(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?
Top graphic images: Model Cars; Petersen’s Kit Car; Hot VW; Car and Driver; Road & Track
Back in the day I subscribed to Car Craft, Hot Rod, and sometimes 4 Wheel and Offroad
I still have a few laying around in one of my tool box drawers
I currently have subscriptions to 5 car oriented magazines, dead tree editions. Evo, Octane, R&T, C&D and Hagerty Driver’s Club Magazine (from insurance). I like them all, but Evo has been the one I look forward to the most. C&D was probably my favorite for the longest time. My dad really liked R&T because of Peter Egan. The similarities in tastes with Peter and my father were many both loving cars and motorcycles.
I swapped out Evo for Octane for a year and regretted it. Too much “rich people in the Riviera wearing loafers without socks” and too much unobtanium metal that got boring after the novelty wore off.
Car Craft by a mile.
Grassroots Motorsports is the only physical subscription I have left.
Dsport kept me sane while I was in Afghanistan, really liked them once they transitioned to more technical stuff rather than lyfestyle (barf).
Turbo
Top Gear
Grassroots Motorsports/Classic Motorsports
Racecar Engineering
Evo. I loved their stories about the cars. Figures don’t matter, feelings matter. And what a great reminder to check them out again.
Oh and Grassroots Motorsports!
Seeing Kit Car on the top graphic brought back memories though memories of a different magazine. The magazine Kit Car Builder (I think I am remembering that name correctly) was owned and run by the father of the girl I was in love with in college. He also had quite a neat car collection. Beyond that, I was always a sucker for Road and Track, Car and Driver, Motor Trend and when I could find it, Top Gear. Airport news stands were always fun since they usually had some of the more obscure magazines. As a Jeep lover, Jp Magazine was also a great one.
Road & Track, Car and Driver, and AutoWeek back in the 80s. Automobile for a while. Oh, and RC Car Action.
Hagerty Driver’s Club is pretty damn good these days.
I LOVE Jason C’s Hagerty series.
That homage to the “Economy Car” that was the Fiero is pure gold. Next level hilarious.
Yugo Restorers Monthly.
Focus Fanatic. It was kind of irrelevant because this was the early 2000’s and I already knew about everything in it by reading the forum of the same name, but there is something more satisfying about reading physical media,
Practical Classics
Hot VWs
Car & Driver
The Gentlemen’s Petroleum Inhalation Quarterly
Hagerty Driver’s Club
Sport Compact Car, Super Street, Motortrend were my favorites. I was always excited when I got to take a flight because the airport was one of the few places I could get my hand on Evo mag and some of the more crazy UK-based street racing and posing custom car mags.
Other car related magazines I subscribed to were Mini Magazine, Mini World (classic Minis), and RC Car Action.
Early-mid 80s. Already mentioned the other day how Hot Rod provided me a rotating display of wall art, also helped me appreciate lead sleds and T-buckets and other things I might not have gotten into otherwise. Also loved to draw cars so CarToons was the other major player, still have a couple my old issues.
I was gifted my very first subscription to an auto magazine in ’86 or ’87 – Autoweek. That was it until 1992 when I picked up my first copy of Car and Driver (I think there was a white Nissan on the cover) and was hooked. Since then, I’ve been a fan of Collectable Automobile, Practical Classics in the UK (and many of the other UK magazines)…I’m not going to talk about what happened over at Hemmings, because I’m still sour on it.
But Car and Driver, by far, is my favorite. I have ~200 back issues I still go back and peruse when I feel nostalgic for Yates, Phillips or Lindamood. I do wish my mother hadn’t tossed 10+ years of Autoweek though…I credit Roger Barlow and his last-page reviews of classic cars for really starting my fascination with old cars.
I still get two real magazines every month. Sports Car Market and the UK based Classic and Sports Car. I was raised on my grandfathers R&T subscription, followed by Hot Rod and later on my own Road & Track subscription plus Car and Driver through the Brock Yates era. I also did Autoweek for a long time, mostly for pre-internet F1 coverage. The glory years for me were the early 90’s with Yates at Car and Driver, countered by the ascot-wearing crew over at R&T led by Thos L. Bryant, and Peter Egan was running WFO.
Car and Driver, continuously since May 1983. The third issue I got was the infamous Baja sports sedan comparo; quite the read for a 15 year old.
