If you want the last edition nip down to WHS.
It used to sell by the bucket load but I suppose much is available free on the internet.
I never lifted it off the shelf even to thumb through, but then again it is probably 3/4 years since I last bought a car magazine.
In my youth I bought at least 1 mag / month looking at cars I could not afford - now I could buy really any car but are reluctant to spend the cash - a New model Focus can cost £25,000 list which is a joke.
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...In my youth I bought at least 1 mag / month looking at cars I could not afford...
I was always a Motor man, couldn't get on with Autocar.
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"Fast Lane" was my monthly of choice as a yoof in the 1980s.
A certain Jeremy Clarkson was one of its main writers, and he was hilarious. I think he comes across better in the written medium than on TV. I threw all my copies out when I left home, I do wish I'd kept at least some for posterity.
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I took Performance Car in the late eighties and early nineties - he wrote a terrific column for that - shockingly it was about cars, not the crap he writes in the Times that probably mention the cars in the last paragraph - and certainly not the dumbed down rubbish that he spouts on Top Gear.
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I bought Max Power from about the third issue, for four or five years. Back then it was aimed at tuning and modifying cars, and the star vehicles were all Mk2 Escorts with Cosworth engines and tiger stripes. There was a big technical focus in the magazine, with how-to guides to fit water injection, uprated nylon bushes etc. They even ran a competition to win a brand-new Mk4 H registration Escort RS Turbo which had every modification of the day fitted to it, quite some prize for 20 years ago. One of the original writers was Vicki Butler-Henderson too.
I gather it's shifted its focus somewhat in recent years, away from the technical oily side of making cars handle and sound better, and more towards documenting the incidental benefits of skidding your Saxo around Morrisons' car park at night.
I shall have to buy this last issue :-)
Last edited by: Dave_TD {P} on Fri 28 Jan 11 at 09:30
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Saw a copy of Diesel Car in Smiths the other day; thought that had shut up shop long ago.
Used to be a good read in the early nineties under the editorship of John Kerswil. Good car tests but also more general content by a variety of writers including Phil Hammond & Stuart Bladon. Further interst added by reaching out to intorduce the world of taxis and commercials.
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Car Mechanics was my favourite mag, back in the day when it was relevant to the cars I actually drove at the time. I stopped bothering when all the easily undoable bits either disappeared altogether or became hidden in some inaccessible place known only to the designer.
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I dabbled with max power when i was a teenager, but to be honest it was more for the boobs & bums - mainstream enough not to cause a stir on the regular prying mum bedroom inspections :-)
Currently subscribe to Car Mechanics and Evo. They're both pretty good but Evo has no oily bits and CM has some dubious advice at times. No, infact CM has some *howlers* at times. It's just changed ownership or something this issue.
Favourite magazines are on the iPad - Popular Mechanics is pretty ace. The others don't relate to cars.
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I've noticed in the last few years the idea of sticking bodykits on cars has become out of fashion. I think the insurance companies and cops have seen to that. Even chavs know they are just cop magnets and not worth the hassle. Especialy if do have an Ipod bought from dodgy dave down the pub and a load of bush on you.
There somebody at university who had a Renault 5 turbo and even in standard form was pulled over quite a few times.
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Like iffy, I was a Motor man, or rather boy - my parents paid for my (weekly) subscription when I started getting it as a schoolkid. Used to really look forward to the Christmas edition - one year they road tested a traction engine.
Read Car on and off as an adult, but eventually got fed up of the arty pictures which didn't actually show you what the car looked like.
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I preferred Autocar, thinking that their road tests were better - I loved Disconnected Jottings - but I did buy Motor as well, especially when certain cars featured - like the XJ12 and the XJS launches - damn them.
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>> - but I did buy Motor as well, especially when certain cars featured - like
>> the XJ12 and the XJS launches - damn them.
I think I must have read those (definitely wanted an XJS), but the one I remember is the first 928 test with the headline 'Carthorse or thoroughbred?'. And the long wait for a test of the Panther 6, which IIRC they compared to driving a pendulum (due to the four front wheels giving better than average grip with the ~8.0 V8 in the back).
