Non official QOTD: What car magazines do you still subscribe to:
Road & Track
0-60

(CandD, MotorTrend, and AutoWeek have either ended or will soon end)

No, Thos!! Say it ain't so!! Now the only pretentiously-abbreviated Thomaselebrity we have left is Thom Yorke!

*dances to Idiotheque*

C&D and Autoweek...rest in peace...how sad that I dropped both...especially Autoweek (I got my first subscription when I was 10 in 1987...had it through 2007...20 years...and it just got too pointless. I couldn't stand Dutch....)

UK Car mags have deteriorated massively. Top Gear lost the plot after about '99 (lost its distinguishing features).

And Autocar is really starting to piss me off. Every single headline is some sort of ultimatum, things like "AUDI R8- don't buy that 911 just yet" and "NEW MERC GTI, Why the new Golf better be good".....

Why can't cars just be judged on their own merits? When a car is too new even for the magazines to have tested, why not let the buying public make their own minds up?

I'd love to be a motoring journalist. It's a bit like buying loads of CDs, listening to a load of music and deciding that nobody quite makes the exact music you're looking for, and wishing you had the skillz in place to record your own. My perfect sound would have the sprawling electronica of Boards Of Canada, the mournful guitar and sense of scale of Meddle era Pink Floyd, and the innocent, rough around the edges vocals of Emilliana Torrini. And perhaps a bit of Massive Attack bass and percussion.

It's the same thing which led Ferrucio to build his first sports car. We ourselves know what perfection is. We cannot be told.

I want a mag which just tells me what's going on in the car world. In a humourous, irreverant yet insightful way. Which is why I come to Jalopnik. There's always a little somethin' somethin' which sets it apart.

And by fuck I hope it stays that way.

@SwatLax:

evo, period. I used to read CAR as well before it became obsessed with goofy hair and the magazine's (admittedly great) style took importance over it's content about three or four years ago.

As a kid I used to voraciously read C&D, Automobile, R&T and about every other major American car mag every month for years and years, then they opened a Borders in my neighborhood and I discovered the British mags, since then I've never looked back.

I've said it before, the level of journalism, photography, content, design and ability to convey a car's unquantifiable characteristics is so vastly superior to American wrags as to make them look like they're put together by talented high school students. At first the sight of a new minivan or econobox that I didn't know about years ahead of time was odd, but the knowledge I've gained of how INTERESTING cars actually drive (rather than their skidpad ratings and styling critiques) is a more than fair trade off.

@Rust-MyEnemy:

"My perfect sound would have the sprawling electronica of Boards Of Canada, the mournful guitar and sense of scale of Meddle era Pink Floyd, and the innocent, rough around the edges vocals of Emilliana Torrini. And perhaps a bit of Massive Attack bass and percussion."

You just described my perfect sound to a tee - what's creepy is I've never been able to do it myself. I might through in a little melodic Squarepusher (ala Iambic Poetry and Tundra) but that's damn close to what my head sounds like.

If you're ever in San Diego I need to buy you a beer.

I'll never stop reading R&T as long as Peter Egan is writing. He is a treasure. He and Dan Neill at the LA Times are the best auto writers available these days.

Oh, and the Jalopnik guys of course ;-)

I have a fairly complete collection of R&T and still subscribe, but I mostly leaf-through these days rather than read it. They still have some great writers there, but I've seen and read about everything online weeks before.

I have been getting AutoWeek since 82, and used to get C&D and MotorTrend, but passed on those, especially MT, don't like that rag much. I also used to buy RoadTest magazine, back in the day. Also, Sports Car Graphic, and I bought CAR back in the late '80s early '90s.

Oh, and I subscribed to Skinned Knuckles for a few years there. That's a good one.

I think this is for real: a couple of weeks ago, the head cheese over at Winding Road alluded to this in the headline of his column, which focused on Thos, then quickly changed it.

@bugattatra: You have a MKII Escort as your Avatar. The drink is on me.

@bugattatra: +1 on EVO. I miss some of their more humble coverage, but I guess I'd dump a custom Volvo for a Zonda, too.

Did I miss something? Are CandD, AutoWeek, and MotorTrend no longer published? I could have sworn I just saw all of them at my local Borders recently.

Or was SwatLax merely predicting the beginning of the end?

I too subscribe to EVO exclusively, although the relative dearth of Se7en coverage compared to a few years back (when Meaden owned a Fireblade) and their somewhat predictable style/comparo results is starting to get tired...and it's very expensive to subscribe here in the US.

