What do we want out of a magazine?
With the fine news about the rebirth of Retro Cars magazine I thought it was time ot have one of those intraspective moments about magazines, their style and their content and all the things which make us want to part with our hard earned pennies for them, or in some cases not. After all Retro Cars was still featuring retro cars yet in its last year or so of publishing many of us didn't buy it and claimed it had gone down hill, ecome rubbish, etc. So what do we want if we don't just want retro cars in Retro Cars...?
I think the style and the tone of a magazine is far more important than many people give credit for. You know, that feeling when you read a magazine which makes you think "wow". Its possible to write a great article about something crappy. I remember reading an article on those early 90s Civics somewhere. Not the worlds most exciting car, and not a "core car" as far as I'd be interested in them, but the article was written in such a way that I read and enjoyed it. Conversely there have been articles on Mk1 Cortinas, Plymouth Baracudas and the like which are my core interest and those articles have sucked, my interest has waned and either I've not read the whole piece or I've thought "pah, meh, pooh-socks" having done so.
Part of it is the enthusiasm of the author. If a journo is genuinely interested in the subject he's writing about then it usually shows through. Likewise a jaded hack being paid to produce 300 words on somethign he doesn't give a toss about also shows through in the finished piece. So our ideal magazine must be written by people with an interest and prefferably a passion for the cars and all that tat that comes with them. They just don't get it otherwise and this also shows through in the articles.
Another thing is the knowledge and the credibility of the facts. Back waaaaaay back when, Practical Classics was considered like the gospel. This was the days when it was mostly in black and white and printed like a newspaper for the most part. But the guys that wrote it knew the A/F to whitworth conversion tables off the top of their heads, knew every variation of detail in the production run of the Morris Minor and could quote all the parts numbers you needed to rebuild a sidevalve Ford engine (including Quinton Hazel and MoProd!) Nowadays reading some classic magazines seems to be a game of "count the howlers" and even the august volume of Practical Classics has a section devoted to readers sending in corrections. Now I accept that the odd error will occur, the odd typo and a fact mistransposed from a data table or parts list or whatever. But some articles I've read could never have even had the basic facts checked... Supositions and assumptions are passed off as truths and it all just serves to reduce the reader's confidence in the magazine.
The third thing, and one of the most important things is "authenticity". One gets the feeling that some magazines are written by people who really, when it comes down to it, want to wrote for the Sunday Times, Car, Top Gear, whatever. They want to be driving the new Alfa or BMW, being schmoozed by press agents for the manufacturers, and blatting round in the coolest cars (old or new) impressing the lasses and not getting grease on their designer label jeans. They do not want to be stuck on a wind-swept aerodrome timing some guys thrashing stripped down 2CVs over a flying half mile, they don't want to spend all their spare time mucking about with some old heap in their garage vainly trying to follow the Haynes manual and not get their Argos "complete mechanics set" toolkit too dirty. Many of them may *think* they want to do "classic/retro/custom" stuff. But they don't really. Maybe if they could wave a magic wand and the car would slam itself and all the rust would heal up then they'd be up for it. Their entry in "Staff Cars" reads "took the 325D in for a service at the local independant BMW garage. I never use main dealers now, it saves me a fortune. Tried to adjust the tappets on the Spitfire and now it won't start at all" This is different from the "enthusiasm for the subject" thing I have as #1 above. These guys may well be enthusiastic about the cars, just clueless and lack any real motivation or experiance. This is how you get magazine project cars which end up having a wash and "mods" which include fitting some different wheel trims and an air-freshner.
The forth and final thing is the voice. Its the way that the writers communicate with the reader. I am sick of the way many British magazines which patronise thier readers. "This is what a spanner looks like." or "surprisingly a car made in the 1980s can still be used as a regular driven car, even on motorways!!!" Its like they expect that their readers are all "noobs". Not necessarily that they know nothing about mechanics or whatever, but they are continually seeming to be introducing basic concepts as if it were something new. Yes, I appreciate that magazines need to be "inclusive". But its like "dumbing down" to the point that anyone seeking any real coverage of "the scene" will be turned off and all you get is a churn of newbies. When I started reading magazines they were things like Custom Car, Hot Rod, Street Machine, etc. I was dumbfounded by much of the content - both technically and in terms of terminology used for general stuff. I still find odd stuff I don't "get" in the US mags, but I either go look it up or live with the fact I'm never going to get 100% of the cryptic refferences made on ever scene. I'd rather that than have the writer feel he needs to explain what a J-turn is every time he mentions it. Magazines should paint the picture, reflect the "scene" and not be so stuck up their own arzes that it turns everybody else off, but if a scene is worth getting into then people will get into it. Magazines should expect that thier readers have suffiicient intelligence to hold together a few basic concepts and pick the rest up as they go along. Thats why forums and blogs are so successful. R-R reflects a real voice of whats really happening in the terms we all use.
The mags I like are the ones which speak to me in a vocie I recognise as being like my own, and speak to me about my life the way it is, and maybe the way I'd like it to be. You have to cast a few aspirations but at the same time recognise that people have different levels of skill and budget so we won't all attain the same level. And indeed we don't all aspire to the same thing, even in the same "scene". I suppose thats a 5th thing, the snobishness of some scenes and the almost snob-enabling way that some magazines seem to go about things - if you own a VW then you must really want to own a splittie 21 window van and anything else is just seocnd best. If you own a retro Ford you must really want to own a Mk1/Mk2 Escort and the fact you own a Mk3 Cortina is just you "settling" for what you can afford. All hot rodders want a '32 roadster, all muscle car guys want a '69 Camaro, etc. We don;t. Many of us are on "stepping stone" cars working our way to "the ultimate" and many of us like our old tat, off brand models, unloved variations, etc.
