Anyone here still read car magazines?

[Jeff L]

I get Hemmings Muscle Machines, Car Craft, & Muscle Car Review. I have had Hot Rod on & off since 1988. I do miss how the articles used to be in all gear head mags. Now they don't seem to be as diverse. With it seems like most mags being published by one company, each one has a specific subject theme.

I noticed the same thing when a large company called 10 was publishing the majority of the car magazines. GM High Tech, a Mustang Mag, and a bunch more were cancelled. You are right how the company tried to make their mags subject specific. One Mustang Mag was for the old cars, other for the 5.0 and up crowd. Car Craft seems more on the tech/ engine side of things where Hot Rod has more of the rat rods, unique cars. That is all well and good, but over the past 5-7 years I have found issues with few articles or stories I am interested in.

Part of the problem in my case is time itself. I still have all the magazines from the 80's that had Monte Carlo SS articles as well as the new car issues that came every October. I was buying my first new cars, enjoying all the new performance getting better every year, and most, if not all the car magazines I bought then were read cover to cover because I had a new car and many of the tech and repair stories were relevant to me.

I still have a 30 year old car but not much coverage is done nowadays on the cars I really like. It is nice to see the last Car Craft and MCR magazine give kudos to some 80's cars.

The new performance cars are unbelievable and I never thought I would see cars like a Hellcat, COPO Camaros, 1000 hp Shelbys, an electric Tesla going 0-60 in under 3 seconds, and now a new Challenger Demon that might be the fastest car ever produced in America. If you asked me 20 years ago if these cars could exist I'd say you were crazy. Only places those cars existed was in the magazines trying to guess the future. And boy they were way off too! But it was fun to read their guesses and dream about owning one of those futuristic rides.

 

[688guy]

I was a huge V Dub freak, I even drove a lowered VW bus out here to Alabama in '91 from So Cal, probably the first one they ever saw out here and I've read Hot VW's and VW Trends for years...I recently let my subscription to Hemmings Muscle Cars lapse because I just wasn't reading them like I used to. I loved the stories of the guys that bought their cars in high school and still have them now. I tried to keep my '65 Fastback when I joined the Navy in '75, but my parents got divorced when I was in boot and sold the house, so I had to sell it, got a whopping $400 for it with a brand new built 302 in it...A couple years ago my neighbor cleaned out his garage and tossed a bunch of car mags from 1966 and I couldn't stand to see them go to the dump, so I grabbed them and stashed them somewhere...I think I may have to get that Car Craft with all the G's in it this weekend...

 

[joesregalproject]

I just recently cancelled my Hot Rod Magazine subscription. The articles are really, really low quality compared to what they used to be. It seems every single article is about LS swaps. I got tired of it really fast. Also, every build that they do is wayyy out of most peoples' budgets. The atomic EFI that they install on everything now is more expensive than everything I've ever done to my car put together. There's no more "hot rod hacks", cheap fixes and cheap power mods.

I really liked HRM's Roadkill Series, but it has gone downhill lately too. When they started MotorTrend On Demand, I thought it was kinda shitty of them to stop giving full content without buying their app. The "Mighty Car Mods vs Roadkill" episode pretty much did me in for good. Why would (the majority of) hot rodders care about Australians and their Subarus? They've lost touch with their viewers, IMO.
Also Mike Finnegan started his own series "Finnegan's Garage" and ever since him and David Freiburger don't seem to have the chemistry they used to have.

What happened to beating on old cop cars in the middle of the desert?

 

[motorheadmike]

I noticed the same thing when a large company called 10 was publishing the majority of the car magazines.

Not 10, but TEN - The Enthusiast Network. They do all of the remaining mags, and Roadkill and HOTROD shows.

 

[joesregalproject]

Not 10, but TEN - The Enthusiast Network. They do all of the remaining mags, and Roadkill and HOTROD shows.

I blame TEN for ruining most automotive media. Car and Driver is the one of few independent car magazines AFAIK, and even though their content isn't as interesting to me, I'm re-subscribing to them.

 

[Kennybill]

I've been a magazine guy since the 1960s. I get Hemmings, Car Craft, Hot Rod and Super Chevy. I liked Popular Hot Rodding when Matt King was the editor. He was big on budget builds. I think they got rid of him because of that. Sponsors want stories about their new products not seeing stories about low buck junkyard upgrades. I keep saying I'm going to stop renewing but the deals on renewal are so cheap I renew. I would like to see a G Body magazine with mostly BOP engine powered.

