Which magazine should I get: Road & Track or Motor Trend?

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ComposerRyan

ComposerRyan

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Before GT5 releases, I'm trying to sharpen my car language. Which magazine do you guys recommend? I went ahead and bought one issue of Road & Track but before I subscribe to it, I was wondering what you guys thought the best one was to subscribe to.

What do you think? :)
 
Kind of the wrong section, but I'd honestly suggest neither of the two.

Go with Automobile or Evo, instead.
 
neither. I also suggest you look online and get the subscriptions for free.
 
OT-> Wrong section mate.

BT-> I prefer the following, since I need it thru my Vehicle Wish List

US Based
- Jalopnik
- Autoblog/Autoblog Green
- CarScoop
- Motor Authority
- Inside Line

EU Based
- Evo
- Top Gear
- Car
- Channel 4
- World Car Fans
- Net Car Show
- Auto Express
- What Car?

Others
- Motor (AUS)
- Wheels (AUS)
- Car and Driver (HK)
- Drive (JPN)
- Motion Car (PHL)
- C! (PHL)
- Top Gear (PHL)

:)

EDIT-> AutoCar UK is also good!
 
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try watching fifth gear. Although the program is done, the presenters like Vick Bulter Henderson, Tiff Needel, and Jason Plato were Touring Car drivers and genuinely give good comments about different cars.

My fav. car magazine is the UK based Car magazine.
 
Evo and Autocar are the best.

Driver's Republic was good, but it's gone. All the contributors (ex-Autocar and Evo) are now back at Evo (including Chris Harris).

Motor Trend and Road and Track occasionally have good articles, though.
 
Evo and Car (UK) are great but nothing really beats Peter Egan's articles from Road & Track. Also try Motorsport(UK) if you want to learn specifics about vintage race cars and drivers
 
I'd pick Road & Track over Motor Trend. I like Car & Driver a lot, but as mentioned above, it's not as good as it used to be...who let Csaba leave? :odd:.
 
Road & Track all the way. I like their foreign car and classic car coverage better than Motor Trend. Motor Trend seems like cater to whichever car company paid them the most, the magazine has an ego that's just laughably huge, and the they test concept cars. Who the hell though that was a good idea? That's just a waste of article space in my opinion. I hate MT and I'm waiting for my subscription to expire so I've got more room for Automobile, Car and Driver, and Road & Tack. I really can't recommend a specific one of them--that's why I get all three. The Euro mags are quite pricey to subscribe to here in the states, and they don't hardly cover anything that pertains to us anyway. Though the mags are top notch, they're really just a novelty when you live and drive in the States, not Europe.
 
santiagomo87
Evo and Car (UK) are great but nothing really beats Peter Egan's articles from Road & Track. Also try Motorsport(UK) if you want to learn specifics about vintage race cars and drivers
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Just about anything by Georg Karcher beats anything by Peter Egan. Even Csaba Csere had more interesting technical articles. Egan has nice stories, but thats about it IMO
 
I think Road and Track is your best option. They equally cover all types of sports cars, Japan, Euro, American.

Plus I recommend these websites for all your car needs (some have been mentioned already).

http://www.supercars.net/ - Great car database and the best sports car forum.
http://www.finalgear.com/ - The place to go to watch the best car show ever, Topgear!
http://www.motorauthority.com/ - Motorauthority and Autoblog are the best car blogs on the net.
http://www.autoblog.com/
http://speedhunters.com/ - This blog covers all types of motorsports. Not much auto info here but tons of good car pics.
http://jalopnik.com/ - Another good car blog
 
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The Vanishing Boy
EU Based
- Evo
- Top Gear
- Car
- Channel 4
- World Car Fans
- Net Car Show
- Auto Express
- What Car?

EDIT-> AutoCar UK is also good!
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Amended the list. The ones I've put a strike through aren't a patch on the ones that are left. That said, the web-based ones are obviously easier to get hold of than the magazines.

