magazines

Top Gear
Until recently this was leagues ahead of the opposition. A good mix of super cars, realistic cars and off beat wacky motoring articles. It had a good mix of humor and information and although slighlty handling biased generally gave fair reveiws. Many of these still apply but for me it has lost some of its magic. The wacky off beat articles which actually eductaed you rather than just repeated what everyone else was doing seem to be getting irrelevent and contrived. The humor has become thinner on the ground. You get the feeling it has become a bit corrupt. Not quite as exciting as it seems, the reveiws are fair and unbiased but why has the edior had 3 Jag XJRs for which seems eternity on long term test? Certainly not for research purposes. Every longeterm report stating what everyone already nows. The format has gone way to much towards the Whatcar school of thought without actually having the useful content. Its that topgear is bad, it just used to be so good.

What Car
They say you can't judge a book by its cover, you can car magzines. The trademarke white front with cropped pictures of studio lit models may not be the most imaginative cover ever but it get sthe point across. This is a car magazine for people who actually want to buy cars, rather than spotty teenagers. Everything is clear and conscie, unbaised, and to the point. It may lack witty comments, but then witty comments often are n't witty any way so i dont 'spose you are missing much. Anyway it lacks the large number of "super car" tests and pictures fo sideways stupidity buy does have lots of data, specs and figures. If you actaully want to buy are car, in my veiw the only real downside, it the over emphasis of depreciation. Yes i know i won't get the money back on the V8 engine option and the diesle depreciates 20% less, but i dont want a diesel, OK?

Car
There was a joke on another motoring site that the Car editor was considering doing away with clumsy words and replacing them all with glossy pictures. This just about sums Car magazine up. It has a good "rumor" type section of motoring gossip and spyshoots are covered quite well. But it just feels a bit unrewarding. If you read evry article it would take you half the time of the others. Nice pictures are all very well but thats what manufacturor brochures are for and they are free.

Autocar
This is a weekely publictaion, as such tends to be slightly ahead than the monthly publictaions above. Having said that is has been claimed, that some of their "exclsuives" infered tehy had driven cars without engines. I can't I have ever noticed that a particauly blatant fib but i do sometimes find there reveiws a little vague, being the innocent little lad I'am, i put this down to a restricted test drive. Anyway, the good points, they are pretty much the best for computer generated mock ups of spyshoots, which are suprisingly accuarte and much more use than a blurred picture of a car covered in bin bags. I would also congratulate them on being one of the few publictaions who realise Alpina exist. I slaute you.

Autoexpress
Another weekly magazine, hence slightly ahead of the monthly publications. Although roadtests strike a reasonable balance between over long and being to brief the major problem with this magazine as all the content with this magazine you want to read they put on the webiste, so why buy it? That is of course is unless you really care who won the 30 car wax product test which they seem to have everyother issue.