 

[Rktpwrd]

I avidly read the magazines until the last year or two. When we were building my brother's Camaro I enjoyed Camaro Performers. It's been discontinued/phased into Super Chevy. I didn't renew Super Chevy. It was o.k. It's just not what I'm interested in right now. I also really liked GM High Tech Performance. I was really into the LS scene since I was hot rodding my 08 Sierra and doing an LS swap in my brother's car. The magazine got phased out. I can't remember what it got phase into but I think it might have also been Super Chevy. I wish it was still around. I'd like to learn about the new Chevrolet LT engines. I enjoyed Chevy High Performance. They had a killer tech column. I can't remember the guy's name. I think they called him Big Mack. As soon as Nick Licata became the editor (after Camaro Performers demise), the tech guy left. I didn't renew. I still take Car Craft and Auto Restorer but I can't say that I read them like I used to. I spend my time here instead. Since buying my Grand Prix, I'm really interested in these cars. What I really enjoy about this forum is the guys are real, the cars are real and both the guys and the cars are more down to earth. Our cars don't get that much attention in the magazines. I'm aware of the March Car Craft. I like the cover, and I like the Malibu project. I read the first article or two on that project I think back in 2015 when Summit put in the crate engine and they drove it most of the way to California before giving up. I was disappointed that there wasn't that much info on the two Olds that were on the cover of the mag. I thumbed through it. Got up to date on the Malibu and it is still sitting in my magazine rack. It will be going in the recycle bin soon.

This, X2 ^^^

 

[Bar50]

I have Hot Rod, Car Craft and Super Chevy.

I used to get Popular Hot Rodding until it went away...it and Car Craft since like '84.

I try to support the industry. It's sadly going away. I have an epic collection though.

 

[L67ss]

Advantages of an actual mag over an internet version is no internet required and should you want to take a breather while wrenching you can still flip through the pages and read it without the fear of oily/wet hands causing a touch screen to frag out. And seeing as my olds is in a zero reception spot that is a plus for me. Also no electrical outlet needed

 

[UNGN]

I blame TEN for ruining most automotive media. Car and Driver is the one of few independent car magazines AFAIK, and even though their content isn't as interesting to me, I'm re-subscribing to them.

A lack of independence and a dependence on ad revenue was why Motor Trend had such a bad reputation with real car enthusiasts for 30 years. Today's "Fake News" had nothing on Motor Trend back in the day.

Motor Trend's phony 13 second quarter mile test of a '71 Boss 351 (with headers, slicks and other mods done by sister mag hot rod) made thousands of Ford guys dream of the "last musclecar" when in reality it was a high 14 second (at best) mismatched part slug in stock form. I still remember the musclecar review shootout at the Texas motorplex between a stock '71 Z28 and a '71 Boss 351 in 1990. I was so excited I was finally going to witness one run. The Boss cracked off a 16 the first run, but finally got down to solid 14.9's (my stock 5.0 convert was nearly second quicker so I was not impressed with the legendary Boss 351 in stock form). Sure it had "potential" to run 13's, with headers and slicks, but then so did every other muscle car. MT told us they ran 13's right off the showroom floor (sure, after HR turned it into a race car).

The Motor Trend hacks tested my dad's 427 Cobra replica in the early 1990s (in a Shelby vs his replica's shoot out for Kit Car magazine), but they couldn't get the test equipment to stay on the door so they just said it ran "13.9@100 mph" (I think Carrol's replica ran 13.0). I had run it at IRP (where they wouldn't let us run the 1/4 because not everyone had rollbar/harnesses) a few months earlier, and it ran multiple 8.2's@89 mph 1/8ths, so I'm pretty sure it had a high 12@108 in it, if they could drive (but we weren't buying ad copy and Shelby was). It was at Pomona, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't the altitude or traction.

Motor Trends Car of the Year always appeared to be the mfg that bought the most ad copy in the magazine. Renault Alliance? Chevy Vega? The second year '69 Road Runner, BEFORE the 6bbl was released? 112 HP 1985 GTI? Not a TPI IROC - because they already blew their Chevy wad on the misfire '84 Corvette and misfire '82 Camaro?. 1994 Mustang? - Ford rated the 225hp '93 5.0 @ 205HP so when the 215HP '94 turd came out they could claim it had "10 more HP!", Chrysler 300M in 1999? - It was really a 1998 and was old news by 1999. Other "winners" Chrysler Cirrus? 1997 Chevy Malibu? 2010 Ford Fusion? (not the Radical NEW one that came out in 2012, the first gen that came out in '06, but now with a new grille/tail-lights and nicer interior) Cars of the Year? Really?

Motor Trend has gotten a lot better in the last 5 years, but the lack of integrity from the 1960's until recent times has made them a joke to car enthusiasts. 30 years ago, when one of my friends would use a "0-60 time" from Motor Trend as a gage of a cars performance, I would go off. Two cars racing each other don't usually stop when one reaches 60 mph and didn't trust those guys at MT as far as I could throw them. .