Auto Express is good for news and product tests but I'm not a fan of their car tests. They also have a nasty habit of starting every test and bit of news with some kind of bad pun (haven't got any to illustrate, but for example if they tested an electric car the prose would usually start with something like "we're testing a car that has the power to shock!" or some awful thing like that...). They also blow their own trumpet far too much... "as usual, Auto Express is the first magazine to bring you this news!" and that sort of thing...

What Car is a bit consumer-magazine like. It's designed for people with no interest or passion in cars to help them buy their next car. It's not really an enthusiasts magazine.

Tompie913
Try Top Gear Magazine
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TG Magazine really isn't very good. It used to be, but then they got a new editor who wasn't very good, all the great journos left, they got another new editor who also wasn't very good, and now it's more like a car "comic" heavily influenced by the TV series. It's been distinctly average for a good four or five years now. Car, Evo, Autocar and Octane are all vastly better.

EDIT: And Peformance Car, which is like a cross between Autocar and Evo.

Best advice so far:

Nicksfix
Try reading this thread,it may help you.
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Big discussion on the worth of the different mags there.

EDIT: Mods - perhaps a thread merge with this and the other one?
 
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Keef
Road & Track all the way. I like their foreign car and classic car coverage better than Motor Trend. Motor Trend seems like cater to whichever car company paid them the most, the magazine has an ego that's just laughably huge, and the they test concept cars. Who the hell though that was a good idea? That's just a waste of article space in my opinion. I hate MT and I'm waiting for my subscription to expire so I've got more room for Automobile, Car and Driver, and Road & Tack.
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As I said in the other thread, Motor Trend recently celebrated their 60th Anniversary. That means they have been complete crap for around 10 years.
Road and Track is pretty good, better than how Car and Driver is for the most part (over the past year Car and Driver has been getting consistently better, though), but I'm an Automobile man myself. I love the auction coverage and the enthusiast-centric slant of the magazine.
 
Road and Track all the way. They cover all types of cars equally, European, Asian, US. Motor Trend is mainly US cars, which is boooring. Overall, Top Gear mag is the best imo, I haven't read Autocar is a while, but it wasn't bad, and i've never read EVO before, but i'll take everyone's word for it, it's good too.
 
I second what he said.
Road & Track, as long as Peter Egan stays on staff. Their new Editor also seems to have his "poop in a group".
I like Automobile, Even though their Editor is a woman (I love Jean Jennings, BTW) it's like the Maxim, (only mature) of Car magazines, article wise. (kind of eclectic and often tongue in cheek)

MT has taken itself too seriously for about 10 years now, and I don't bother. Though I have some pretty good MT from the 80's and 90's...

If Csaba Csere, AND Brock Yates are BOTH gone from Car and Driver I wouldn't recommend it for lining the bottom of the bird cage.
 
PJ-FFL
Road and Track all the way. They cover all types of cars equally, European, Asian, US. Motor Trend is mainly US cars, which is boooring. Overall, Top Gear mag is the best imo, I haven't read Autocar is a while, but it wasn't bad, and i've never read EVO before, but i'll take everyone's word for it, it's good too.
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Top gear went crap, capitalising on the TV show's popularity. they started trying too hard making it look cool, but when you peel under it, it isn't what it used to be (talking late 90s). I've seen some issues where they did an article of a segment from the TV show. Er......excuse me? I've seen it, don't need to read it too - give me some new stuff.
CAR was good, untill I started properly reading the articles, where I found more than a few were completely devoid of any emotion.
 
80Y 2C2
Top gear went crap, capitalising on the TV show's popularity. they started trying too hard making it look cool, but when you peel under it, it isn't what it used to be (talking late 90s). I've seen some issues where they did an article of a segment from the TV show. Er......excuse me? I've seen it, don't need to read it too - give me some new stuff.
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Agree entirely. I started reading in about 1996 and by about 2003 it was starting to go downhill.

