posted only because a friend of mine is the new Editor-In-Chief and this is the first issue that shows his vision for the future of the mag.
posted only because a friend of mine is the new Editor-In-Chief and this is the first issue that shows his vision for the future of the mag.
Is R&T the carbon copy of Car & Driver, or is it Motor Trend? Two are owned by the same conglomorate and run the same stories on the same cars every month. Kinda dumb.
After Brock Yates stopped writing, I didn't really have any auto writers that I was really into. (outside of GRM) but Larry Webster is growing on me, and Ezra Dyer.
Interesting. What I really want to know is how deep the changes go. New cover and article layout formats is fine, but are just the packaging for the real product - the writing.
R&T needs a total makeover, not just a cover. I was a LONNNNNGGGG time subscriber and let it lapse years ago. Peter Egan was the only reason I kep it as long as I did.
I must say I like to old style look. Valspar paint kept it for quite a while.
Larry Webster seems like he would be a cool guy to hang out with.
every few years Hot Rod and all the other mags under that corporate umbrella get a makeover- they add 20 pages of ads and make the articles more fluffy every time...
In reply to pinchvalve:
C&D. R&T recently moved here to Ann Arbor to have one home.
Interesting. The cover reminds me of classic covers of the past. I've subscribed to R&T for a long time - 20 years or so, I guess. Every time I'm about to let it lapse, I'll get some offer that works out to $1 an issue. I'll keep it going for that.
I quit buying R&T last year after 30 years, and am still racked with guilt. I like the mag, mostly, but all the new car books test cars that bear no resemblance to what I want in life. I guess thats why I'm here. I did pick one up last month, though, and noticed it was a two month issue. I wonder if they are going to 8 issues a year?
In reply to dyintorace:
he is. i mean, he drives a Saturn in ChumpCar. how can you beat that? 
i just read the jalopnik "Ask Me Anything" that Larry did. Here's a Q&A that jumped out at me:
Q: What printed car mag that's not one of the airport newstand regulars do you read/admire? 11/07/12 11:00am
A: Grassroots Motorsports, Sportscar Market and some of the Hemmings stuff. And there's always the Brits like EVO and CAR. 11/07/12 11:41am
Streetwiseguy wrote: I quit buying R&T last year after 30 years, and am still racked with guilt. I like the mag, mostly, but all the new car books test cars that bear no resemblance to what I want in life. I guess thats why I'm here. I did pick one up last month, though, and noticed it was a two month issue. I wonder if they are going to 8 issues a year?
There's just no way a car magazine can succeed unless they publish 12 issues a year. 
I will read it as long as Peter Egan and Dennis Simamantiammamis are writing for it.
But if you want good writing, look to a Brit car mag. Every issue of Top Gear is worth the $13 cover price . . .
novaderrik wrote: every few years Hot Rod and all the other mags under that corporate umbrella get a makeover- they add 20 pages of ads and make the articles more fluffy every time...
Yup. I analyze the page count to ad ratios of the newer magazines to their older legacy issues. I swear MacNeil Automotive has more pages than actual editorial sometimes. I love the new products sections that have two HUGE photos per page. Or product "reviews" that are little more than a press release with an intro paragraph.
I ran one of our magazines for a little while. Huge pressure from above to keep content costs down coupled with strict page count rules that can't be adjusted because you paid for paper eight months ago mean you have to do some not so fun things to make it work. Maybe a six page spread gets pushed to eight pages, but you only buy four pages worth of content and run the photos huge. You call up all the half page advertisers and offer them full page ads if they commit to a full year, then you call up all the quarter page advertisers and rinse/repeat. We said to heck with it and shut down the magazine division. Sad yes, but due to insane retail distribution costs getting a magazine to market is almost a no-win proposition.
BUT there is hope for niche magazines like said GRM and CM. The generic "themed" magazines are on borrowed time. You'll start seeing Source begin folding together similar publications eventually. Magazines that continue to provide good content with a good ad-to-article ratio will survive, but you may have to pay a little more per issue. Magazines that devolve into glossy saddle-stitched Sunday circulars will fall.
Keep it up Tim, Margie and crew. You are fighting the good fight.
I recently opened a C&D, first time in many years for this once longtime subscriber of 15 years ago. The layout was particularly bad and way too "over graphics." The picture based stories were hard to follow.
JohnRW1621 wrote: I recently opened a C&D, first time in many years for this once longtime subscriber of 15 years ago. The layout was particularly bad and way too "over graphics." The picture based stories were hard to follow.
