Then there are the more specialized magazines for 4WD, old american cars, modifications and spoilers, trucks, etc..

But the real new star is the reborn automobil magazine. In recent years they’ve created a very readable mix of product news, nostalgia, product reviews and “car stories” – fictional or real. One of the best recent stories is about when a man decides to buy a BMW 535M in the 1980s. Or the one on a early Porsche Turbo bought and driven on “The Ring” by a photographer who knew to Ronnie Pettersson.

The car reviewing is highly scientific,

example:
http://www.automobil.se/zino.aspx?articleID=10897

done by a vehicle dynamics Ph.D.-student. One thing that he discovers is that Ferrari probably has overstated the top speed, Vmax, of the FERRARI F430. Ferrari have calculated it (not driven it) which is “industry standard”, and probably made some mistakes doing that.

Letters to and from Ferrari (some in english because italian != swedish, jump down some pages and you’ll find it) and calculations here:
http://www.automobil.se/document/Automobil_FerrariF430.pdf

The text is very interesting. Did you know that tire radius expansion at high speed, is almost totally neutralized by tire slip and downforce?

Background:
http://www.automobil.se/zino.aspx?articleID=11320

You can read some of the articles at the magazines website here:
http://www.automobil.se

The magazine sells more and more, and now you can find them in almost any store selling magazines. This proves that you still can sell magazines if you deliver a good enough product.

Given the “nobody actually reads anything” moto that weekly magazines go by, it’s extremely superficial and shallow. It’s new (i.e. “hot”) and could easy bring in some numbers. Too bad you can’t trust what the publisher actually claims, so who knows.

I agree with all those who say it doesn’t matter where the news comes from, as long as it is applicable to our own experience. And Alex’s certainly is.

I feel shame when I think of CAR in Greece. I wonder what Gavin Greene would say?

Alex, is Autobild in circulation in a local version in Greece and if so, is it also uncorrupted? Over here, it is pretty unbribable — ironically enough, because it belongs to a giant yellow-press corporation that has plenty of dirt (some would say blood) on its hands itself.

As for why TTAC would comment on the print “competition,” in my case it would be because I grew up reading these magazines. I feel a connection with them. And when I look at the current C&D and the only thing that makes it C&D is the title, it hurts. In every other way, the current magazine is unrecognizable.

It’s kind of like losing a good friend to drugs and craptastic plastic surgery.

Still room for paper: It doesn’t feel right taking a laptop into the restroom.

Isn’t this why the office bought me a laser printer?

It’s called passion for the industry. In my eyes, that’s a sign of quality. It means that the contributors to TTAC are genuinly concerned about what is happening in the industry as a whole, an not only about fighting in their own backyard. It is like mourning an old friend who has turned alcoholic and sold out wife, kids, home, the lot. The fact that he burned every bridge on his way down doesn’t mean that he hasn’t done well before, or been a less good friend in the past. It is a time of mourning absent friends. A sell-out is a sell-out, no matter what the front page looks like.

I think no-one would be more pleased than all the people who gather on this site, if the domestics started to make cars instead of crap, and if the motoring press acted like men instead of mice.

incidentally the NZ version of C&D was exactly the same as the US even down to the adverts.

It’s funny, because a lot of this is a parable for what is happening to American rags. It’s possible this was a veiled editorial about them, far be it from me to assert what the writer’s motives are.

And when it comes to American rags, I think no one can credibly argue that they are experiencing anything other than a precipitous decline in readability, content, quality and in the case of C&D, aesthetic appeal (yes, I still think the new design farking sucks).

The truth is the rags have not taken the Internet as an opportunity to branch out into things that are more suited to print than news and quick hits. The Internet is unbeatable for latest news, so why is it C&D or any other mag will feature a fat section of re-printed press releases and gloss shots with weeks-old information, every single issue? Because it’s a lot easier to create than actual content.

The new car rag should focus on deeper exposés, well-researched pieces and things you can sit down and read over an afternoon or on the crapper. In the same way radio became more serious and more substantial (in reference to content) after the advent of television, car mags should theoretically have shifted in the same manner. They didn’t.

I’m sure all of your Greek readers will care.

I care. It’s always interesting to hear about what’s going on in other places. Many times something happening in a far off place eventually has a direct impact on us.

Sometimes it’s amazing the similarities widely disparage areas and cultures have with us.

So, yes it is a given that the internet is a much better medium to get our “car news” fix or whatever you want to call it.
But, those damn magazines do come in handy during long flight delays. I do try to never read them outside of these situations so they can at least remotely entertaining. One look up at the flight board and I am at the newsstand picking up a copy of C&D, R&T, Automobile, Autoweek, and a European one or two.

Now I must admit that the amount of time I do spend on sites like TTAC has seriously diminished and inforamtion value that the paper publications used to have. Everything is already old news by the time I can read in in paper form. Car mags today exist solely for the “extra” content, such as better pictures and longer articles.

I used to buy several books and magazines a month…in the pre-Internet days. Now I buy a one or two a year.