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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