(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
Top graphic images: Model Cars; Petersen’s Kit Car; Hot VW; Car and Driver; Road & TrackÂ
Grassroots Motorsports was my bible! I liked Motor Trend too but I was too young to really be able to get into the cars they reviewed.
Lowrider.
I was a kid in the heydey of British car magazines: 80’s Car, early years of Evo, Fast Lane. Nothing has equalled their combination of writing, photography, coverage, and of course the cars they got to talk about in that era.
Early Automobile in the US was the closest I could find after moving to US.
Are we also counting fictional mags? Cause pretty sure Torch has had complicated dream sequences involving new copies of Taillight Obsessives Quarterly.
Car & Driver wasn’t perfect, but the overall level of writing, insight, and originality was reliably higher than its peers. Still pretty good when I pick one up at the airport once a year or so, too. I’ll never be able to think rationally about a Buick Reatta.
I loved car mags. We used to seek out old car mags at garage sales and whatnot. Back in the early 90’s, My brother managed to buy an almost complete collection of R&T and C&D dating back to 1969 or so. We also had a pretty good collection of Hot Rod magazines. Although we were not into American hotrods, that magazine was still great because they were far, far more technical than all the other magazines. My favorites were Hot VWs, and later Sport Compact Car. Of course, Option and Option2 from Japan were awesome too.
I also had a sizeable collection of photocopies of Cycle magazine articles from the libraries. The San Francisco public library used to have a decent collection of those.
As a gearhead teenager in the 1990’s, I had subscriptions to Motor Trend, C&D, Autoweek, Hot Rod, Super Chevy, 4Wheel & Offroad, and 4Wheeler. Some were gifts, most I chose myself. I may have also had a gift sub to “Automobile”, but I didn’t care for that one, I thought it a little too pretentious.
Later on I also had subs to Hemmings Classic Car, and Hemmings Muscle Machines. Those were two top notch magazines, great content, photos, and it the mag itself had a quality feel. It was the type that one saved.
In the pre-internet days, the Hot Rod, 4W&OR, etc type mags were actually useful, I was working on a squarebody Chevy 4×4 pickup as a kid and I found the how to’s and tech articles very helpful when choosing mods for the truck. David Freiburger was my idol. Still is, really.
And best day ever was when the delivery dates would sync up and I’d get home from school to find the mailbox stuffed with a half a dozen car mags.
Whichever one that wasn’t a rolling ad for the Tire Rack!
Loved my magazines, it was my favorite ritual growing up getting a magazine at Hudson News when traveling. The subs were always Road and Track or Car and Driver depending on which one was in the school’s magazine fund raiser that year and of course Super Street!
Growing up it had to be Road & Track (the O.G.), AutoWeek (in newsprint, remember that?), and Automobile Quarterly (RIP).
For racing it was Racer, Grassroots Motorsports, and OnTrack (RIP).
For Euro-unobtainium it was AutoSport and Auto Motor Und Sport.
And filling things out it was British Car (RIP).
And for the oddball: Auto Trader Magazine. Remember that one? The forerunner to the website was a half inch thick magazine you bought at the convenience store check out line next to National Enquirer. It was basically the Craigslist of cars before the internet. Spent so many hours searching for cool cars in those pages.
Memories! When I was a teenager in the 90’s I worked at a full serve gas station. We didn’t have a mini mart, just gas, so night shifts were typically boring. On the way in I’d stop for a bag of chips, 20oz Coke, and the latest Autotrader mag to browse through.
Car and Driver, Sport Compact Car, and CARtoons. I learned so much about drawing from that.