Motor Trend was always the worst US mag in my opinion.

@Al Navarro: They're all merging into one magazine: Motorroadandcarandtranddriverweek. As a reader benefit, each page will be a perforated pull-out, and quilted two-ply.

Back in tha day I subbed to about 20 car mags. I was over the top obsessed. Used to be a big fan of Practical Classics (UK) and Classic and Sports Cars (UK) but their editorial changes have left me wanting. That plus $9.75 an issue. It peaked when I also used to buy numerous UK mags at almost $10 each as the subs just weren't doing it for me anymore. Thankfully, the intrawebs solved that expensive problem.

Today, Sports Car Market is the only mag I subscribe to. I pick up Collector Car and Hemmings Classic Car occasionally.

Grassroots Motorsports and Autoweek fill my snailbox. I find Autoweek to be laking the consistency it used to have.

GRM, on the other hand, is so righteous in its awesomeness that it is bordering on ass tattoo worthiness.

I think the mags must be getting desperate. They ave been offering super cheap subscritpion rates lately. I think I renewed Road and Track for something like $20 for 3 years. I just picked up Automobile for 3 years for $18 (not even worth that, silly me I thought David E. Davis was still there).
I currently get:
Autoweek (still one of the best)
Car and Driver (John Phillips is good)
Road and Track (it was cheap and Peter Egan is great)
Automobile (suckered by cheap subscription)
Hemmings Sports and Exotic (one of the best, very Jalop-ish)
Hemmings Classic Car (another one of the best, very Jalop-ish)
Hemmings Muscle Machines (I had to go for the Trifecta, felt I was missing out on American performance, very good, very Jalop-ish, the latest issues has an article on a Pontiac Tempest SD421 WAGON!)

I can't imagine life without Autoweek.

@graverobber:

Hahahaha!!! Nice.

R&T. Love Egan.

@Bret: I've also been considering a GRM tattoo. That's a great magazine, and I like Classic Motorsports (basically the same philosophy but dealing with vintage cars and vintage racing) even better. The eclectic selection of project cars is the sort of thing the commentariat raves about here-- a SAAB 99 built into a full-on rally car, for instance, and a sportbike-motored Berkeley!

@Al Navarro: To be clear, the 'ending' referred to my personal subscriptions.

Oh, thank heavens. He ran that mag into the ground. Probably too late to save it, though.

@georgejetson: are you nuts???!!!!!!
Have you ever heard of Csaba Csere and Angus MacKenzie
those guys have buried their mags ..I just cancelled my subscription of 10 years to Car and Driver because John Phillips aside it became a ridiculous mag where half the content was a gag (on the readers) and they killed off Brock Yates and brought in these retarded young guys that dont know anything about autodom except Lancer Evos and GT-Rs

I almost thought about starting a sub for Motor Trend but I read a few at the public library and it still pretty much sucks and I would of given Automobile a chance but frankly I find that mag sterile and boring even if Jean Jennings is from the hallowed halls of David E Davis.I cant really afford EVO or Top Gear on my salary so Im keeping my ongoing subscription to R&D purely for Peter Egan and Dennis Siminaitus....The overall design is still fairly decent and I have been reading R&D from the Miscellaneous Ramblings days.I think Thom did a decent enough job over the years he kept it classy and not dumbed down like Car and Driver. I mean C&D became obnoxious and
(Have you read Franz Kafkas garage??yeah its pretty stupid)

Well, what do you know, I get home and there in the mail is R&T!
Okay, Nissan GT-R... seen that, uh BMW 1 series coupe, yeah-that too, hmm, Subaru Diesel? Crap! All-new VW Scirocco, bullshit all-new! Thanks Jalopnik, now what am I gonna' read while sitting on the can?

@graverobber: yeah Jalop has pretty much the jump on all my mags so I depend on the collumns in the magazines like Peter Egan's Side Glances and things like that

@yellofury: I know, but Egan's all about "hey I've got this E-type" and I'm all "I know, we heard about the E-Type" and he's all "No, but this time I'm gonna' talk about the SUs" and I'm like rolling my eyes and muttering to myself "again with the carbs". And if I have to hear one more time about how cold it is in Wisconsin, or Nova Scotia, or where ever the eff he moved I'm gonna' hurl. Geez, buy a heavier coat and get on with life.

R&T: For Egan (agreeing with everyone's comments of him. