Sport Compact no more

Chris_V wrote:

impulsive wrote: Technobabble (Coleman) was my favorite and is the reason I held onto the later issues that were getting more rice-oriented.

i find all this thread interesting, especially for this comment. I remember when Sport Compact Car was a spinoff of MiniTruckin' magazine, and really just about what the mini truck clubs called "mascot cars." That is, lowrider custom compact cars. It didn't get to performance oriented imports until later. Most of you would probably consider those early issues to be ONLY about "rice."

Which is exactly why I like it, it is getting away from the Fast and the Furious trend....which some still do. I like the suspension techs and how camber is measured and so on. It's a shame,actual good articles and cars, not people who have big money and says, hey look at what I built, for $200,000, $195,000 more than most people can afford.

GRM, HIRE ALL OF THEM!!!!!!!!!

"I remember that, it was Sentra. The artcile was hillarious, and every time I take a sawzall to a project, that pops in my head. "

If this quote doesn't make print, it's a damn crime. Nothing has ever said "GRM" like these two sentences said, with zero irony or sarcasm.

NickF40 wrote:

Chris_V wrote:

impulsive wrote: Technobabble (Coleman) was my favorite and is the reason I held onto the later issues that were getting more rice-oriented.

i find all this thread interesting, especially for this comment. I remember when Sport Compact Car was a spinoff of MiniTruckin' magazine, and really just about what the mini truck clubs called "mascot cars." That is, lowrider custom compact cars. It didn't get to performance oriented imports until later. Most of you would probably consider those early issues to be ONLY about "rice."

Which is exactly why I like it, it is getting away from the Fast and the Furious trend....which some still do. I like the suspension techs and how camber is measured and so on. It's a shame,actual good articles and cars, not people who have big money and says, hey look at what I built, for $200,000, $195,000 more than most people can afford. GRM, HIRE ALL OF THEM!!!!!!!!!

Actaully my comment was directed towards those who say it was getting more and more about "rice" (or visual tuning) instead of perforrmance. It's odd to me, because the magazine has always been about customizing, and only a little bit of it was about performance. And considering it was doing this (focusing on customized compacts) in the late '80s, it predated F&F by almost a decade.

I never knew SCC when it was about the visuals. I bought subscriptions a couple years at a time because it was in my opinion a tech magazine, free from 20" wheels (which I have no use for) and boobies (which my wife would legitimately hassle me about). Maybe it wasn't always like that, but that's the only SCC I knew.

Brust wrote: "I remember that, it was Sentra. The artcile was hillarious, and every time I take a sawzall to a project, that pops in my head. " If this quote doesn't make print, it's a damn crime. Nothing has ever said "GRM" like these two sentences said, with zero irony or sarcasm.

like most others, when it went away from technical writing, I bailed. I snagged one a few months back, and page count had gone from 250+ down to less than 100, for twice the money. it was no longer relevant...

I alwasy like SCC, never enought osubscribe, too much garbage, but dave was always inteligent and entertaining, his rally 510 I thought was cool as hell

While I agree the Sentra hack was fun, it wasn't the first time this sort of thing had been done.

10 years ago (maybe more) Hot Rod had a story called Caddyhack, or something like that. They hacked apart a big caddy and improved times. Nearly the exact article SCC did, just with a Merikan car.

Caddyhack was one of the most famous articles in the history of car magazines. I still have the original issue.

Sorry to be so blunt but, its about time. There hasn't been an article worth reading there in years. I suppose if you are in the 16-19 demographic and know very little about modding cars, it might have been interesting.

Is Turbo still around? That used to have some good tech articles but its another mag that I haven't bothered to keep up with since the 80s or 90s.

Not sure that I'd hire many of their writers for GRM. I love GRM the way it is.

Yeah Turbo is still here, and is good, I must say.

I loved that Sentra!

I still like the and don't know if someone did "If you know the year of my beat to hell Corolla, then you get to kick Joey in the nuts"

WORST NEWS THIS YEAR! i loved that magazine. they had some of the nerdiest tech guys around, lost adverts for saying that they're products sucked, palled around with cosworth forever(the castrol syntech engine challenge, they entered a na vq motor, i mean come on! thats just nuts!) and had some of the best project cars ever. i must say, grms a better magazine, better run and a lot more for your money, but scc had the writing styles, nerdism's, project cars and "shoot outs" that i wish grm had. http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/projectcars/0206_mitsubishi_evolution_ii_safari_project/index.html best project car ever! but i think i have more old grms then scc's.

