Sport Compact no more

I never got a change to read SCC in it's thicker glory days but I've been into it for about 3 years now and I really enjoyed it. Even after a bunch of people left, Jay Chen and Andy Hope have been doing a great job. Chen does go into great technical depth on everything he writes about and his project corolla that he uses to show modifying an old car and getting into HPDE has been great. Also his article on the integra was looking to be really good. Yes a lot of the feature cars are cheque book creations but there has been some good articles on racing and build ups. Also the ultimate street car challenge was great. Part of what made this magazine great was the level of detail they went into with all of their tests. They always had excellent test gear and would give extensive numbers on a car. Their explanation series on suspension and tires were great references. No other magazine that i've scene, except partialy for motor trend was as thorough. It was worlds better than any import tuner, super street and modified mag.

I will miss the magazine and I hope it goes on somehow.

Dr. Hess wrote: 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.

under?

I don't doubt it's the advertising that really pays the bills, but how can subscriptions be a loss?

belteshazzar wrote:

Dr. Hess wrote: 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.

under? I don't doubt it's the advertising that really pays the bills, but how can subscriptions be a loss?

I just subscibed to Automobile for $6 a year, postage has to cost more than that. I 'm not a big fan of Automobile but at $6 bucks a year it's cheaper than a newspaper and with the time I spend commuting I end up reading pretty much every car and home improvement magazine I come across, and an occasional Soldier of Fortune.

The subscription takes a loss i would imagine. I mean... how can you really make a profit off of even $20 a year subscription after paying to have the magazine produced, paying your writers, your mortgage on the office building, and project cars upkeep/development, travel expenses for coverage and all that.

The cover price is probably a profit. I can't imagine it being real huge in the case of GRM.

Advertising is where the bucks are.

belteshazzar wrote:

Dr. Hess wrote: 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.

under? I don't doubt it's the advertising that really pays the bills, but how can subscriptions be a loss?

Dr. Hess has it right.

Ads pay the bills. Subscriptions are a loss because it cost more to print and send you a copy of the mag than the cost of your subscription. Your subscription, however, is used to project the cost of ads. So a mag that has circulation of 100,000 can change more for ads than one that only has 10,000.

93celicaGT2 wrote: The subscription takes a loss i would imagine. I mean... how can you really make a profit off of even $20 a year subscription after paying to have the magazine produced, paying your writers, your mortgage on the office building, and project cars upkeep/development, travel expenses for coverage and all that.

Hmmmm.

So if the entire GRM issue was online (no printing or mailing costs), and FREE, but the same number of people looked at it as do now, that would be more profitable?

belteshazzar wrote:

93celicaGT2 wrote: The subscription takes a loss i would imagine. I mean... how can you really make a profit off of even $20 a year subscription after paying to have the magazine produced, paying your writers, your mortgage on the office building, and project cars upkeep/development, travel expenses for coverage and all that.

Hmmmm. So if the entire GRM issue was online (no printing or mailing costs), and FREE, but the same number of people looked at it as do now, that would be more profitable?

Probably not. Advertisers like hard copy as proof of how many people will see their space.

But it's an interesting idea.

But in this case, i imagine there's more subscribers to the magazine than there is active posting members that log into the site everyday.

I argue it would be easier to see how many people viewed it and even what parts they skipped over. Tirerack has no idea how much time I spend looking at their r-compound rubber in their GRM ad, but they would online.

Online stats are a funny thing, and are often not particularly trustworthy. At one time, I had three different stat packages installed on a site, and the highest-reading one reported nearly double what the lowest did.

Also, third-party stats (like Alexa or something) are notoriously unreliable. I know they HUGELY under-report this site.

We get a lot more traffic than you might think. The number of people posting regularly is a fairly small subset.

Tim Baxter wrote: Online stats are a funny thing, and are often not particularly trustworthy. At one time, I had three different stat packages installed on a site, and the highest-reading one reported nearly double what the lowest did. Also, third-party stats (like Alexa or something) are notoriously unreliable. I know they HUGELY under-report this site. We get a lot more traffic than you might think. The number of people posting regularly is a fairly small subset.

I'm not doubting the traffic. I know i was constantly on this site before i even started posting for over a year.

But in the case of who spends the most time on here... it's the active posters. And from an advertising standpoint, that's usually what the companies (at least in my experience) will want to know before they advertise on a site. (forum, specifically.) This is a slightly different situation because of the articles, blogs, pics, etc that you guys post in addition.

I would bet the "reader's rides" section would probably be a good number to show an interested party.