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Like Focus, I was more of an early-teens Motor boy, and my mother paid for the subscription as well.
We were not particularly well-off, and I recall the cost becoming a bit of issue at one time.
I might have been taking other magazines as well, so it was probably my aggregate spend that was the problem.
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i used to love Max power - 15 or so years ago , and I used to like looking at cars that i couldn't afford.
I leafed through a copy a couple of months ago while the missus was walking round WHS Smith, and was shocked to find it full of foul language all over it - I put it down again it wasn't really like that when I bought it (there was mild offensive which i don't mind) but it seems the recent editions are just packed full of obscene language, which, I'm afraid is not for me anymore.
good Riddance to bad rubbish
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>> Saw a copy of Diesel Car in Smiths the other day; thought that had shut
>> up shop long ago.
>>
>> Used to be a good read in the early nineties under the editorship of John
>> Kerswil.
New owners... Second or third since his day I think... Would agree that it was a good read in those days... then they went a little haywire... Remember the "Diesel Diva"? Gave up at that point and never went back... That also caused a breakaway forum I think...
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>> New owners... Second or third since his day I think... Would agree that it was
>> a good read in those days... then they went a little haywire... Remember the "Diesel
>> Diva"? Gave up at that point and never went back... That also caused a breakaway
>> forum I think...
Gave up post Kerswill when the quality of writing/editing plummeted & Dr Diesel started trying to be funny.
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>>A certain Jeremy Clarkson was one of its main writers, and he was hilarious. I think he comes across better in the written medium..>>
You've not read any of his best selling books then?
Not easy to be humorous with the written word and there are only a comparative few who achieve it, such as JC, David Nobbs, Tom Sharpe and Roy Clarke.
slight edit as this clearly ended up in the wrong place
Last edited by: Pugugly on Fri 28 Jan 11 at 13:44
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It was in reply to Alanović's post at 9-17am..
I know I added a bit to the sentence you were quoting - eccentric software
Last edited by: Pugugly on Fri 28 Jan 11 at 14:07
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Guess there will be a few more "glamour" models heading for the dole line then........
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Never read Max Power after two attempts. Used to read Car but when Setright /Bishop stopped, the writing went downhill.
I still buy Car Mechanics occasionally.. the Electronic Diagnostic sections are great. But then electronics are not difficult if you take logical steps...
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Have to agree Madf - Car with LKJ Setright, George Bishop and Phil Llewellin was my magazine of choice in the 1980s and possibly the 1990s too, didn't James May write a column called "England Made Me" or some such ?
I occasionally buy Top Gear when I've a long plane journey but as a (temporarily) ex-pat pedestrian I try not to tease myself.
I've leafed through Max Power at my in-laws as one of our nephews seems to think that "tunes" and "car kits" are somehow "cool" (or is that banging in street slang...). All Tim Westwood and tits - really quite vile. I won't mourn its passing.....
Last edited by: idle_chatterer on Fri 28 Jan 11 at 15:33
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I used to subscribe to the late CCC (Car and Car Conversions). The only mag that really featured affordable engine and suspension modifications that worked and a darn good read.
Max Power was called 'Lax Bowels' by at least one CCC writer.
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I used to get CCC too. It's now Practical Performance Car and features lots of real cars. I have a subscription but I never remember to read it. Written by proper petrol heads that aren't all rolling in money either.
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>> "Fast Lane" was my monthly of choice as a yoof in the 1980s.
It was the first car magazine I picked up when I was eleven, and got me into cars until this day. Peter Dron was the editor - he still turns up in the odd publication. They did a supplement on favourite roads, Porsche 911 turbo doing 'the clun', other cars in it were the Audi 90 Quattro, Ford Sierra XR4x4 hoofing it around Scotland, Lotus Excel and Peugeot 205 GTi. It must have been fun for the testers at the time as there was a lot less traffic around then.
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Max Power runs out of road - Iffy