I recently started to subcribe again, since they were practically giving it away. I really don't like the new layout. To me, it's too "ADD" or whatever they call attention-deficit disorder nowadays. I guess they figure that "modern" readers can't follow or will lose interest if it isn't like a comic book.
In reply to 1988RedT2:
I agree. At 46 yrs old I was left wondering if I had aged out of the target demo.
Of course, it does seem to be the right place to turn if you are interested in weatherproof floor mats. I left noticing that more pages seemed dedicated to the story of floor mats, their production equipment and facilities than any thing else featured in the magazine.
I re-looked at the cover to be sure it had not been retitled Car, Driver & Floor Mat. Maybe more appropriately Floormat, Car & Driver.
Larry IS a cool guy to hang out with. He races a Spec Miata as well as owning cars like an old 80's Toyota and a Porsche 928. He gets it.
I spent a few hours with him last month, and we talked about this redesign. He knows that R&T is lost right now and that it has to change. They fired almost everyone and brought in a bunch of good writers. It's not just a new shiny package, it's a new magazine in a bunch of ways. EVO is certainly one of his targets, and if you read that mag then you know it's a good one.
Pick up the May issue, judge for yourselves. I know there's at least one article in there that's going to be interesting 
I let R&T lapse about a year and a half ago after I realized I was unlikely to see in person, let alone drive or own, any of the cars featured on its pages. The annual raod test summary showed they reviewed few domestic marques. In 2011, there was an entire issue devoted to covering Ferarri, followed by one for Lamborghini. I want to read about those cars, sure, but to the exclusion of anything I could hope to afford? No. Their racing coverage was mostly of the "F1 rulez" bent and there was no coverage I can recall of Australian V8 Supercars, FIA GT1, WTCC, Grand Am, et al. Hope the changes move the mag away from slobbery fawning over all things European and re-introduce some variety.
I'm liking the new look, a lot. The new site is approximately 1000x better than the POS they had before, too.
It's very retro, something like one they would have had in the '60's. Nice. I gave up on R&T back in the '90's, and only held on that long because of Egan's articles. It lost most of it's basic goodness years before that. I have most every R&T from issue 1 through the mid '90's.
When AutoX (now GRM) came out, I think they replaced some of the larger titles for many of us. To me though, while not connected, GRM mostly reminds me of Sports Car Graphics from the '60's. I know it morphed to C&D (I think, or was it Motor Trend?), but it was nothing like the original Sports Car Graphics at that point.
Hopefully your friend does something with R&T, it's been nothing special for a LONG time.
Haven't read Road & Track much in 30 years, certainly not much since Manney passed away. Everyone tells me it's basically sucked since 1990.
I've got the R&T December issue in my bag while I'm traveling. I usually take about 20 minutes to flip through R&T, read Egan, then toss it in the recycle bin. As cheap as it is to subscribe, it doesn't bother me that I get so little out of it. I tend to spend a good hour or more on my Hemmings Sports and Exotics and Classic Motorsports by comparison. I'll second the notion that I find the Ferrari and other exotic cars of little relevance. I also fast forward the section of Top Gear where Clarkson drives one of those cars while mugging for the camera.
Having said that, the December issue (yes, im behind on my leisure reading) has more than the usual number of items that interest me, including Webster's write-up on analyzing driving experience, an article on John Fitch, a VW Beetle/JCW MINI/Veloster comparo, an article about the Goodwood Revival, one on the Lotus Elan, and, of course, Egan on his older XK8 convertible. I hope that continues.
BTW, I ended my Automobile subscription years ago due to their annual SUV issue. I mean, really, what auto enthusiast gives a berkeley about SUVs!!??
Well, the reboot takes place with the May issue that nobody here has seen yet. So it's probably not a good plan to judge the new magazine quite yet.
There is a video preview from some of the stuff in the new issue, too. http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-videos/latest/video-road-and-track-may-2013-revival-issue-preview
I gave up on Automobile years ago. I have the first issue at home, the one that compares an MR2 to a 308 and promises NO BORING CARS!
I think the changes bode well for a magazine that used to be one of my favourites, years ago. Back when I read it regularly, I loved the gorgeous David Kimble cutaway drawings, and Peter Egan's wonderful stories.
I think all they need now is a feature illustrator
Cover looks good. Haven't read R&T since they posted the Orange Stillen Z back in the 90's. (not because of that... actually that was the only cool article I can remember besides the Callaway Corvette review).
Interesting. Might have to see if I can dig up a sub deal.
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