Meh, my 2p
With the fine news about the rebirth of Retro Cars magazine I thought it was time ot have one of those intraspective moments about magazines, their style and their content and all the things which make us want to part with our hard earned pennies for them, or in some cases not. After all Retro Cars was still featuring retro cars yet in its last year or so of publishing many of us didn't buy it and claimed it had gone down hill, ecome rubbish, etc. So what do we want if we don't just want retro cars in Retro Cars...?
I think the style and the tone of a magazine is far more important than many people give credit for. You know, that feeling when you read a magazine which makes you think "wow". Its possible to write a great article about something crappy. I remember reading an article on those early 90s Civics somewhere. Not the worlds most exciting car, and not a "core car" as far as I'd be interested in them, but the article was written in such a way that I read and enjoyed it. Conversely there have been articles on Mk1 Cortinas, Plymouth Baracudas and the like which are my core interest and those articles have sucked, my interest has waned and either I've not read the whole piece or I've thought "pah, meh, pooh-socks" having done so.
Part of it is the enthusiasm of the author. If a journo is genuinely interested in the subject he's writing about then it usually shows through. Likewise a jaded hack being paid to produce 300 words on somethign he doesn't give a toss about also shows through in the finished piece. So our ideal magazine must be written by people with an interest and prefferably a passion for the cars and all that tat that comes with them. They just don't get it otherwise and this also shows through in the articles.
Another thing is the knowledge and the credibility of the facts. Back waaaaaay back when, Practical Classics was considered like the gospel. This was the days when it was mostly in black and white and printed like a newspaper for the most part. But the guys that wrote it knew the A/F to whitworth conversion tables off the top of their heads, knew every variation of detail in the production run of the Morris Minor and could quote all the parts numbers you needed to rebuild a sidevalve Ford engine (including Quinton Hazel and MoProd!) Nowadays reading some classic magazines seems to be a game of "count the howlers" and even the august volume of Practical Classics has a section devoted to readers sending in corrections. Now I accept that the odd error will occur, the odd typo and a fact mistransposed from a data table or parts list or whatever. But some articles I've read could never have even had the basic facts checked... Supositions and assumptions are passed off as truths and it all just serves to reduce the reader's confidence in the magazine.
The third thing, and one of the most important things is "authenticity". One gets the feeling that some magazines are written by people who really, when it comes down to it, want to wrote for the Sunday Times, Car, Top Gear, whatever. They want to be driving the new Alfa or BMW, being schmoozed by press agents for the manufacturers, and blatting round in the coolest cars (old or new) impressing the lasses and not getting grease on their designer label jeans. They do not want to be stuck on a wind-swept aerodrome timing some guys thrashing stripped down 2CVs over a flying half mile, they don't want to spend all their spare time mucking about with some old heap in their garage vainly trying to follow the Haynes manual and not get their Argos "complete mechanics set" toolkit too dirty. Many of them may *think* they want to do "classic/retro/custom" stuff. But they don't really. Maybe if they could wave a magic wand and the car would slam itself and all the rust would heal up then they'd be up for it. Their entry in "Staff Cars" reads "took the 325D in for a service at the local independant BMW garage. I never use main dealers now, it saves me a fortune. Tried to adjust the tappets on the Spitfire and now it won't start at all" This is different from the "enthusiasm for the subject" thing I have as #1 above. These guys may well be enthusiastic about the cars, just clueless and lack any real motivation or experiance. This is how you get magazine project cars which end up having a wash and "mods" which include fitting some different wheel trims and an air-freshner.
The forth and final thing is the voice. Its the way that the writers communicate with the reader. I am sick of the way many British magazines which patronise thier readers. "This is what a spanner looks like." or "surprisingly a car made in the 1980s can still be used as a regular driven car, even on motorways!!!" Its like they expect that their readers are all "noobs". Not necessarily that they know nothing about mechanics or whatever, but they are continually seeming to be introducing basic concepts as if it were something new. Yes, I appreciate that magazines need to be "inclusive". But its like "dumbing down" to the point that anyone seeking any real coverage of "the scene" will be turned off and all you get is a churn of newbies. When I started reading magazines they were things like Custom Car, Hot Rod, Street Machine, etc. I was dumbfounded by much of the content - both technically and in terms of terminology used for general stuff. I still find odd stuff I don't "get" in the US mags, but I either go look it up or live with the fact I'm never going to get 100% of the cryptic refferences made on ever scene. I'd rather that than have the writer feel he needs to explain what a J-turn is every time he mentions it. Magazines should paint the picture, reflect the "scene" and not be so stuck up their own arzes that it turns everybody else off, but if a scene is worth getting into then people will get into it. Magazines should expect that thier readers have suffiicient intelligence to hold together a few basic concepts and pick the rest up as they go along. Thats why forums and blogs are so successful. R-R reflects a real voice of whats really happening in the terms we all use.
The mags I like are the ones which speak to me in a vocie I recognise as being like my own, and speak to me about my life the way it is, and maybe the way I'd like it to be. You have to cast a few aspirations but at the same time recognise that people have different levels of skill and budget so we won't all attain the same level. And indeed we don't all aspire to the same thing, even in the same "scene". I suppose thats a 5th thing, the snobishness of some scenes and the almost snob-enabling way that some magazines seem to go about things - if you own a VW then you must really want to own a splittie 21 window van and anything else is just seocnd best. If you own a retro Ford you must really want to own a Mk1/Mk2 Escort and the fact you own a Mk3 Cortina is just you "settling" for what you can afford. All hot rodders want a '32 roadster, all muscle car guys want a '69 Camaro, etc. We don;t. Many of us are on "stepping stone" cars working our way to "the ultimate" and many of us like our old tat, off brand models, unloved variations, etc.
Meh, my 2p