crowd at the New York Auto Show, looking down and trying my best not to step on anyone’s feet, when I caught a glimpse of a name tag. I read “John Harter” and I immediately remembered that I watched his on-air road tests on WJLA. I told him that I watched him every week and he replied by joking that he thought only his mother watched.

I was reporting on an awards ceremony where a rather famous and prolific automotive writer was honored. After I took his picture, I told him that he had authored the first automotive book I was ever given. He is quite the writer so he started to name off some of his most important works, but I just answered no. When I named the book, he laughed and said, “the funny thing is, I don’t remember writing that one.” Apparently, the book had been culled together from various pieces he wrote so he never specifically sat down to write that book, but we had a laugh about it.

These are the people you want to meet. These are the people who make the automotive industry so dynamic and interesting. From the most experienced CEO to most-knowledgeable historian to the private car collector to the budding enthusiast, there’s nothing quite like the automotive world.

I wish I could introduce you to some of the people I’ve met along the way. Some are funny (intentionally or not), some are scholarly, many are respectful, and all add some color to the world. And you can meet some of them on your own; just visit a local car show or cruise night. You’re bound to find some colorful people there. And then you’ll have a few stories of your own to share. I’d love to hear them!

5:54 pm | Categories: cars, car people, people, automobiles, car show, auto show, automotive industry, media, public relations, ford, k1 attack, new york auto show, nyias, john harter, wjla, honda, car and driver, rolls-royce Comments (2) | Permalink | Alert Administrator

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