I have that bookmarked and go back and read it once every 2-3 months. The 50th Anniversary book on C&D also has a re-print of a follow-on article with more detailed information. I highly recommend that one too if you can find it.
Automobile– especially ANY Automobile issue that didn’t’ have a Jamie “Whiny” Kitman article in it.
Not a “Noise, Vibration and Harshness” fan? He was whiny, but that was the schtick – an automotive Andy Rooney
I would give him credit for always OWNING interesting cars– even an old Alfa?(??) IIRC?
OTOH, 90% of the columns seemed pretty generally cranky with the idea that cars even existed. It always came across as tiresome, if completely sincere. So, yeah, he was a Motoring Mensch in my world.
He did a great historical investigation into how tetraethyl lead got added to gasoline. He was also the manager of They Might be Giants.
Australian Wheels, Modern Motor and Street Machine
Sport Compact Car. Under Dave Colman, the inventor of the “Dave point” regarding front suspension , his stories and project cars where amazing.
Good call out. SCC was the magazine that never lapsed for me in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Living in LA, my car guy circle includes Dave on the periphery. The few times I’ve spoken to him, he (and his wife) are genuinely nice folks. He’s also one of the reasons current Mazda cars handle as well as they do!
Yeah, his articles were a big draw for me to SCC.
SCC was a fantastic magazine, definitely my favorite. I was very sad when they were canned.
Mike Kojima has a YT channel that’s pretty good.
CAR (the British mag) back before they merged with some magazine that reviewed nothing but sportscars and became just another rag reviewing too much crap I don’t care about at all.
On this side of the pond, C&D and R&T back in the glory days of the 80s and 90s. Today, I somehow have a perpetual Kindle subscription to C&D that I have no idea how I got, and I can’t even be bothered to read it most of the time. Not helped by my extreme disinterest in current modern cars.
C&D during the golden years, no question about it. What other magazine would have tested the effect of pot on driving by taking someone who had never smoked it and had no intention of ever doing so, getting him to take a bunch of puffs and then drive around on a closed circuit? (And this was back when the stuff was clearly and completely illegal.) Great writing from people like Davis, Yates, Bedard, Sherman, and an ethos that was just a can of ether and a handful of Qaaludes from Hunter Thompson. For more staid but still very good writing, there was Automobile under Davis. R&T was fine for getting solid info on every car made. Motor Trend was dead to me after the Vega was named Car of the Year.
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.
Car and Driver, AutoWeek, Motor Trend, Cycle World, Cycle Guide. Any other related magazine that caught my eye at the stores. My last subscription was to Automobile just to follow David E. Davis Jr.
Automobile hung on a long, long time.
I always liked Robert Cumberford (sp??) design critiques.
Fun, enlightening stuff
I think Cumberford is an anagram for curmudgeon?
Bonus points for that.
Scrolled until I found a reference to the excellent work by Robert Cumberford in Automobile. I re-read his articles several times as I appreciated his design insights and that accompanying images were annotated. Automobile had some of the best photos, and the layout was clean without distraction, to go along with excellent writing.
Years ago, well after Automobile stopped publishing, I searched for books written by Cumberford, and didn’t find any. Searched now. Evidently, he now has some where he’s a co-author, though not a lead author.
Book – The Face of Change
Collection of nice automotive design related books at Coachbuilt Press.
Quick read of his Wiki page, includes links to his written articles, quotes by Jean Lindamood Jennings, and other savory bits.
Thanks for taking the time to do that— Your comments really cause a twinge for me, because AUTOMOBILE absolutely was that good. Truly epic production values, great personalities, wonderful stories. I’d met one of their stringers on a rally years ago– and (long since forgot his name, sadly) he really reinforced the brand. It was always less about THE HARDWARE and more about the overall experience of cars, travel, experiences.
Nobody else was doing a design feature. Nobody else had photos as good. It was a unique publication. This reminds of how much I miss it.
Here’s an odd thing. I got an email telling me that my comment (above) has been approved. I’m happy? They must know how needy I am. They like me! They really like me!
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.
R&T and C&D were in my mailbox each month. I always loved the R&T review cutaways.
Sounds like my dad’s R&T collection. We donated them when he passed away. I like to think they went to someone that would love them.
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.