Not so much any more. And it IS sad.

The overarching issue is that a generation has grown up so used to electronic media, delivered on various screens of various sizes, that that generation is not willing to read through an essay of 2,500 to 3,000 words. Essays such as that were what made Car and Driver one of the best magazines in the country. And the time period in which those essays flourished were when the late Leon Mandel was editor. As someone with a journalism degree from Cornell, he operated on a different level that the current editor, whose background is that of an engineer, who came from a major corporation (Ford).

While I never met Leon, only talked to him on the phone once and communicated with him by e-mail in the last two years of his life, my impression is that he was not a “company man,” to borrow a phrase hardly anyone uses anymore. And he attracted other people who were free thinkers, such as Brock Yates, the late Warren Weith, Bruce McCall and Jean Shepherd (who was known to many people outside of auto magazine readers, for his radio essays and essay about wanting a rifle for Christmas, which became a beloved movie).

The person who wrote that C/D “lost its soul” when it moved from New York City to Ann Arbor, Michigan, was onto something. Since David E. Davis Jr. came to magazine writing from advertising and was the person who leaned upon (then owner) Ziff-Davis to make that move, it was inevitable that the line between editorial and advertising would quickly diminish. I heard from a source who shall remain anonymous that the reason David E. Davis bounced Brock Yates out of the pages of C/D for a few years, was that DED didn’t like the brutal honesty of Brock’s book on Ferrari, still the best source on the car, the company and il Commodore.

It’s a different time now, and Csaba Csere is not so much a villain, as someone trying to keep a certain level of writing in place, while shifting to the new media. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless to protect his interests, told me that while contributors to the print edition of Car and Driver were being asked to accept 10 percent less for their contributions than they had been doing, three more editors were hired for C/D’s on-line edition.

Several people here have said that John Phillips is one of the few things that keep them interested in the print edition of C/D. It is therefore ironic and also appropriate that the best thing in the November 2007 issue is an essay by John Phillips entitled “The Road to Remorses, the Road to Divorces” replicating a piece that Brock Yates did, back in the Seventies, about taking taking a Corvette through Alaska, on dirt roads (most recently done with a Corvette that had run on the Nurburgring).

If you want to see C/D go back to what it was, it seems more logical to keep your subscription current but keep bugging editor Csere about what is now called, in Internet terms, “content.”

For my money, while some of the newer writers are proving all right, it’s Patrick Bedard and Barry Winfield, along with the aforementioned John Phillips, that hearken back to the days of Leon Mandel.

You know that magazine got disconnected with reality, when the cars they praise so much either ranked at the bottom of the reliability survey or had very poor sales (e.g. Passat).

Yes, the courage is lacking, and yes, the layout is hideous. I’m astonished that they’re sticking with it when even they admit it’s universally hated.

I’ve heard it said that car magazine sales rise when the economy dips, because people use them to fantasize. Me, I’m exactly the opposite of the people who like to read about Lamborghinis. I simply can’t relate, because I know I’ll never own one. I want to hear well-considered opinions about attainable, usable cars, and I wish C/D did more of it.

I like the writing in C&D; the articles are generally clear and convey a ton of information. In contrast, I think that TTAC can sometimes get hung up on itself, striving to make a witty pun or using ironic slang (I’m sort of tired of seeing ’spizzarkle’ in every other review).

Of course, the testing information contained in the car mags is invaluable; I know how expensive it is to maintain all of that measuring equipment and to find testing locations.

I guess what it boils down to is being able to read between the lines and picking out the bias from each review, no matter the source. For instance, in TTAC’s review of my car (Subaru Impreza WRX STi), the interior is described as “If Subaru spent more than ten bucks on plastics in the entire mess, I beg its beancounters to demand supplier reparations.” Honestly, I like the interior of my car, and find it of an appropriate quality for the car. Sure, an alcantara dash to reduce reflections in the windshield would’ve been nice, but it’s not as bad as the review implies.

Wherever you’re reading, take the reviewer’s words with a grain of salt, as no one will have the exact same point of view as you do. Go check out the car yourself if you’re interested in buying it, and make your own decision.

Oh, and I believe that the “Whaddya want for a half-million dollars?” comment is sarcasm.

I changed over to Automobile and R/T now but they are much the same. Automobile has some great photography. I canceled Autoweek because they couldn’t get it to my mailbox every Friday.

I fully agree C&D has lost it. Even 10 years ago they were much better than they are now. Today, C&D articles are hypocritical, contradictory, and give almost nothing useful or worthy to the reader, other than maybe the car’s specs and performance times.