CAR was good, untill I started properly reading the articles, where I found more than a few were completely devoid of any emotion.
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I still quite enjoy CAR, and they do have some good articles. If anything, CAR is a bit like how Top Gear used to be around 2000/2001, but with more emphasis on features rather than tests and better photography.
 
homeforsummer
I still quite enjoy CAR, and they do have some good articles. If anything, CAR is a bit like how Top Gear used to be around 2000/2001, but with more emphasis on features rather than tests and better photography.
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You are sort of right saying CAR is like an old TG, but thing thing is, I just delved into my collection (started collecting when I was 2 - dad gave me his old ones - my first issue had an article about this new fangled "McLaren F1", which apparently can crack 240mph - pffft), went to the letters section - there's some guy ranting on about the diff in his Land Rover for 2.5 columns! I couldn't keep up with it either. Its the readers, too, that shape and make the magazine and in 5 years, the main story will be a farmer in the Northern fells of Cumbria that has developed a new one.

Now I know that CAR caters for ALL cars and all people, but when I go to EVO's letters section, there's people wanting to know why their beloved E46 CSL isn't on this or that list, and some guy who just bought a 997 Carrera S Chrono is wondering about souping up an E30 instead etc etc etc. It just seems more exciting. And on top of that, their article and car line up, albeit biased towards anything performance orientated, is second to none, as is the photography, as is the page layout, as is the literature. And on top of that, if you go to the "Lifers" section at the back, the editor, Harry Metcalfe, has his own Zonda, which he has modified, with Horatio Pagani, to become an F in S's clothing. He also has a Lotus 340R and up 'till recently he also had an RS6. Then you have road test editor Henry Catchpole who has an R26R, then someone has a DBS, then someone has an ISF, then if you delve back through time, somone had a Carrera GT, someone had an Alpina, someone had an orange Murcielago.....and then modified it (IIRC) and put some stripes on it. They don't personally own the cars ('cept Harry's Zonda), but they run these cars and report on them - contrasting to other magazine's where someone might have a diesel Panda instead.

Of course we need a more sensible magazine, to actually help us buy a "regular" car, but it doesn't mean I don't like reading the exciting stuff more.

[/editorialistic rant - not aimed at HFS]
 
Actually... that's about the only thing I can complain about with Evo... the lack of the mundane inside the magazine.

The writers do such an excellent job of describing motors, how they behave on the road and the pros and cons of different cars that you just wish they'd do one or two normal everyday cars and explain to Joe Public: "Hey... this one's a cracker!"

But then again... they've done that with the Panda 100HP... but I wish they'd delve more into Mundania for more stuff lower-income enthusiasts can actually get a hold of.
 
They do a lot of that I reckon. So, yeah, ok, they do the hypercars (December issue labled the 1M pound club - consisting of the Zonda Cinque, Reventon roadster and that 4 door Bugatti), but there are heaps of articles of best performance car under 10k (pounds) and they focus a lot on hot hatches too.

And lets not forget the 1000 pound challenges. I reckon it covers the dreams and realistic alternatives well, and I enjoy reading about both, because of the excellent photography and journalism.
 
Yeah, I actually have no cause for complaint with Evo's coverage of more normal stuff. At the end of the day they are a performance car magazine so I can fully understand them not covering base models.

Like 80Y says, they've done a lot of great features on cheaper or more humble cars - tests between basic hot hatches, finding the best FWD car ever, the £1k challenge etc. And of course, EVO's mastery is making you feel like you're there in the tests with supercars. I'm not a big supercar person really (as you may know) but I enjoy every word of EVO's tests of them because they really excel at relating the passion of driving such a car, for those of us who'll never, ever even get a ride in these things, let alone be able to afford one.

As for CAR, that does cover the more basic bases, if you will. If Evo didn't exist then CAR might be a bit more disappointing, but as things are I think it's one of the better monthlies out there.

Going off topic a little (as it's more specialised) I actually think one of the best car magazines out there is Auto Italia. Obviously they only cover Italian cars, but they have a great mix of tests and features of everything from modern Lamborghinis to very early vintage stuff, as well as some great track tests. It's head and shoulders above most other specialist car mags in terms of quality.
 

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