93celicaGT2 wrote: But in the case of who spends the most time on here... it's the active posters. And from an advertising standpoint, that's usually what the companies (at least in my experience) will want to know before they advertise on a site. (forum, specifically.) This is a slightly different situation because of the articles, blogs, pics, etc that you guys post in addition. I would bet the "reader's rides" section would probably be a good number to show an interested party.

If that were to happen I imagine you'd see alot more meat and alcohol products advertised.

there have been a couple of magazines I used to subscribe to and stopped. SCC was one of them. Once they stopped featuring a lot of home built "readers rides" I lost interest (no, the one page with 3 or 4 cars on it didn't count)

Same with European Car. I subscribed to them when they were VW Greats.. and then as I migrated to Porsches, they changed right along with me.. becoming VW and Porsche.. as I discovered other european cars.. they followed suit.. it was a match made in heaven... until they dropped the owner built cars.

I enjoy seeing what real people do their cars. I think that is one of the reasons I LOVE GRM..

Am I sorry to see SCC go... yes, but she was a goner already. I gave up reading at the same time I gave up on their online forum

In reply to mad_machine:

I remember those forums, back when my handle was gtfan018. It was nearly dead and there was no moderator, so it was up to the regulars to chase away trolls and school the Stupid Street readers who occasionally showed up. Eventually, there were more sneaker spambots than active members, so I came here. I don't regret it.

Wally wrote:

93celicaGT2 wrote: But in the case of who spends the most time on here... it's the active posters. And from an advertising standpoint, that's usually what the companies (at least in my experience) will want to know before they advertise on a site. (forum, specifically.) This is a slightly different situation because of the articles, blogs, pics, etc that you guys post in addition. I would bet the "reader's rides" section would probably be a good number to show an interested party.

If that were to happen I imagine you'd see alot more meat and alcohol products advertised.

I fail to see how that would be a bad thing.

I agree with PaulY.

I got the Febuary issure, it's still great.

NickF40 wrote: I agree with PaulY. I got the Febuary issure, it's still great.

Wait, is the mag gone, going, or still in production? I only bought 3 issues. One was their greatest street car issue. The othe was one Godzilla i.e GTR and the last was Old Skool cars shoot out. They're my most read mags

I got the last issue... i did in fact enjoy it. It was the one with the orang GTR on the cover. Nice and clean.

parker wrote: Sports Car International is gone also,

I miss SCI, howver the last SCC I bought was from, IIRC, 2002.

In reply to phillyj:

They're gone. I got a notice awhile back that this latest issue would be their last (the orange GTR) and that my subscription would be transferred over to Modified. I got the last issue a week or so ago and the same day I got a 3RD AND FINAL NOTICE TO RENEW from Modified. Thought that was cute.

93celicaGT2 wrote: I got the last issue... i did in fact enjoy it. It was the one with the orang GTR on the cover. Nice and clean.

It's a damn shame.

I remember back int he mid-90's when the new issue of SCC would arrive and I'd devour it like a starved rat.

I dunno if I'll ever feel that level of intrigue toward the car hobby again.

I'm in the process of trying not to get stiffed out of $8 for an issue from 1995 (seller is a scumbag, apparently). I threw away all of my old issues years ago and now I kick myself over it. It had the documentation of the growth (and eventual death) of the Honda scene and I threw it away.

I don't have any 90's stuff, but I'm pretty sure I still have some newer ones (5-6 years old?) They're yours if you want 'em.

If gamby doesn't want 'em, I'll take 'em. I went through all my old issues last night, and many have been lost in the various moves. All the ones from the early 2000s were pretty good reading.

poopshovel wrote: I don't have any 90's stuff, but I'm pretty sure I still have some newer ones (5-6 years old?) They're yours if you want 'em.

Thanks for the offer, but I'll pass. I'm going after the really Honda-centric ones of the 90s'.

Appreciate the generosity, though.

I have to say, I did start out reading Modified and Tooner (Im am a self admitted Ex-ricer fanboi yo!), and didnt come to value the logic based, objective mindedness of mags like GRM and SCC until years later. I guess I hopped on the train a bit late, not getting into SCC and eventually GRM until just a few years ago. I really did find some of SCCs projects and tests really well put together and very Grass-rootsy. Their project SE-r was pretty cool to watch. They also put together their best (and worst...which was hilarious) projects/articles of the last 10 years.

One of my favorite tests was a lateral G skidpad test of like 15 or so different vehicles. Everything from a retired F1 car to a shifter cart, a 911, a yaris and even a Frontloader caterpillar that happened to be at the test site reparing the track (which did quite well considering ). One of the best lines from that article was something like "07 Toyota Yaris...understeering mess? yes. 07 Yaris with R compound rubber...Porche eating grip monster? Absolutely!" C'mon, thats good stuff!

that is to bad I liked that mag back in the day