I think there are too many players in the print mag market. We may see some consolidation (or outright death) among the buff books in the next few years. I think there is a market for print magazines, but because they can’t be timely enough to compete with the ‘net they really need to sieze on some kind of niche and deliver it consistently.

Actually, my favorite C/D article of all time is a Brock Yates/Jean Shepherd commentary on the mid-70s T-Bird, where Shepherd laments “What would Gatsby have thought?” and tries (unsuccessfully) to balance a coin on the hood with the engine running. Great days.

It wasn’t that they were particularly objective; going back to the 60s, they certainly had their sacred cows (BMW, for one) and penchants for stunts. (One may argue that David E. Davis didn’t know that Jim Wangers had arranged for their famous test GTO to have a Tri Power 421, not a 389, but it’s splitting hairs.) It was that they were entertaining (and, after the mid-70s or so, technically credible).

Where are the days (e.g., 1992) when Brock Yates opined that the then-new Pontiac Bonneville SSEi looked like it’d been sprayed from a gigantic can of Reddi Whip?

Car and Driver was successful because it was entaining and informative and the writers had a real passion for what they were writing. The current version reminds me more of Motor Trend back when Ed used to tell letter writers that he didn’t agree with to hold their index finger up to their head and say the initials of Motor Trend.

Sorry but the days of the slick car mags is coming to an end and they are not going out with respect just butt kissing..

Then I frequently read Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, and Consumer Reports. If something else catches my eye, I’ll probably buy it, too.

The subscription rates for Automotive News are excessive and now most of the good stuff on their website is only available to subscribers, which is a bummer, but I did enjoy reading it.

Yeah, the print stuff isn’t as good as it used to be. It’s been cut with crap, it’s like someone’s been walking on it. But my addiction is so bad, I couldn’t get by without them and can’t give them up. At least not until they go belly up.

All the online stuff isn’t enough to replace my need for print., the Truth About Cars, notwithstanding.

I do like David E. Davis’ current webzine: windingroad.com. It’s his vision of what a print magazine should be, but only available online, and I heartily recommend it.

Addiction. It’s not pretty.

“ `This past year I let my 35-year-running subsciption to C&D lapse. It broke my heart, but I tired of the constant format changing, the discarding of several of the veterans writers, and the fact that while walking through an airport I could see the new issue 10-14 days before mine would come in the mail.’

“X 2. Mine lapses in January and that’s the end. The re-written PR pieces aren’t worth the paper they’re printed upon, and even the columnists lack the zip they once had. As much as I disliked Yates’ political bombasts, he did still have an opinion about what he liked and disliked in four-wheel transportation. And, as much as I enjoy the immediacy of internet-borne information, it would still be nice to get TTAC-quality reviews in print form. If I wanted breathless and insubstantial puff pieces, I would’ve subscribed to Motor Trend. Sorry, Csaba, it’s not just the sucky new format, but C&D editorials simply lack traction. At least Davis had the honesty in Automobile to simply reprint manufacturer’s data in lieu of actual test information, but then I wouldn’t subscribe to Automobile either.”

Make that X 3. I have been reading C&D since 1966 and subscribing since 1970. At 50 years of age, I have been in the C&D camp since I was 9 years old.

The fact is, I really prefer having a hard copy of a magazine to take with me wherever I want to take it. And for years, C&D had a cool factor that no other car mag could match. They pulled no punches and raised hell every month. Today, John Phillips’s pieces seem to be the last echo of that glorious era.

I also subscribe to Road & Track (since 1971) and Automobile (since its creation in the early 1980s). R&T, for Peter Eagan and the salons/photography. Automobile, like C&D, is appealing because of the quality of the writing. But with virtually all of these journals, I get the feeling that everything has been run through both the legal and ad departments.

I suspect I may be letting those subscriptions lapse next year.

Motor Trend? I forgot about them 25 years ago.

“At lower rpm, the exhaust sounds like a tuba having sex with a vacuum cleaner, and the baritone thrum of engine and road at highway speeds gets annoying in a hurry.”

That’s the quality of writing. Not the most subtle approach, it would seem.

Generally the stories ran towards strapping Jean Lindamood into some outrageous piece of equipment and seeing if they could either make her pee her pants or puke. Sure, it got cliched after awhile, but it was fun.

Where are the days of the 200 MPH Firebird? Of racing cars against bikes to see if bikes were really faster when doing laps?

I used to smile when C&D came in the mail -what have those fools done this month? That’s gone, gone, gone. Now it’s all about the evils of ethanol, and another AMG or M3 review. While I still subscribe, it’s a disappointment every month.

Guess I’m getting old.