(Stroking long, white beard) Remember magazines? In the pre-internet era, when ink on paper ruled, magazines were essentially your only entrée to the gated worlds of everything from fancying cats, to semi-pro sewing, from building model airplanes to fishing competitively. And of course, the full scope of cardom beyond whatever was rolling around your hometown was available at your favorite newsstand, if not arriving directly in your mailbox once a month.
As I’m sure was also true for many of you, Car and Driver and Road & Track were staples in the Vieira household. Those subscriptions were re-upped faithfully, and Motor Trend was added to the mix whenever a good subscription deal presented itself, or whenever individual issues caught Dad’s eye. As a model builder, I picked up Scale Modeler and Auto Modeler on the regular, and as soon as a 1974 Super Beetle became my daily transpo to school, Hot VW was frequently read over a bowl of cereal before heading to Seekonk High School.
As the internet grew and magazine sales slumped, I held onto good ol’ ink and paper longer than most, probably because I was in the magazine-making business by then as a staffer at RC Car Action – and also because in those pre-smartphone days, lugging a laptop into the bathroom was a real hassle.
Today, The Autopian is in my pocket wherever I go, as well as all those print titles that transitioned from paper to pixels. We get our car news, entertainment, and info as quickly as it can be reported, and there’s way more of it, as there’s no limit to virtual pages. I’m glad I got to experience both worlds, the disconnected one we all knew before 1996 or so, and the modern realm of unlimited information and instant access, for better or worse. But I do miss the thrill of finding a fresh glossy magazine curled in the mailbox.
Your turn: What Were / Are Your Favorite Car Magazines?Â
R&T and C&D were always subscribed when I was a kid. But C&D always seemed to have the cooler, “better-read” feel. Well, other than The Bishops’ Father carefully drafting a pointed, sarcastic letter to C&D to counter something offensively history-unaware written by Brock Yates. He was pretty proud when it got published, as C&D letters had a pretty high bar in the 1980s.
Always have and always will have a voracious appetite for Road & Track and Car & Driver. A local thrift store near me had every. single. issue. of R&T from like 1969-82, so obviously I bought them all. The writing is obviously excellent, but just as entertaining are the ads. It’s so funny to see actually good malaise-era cars (Saab 99 Turbo) being advertised next to a Citation knowing what we know now in retrospect.
Top Gear Magazine was always one of my favorites.
No ads, always good articles, amazing pictures, quality paper, and a huge collection of car specs in the back pages.