Joe Gearin wrote: While I agree the Sentra hack was fun, it wasn't the first time this sort of thing had been done. 10 years ago (maybe more) Hot Rod had a story called Caddyhack, or something like that. They hacked apart a big caddy and improved times. Nearly the exact article SCC did, just with a Merikan car.

It’s been a few more than 10 years. It’s closer to 22! It was the Feb 1987 issue that had the famous Caddy Hack article. At 6,780 pounds (loaded with people and surf boards) it ran 17.22 at 80.01. After chopping it down to 2,900 lbs they got it to run 13.55 at 100.83.

Back in ’94 Mopar Action magazine attempted the same thing with a ’64 Imperial. They credit (and blame) the Hot Rod article for their own. The Imperial put up a greater fight against the saws-all than the Caddy (even caught fire when they cut it with a torch). The Imp started at 4,700 lbs running 17.2 at 81 MPH. In final butchered form it ran 12.77 at 102.8.

I can’t say I ever read an issue of SCC. Wasn’t my thing.

http://www.dragracingonline.com/cliffnotes/vii_6-1.html

impy hack.

So is the issue with the NSX and civic on the cover their last one? I saw it at the grocery store and picked it up just in case.

belteshazzar wrote: So is the issue with the NSX and civic on the cover their last one? I saw it at the grocery store and picked it up just in case.

hopefully... :D

as was said above. The magazine grew in size, but the content did not seem to increase. It also seemed to move it's market towards the super street crowd. I remember back in the late 90's I use to read/subscribe SCC and European Car religiously...and GRM when I could find it at the local barnes and noble. In the last year I've only read one SCC that was given to me. I haven't seen European car in 5 years or so. GRM is the only magazine I subscribe to. Sorry to see them go....but the market will always correct itself.

SCC has witnessed a steady decline since Josh Jaquot moved on to Edmunds(where he remains an editor of Inside Line). He and Oldham(also at Edmunds) were responsible for creating a special publication. They were irreverent and included sport compacts from ALL manufacturers as they were true car guys. In addition to the usual suspects(Evos, Hondas and Subes), they also featured SRT4s, Turbo Dodges, Minis,etc. The editors all had interesting cars of their own and were competent drivers. Josh, Scott, Dave and Jarrod were a wild and crazy bunch, that not only were innovative thinkers but skilled wordsmiths. I had the pleasure of working with the SCC crew on a couple of occasions and even contributed an article or two.

Josh and company fought long and hard to create an interesting mag with beautiful photos, while at the same time fighting their corporate masters(especially trying to avoid all the cheesy adds and cheesecake photos). I don't blame any of them for moving on. It did not take long for SCC to begin its steady decline. The focus drifted to a near total "JDM" editorial content as the mag shrunk and began to succumb to the obnoxious adds(as opposed to the relevant adds in GRM that we all utilize). I cancelled my subscription years ago and would flip through a copy once in a while at the newsstand. The writing stunk, it was biased and juvenile and I knew the end was near. Sadly, I don't consider the loss of SCC in it's current state to be anything worth mourning.

You know, I think once I saw the MR-2 build in which they had added carbon fiber for the sake of carbon fiber, I should have known the mag was doomed. I would have followed Dave to any magazine, I loved his writing that much. I did a similar thing with Dave Freiburger of Hotrod, CarCraft fame. I miss them both.

This is what happens when making money becomes more important than the product itself. Just ask the big three, they know all about it.

In reply to Feedyurhed:

The product is not the problem.

forzav12 wrote: SCC has witnessed a steady decline since Josh Jaquot moved on to Edmunds(where he remains an editor of Inside Line). He and Oldham(also at Edmunds) were responsible for creating a special publication. They were irreverent and included sport compacts from ALL manufacturers as they were true car guys. In addition to the usual suspects(Evos, Hondas and Subes), they also featured SRT4s, Turbo Dodges, Minis,etc. The editors all had interesting cars of their own and were competent drivers. Josh, Scott, Dave and Jarrod were a wild and crazy bunch, that not only were innovative thinkers but skilled wordsmiths. I had the pleasure of working with the SCC crew on a couple of occasions and even contributed an article or two. Josh and company fought long and hard to create an interesting mag with beautiful photos, while at the same time fighting their corporate masters(especially trying to avoid all the cheesy adds and cheesecake photos). I don't blame any of them for moving on. It did not take long for SCC to begin its steady decline. The focus drifted to a near total "JDM" editorial content as the mag shrunk and began to succumb to the obnoxious adds(as opposed to the relevant adds in GRM that we all utilize). I cancelled my subscription years ago and would flip through a copy once in a while at the newsstand. The writing stunk, it was biased and juvenile and I knew the end was near. Sadly, I don't consider the loss of SCC in it's current state to be anything worth mourning.

The above says it better than I care to. The old group, especially Mr. Coleman, made a magazine that I truly looked forward to. Once they all started leaving, the thing just sucked. I still subscribed, in the hopes that they'd find truly talented and original folks to fill in the gaps, but it never happened.

I picked up an issue of Project Car the other day and it looked like the same old wheels/tires/shift knob/done formula. With the notable exception being the B13 SE-R racecar.

I picked up Turbo the other day because it had a couple (what looked like) really cool articles. I didn't make it two pages before the consistently bad grammar, both in the editorials and the two feature stories I tried to read, made it impossible to continue reading. One editorial column had the most mixed plurals I'd ever seen on a printed page. Absolutely inexcusable.

I think you guys blame to much of the down fall on the old guys leaving(it did get bad for a short time). But Jay Chen breaks it down well in APPENDIX J. The market has moved on in may ways. The first is any of us have grown up and moved on to nicer cars or track cars. Also fuel cost, emissions testing, safety regulation, E36 M3ty ebay parts, and the economy, have all made it hard. And telling kids to not buy parts that do not work does not help. Then testing advertisers parts is totally counter productive to making money.
In the end it is important to see that Sport compact car was not competing in the market place. It was competing with all the crappy magazines that INTERNATIONAL AUTOMOTIVE GROUP puts out. Its not that is sucked it just made them the least MONEY. Its a hell on a lot easier to get advertisers when you have hot girls on the cover, feature DVD players, and never tell anyone there parts don't work. GRM is VERY lucky to be family owned.

In reply to snipes:

Can't say that I agree. The current editorial staff was better than the James Tate/whoever else days, but their Project NSX/Backmarker Civic series was a classic example of how far things have gone down hill. What could have been an interesting series detailing the grassroots build-up of a standard low-buck car vs. a modern-day, accessible exotic quickly turned into "and then we dropped it off at XYZ shop for X work to be done". I was really excited about that series, but all they did was get the cars painted and buy wheels. No technical details given, no low-cost solutions to making a junk car shine, etc.

Flipping through their most recent, and last issue, it's the same story. They have a 240 drift car (imagine that!) that they had another shop install an expensive Nismo 6-speed swap on.

I don't know, but at some point it became apparent that they just shuttled their cars to and from various shops. See project 350Z during and after Coleman's reign and project Focus for more of this.

I was a huge fan of SCC in the Coleman days, and was completely let down when they all left and team db showed up to ruin a great magazine. The current team did their best and showed promise, but it was too little too late.

word.

snipes you talk about us growing up and moving on, but it wasn't like "we" were the last generation ever. telling advertisers their stuff didn't work is a major reason why the where THE magazine. It sold subscriptions. Seems to me if given the choice more subscriptions would be more important than more advertisers.

so, is this REALLY their last issue? Lol. I bought each of the last two thinking they were it.

I think that for most magazines, each subscription costs them money. It's the advertising $ that pay the mortgage. The cost per issue of The Mag has been posted before. It was well under the subscription price. Pissing off your advertisers is not a good business model. Pissing off your readers is an even worse model, because without the readers, the advertisers won't give you any money.

I saw a SCC mag in the mall bookstore a couple weeks ago. Sure was thin.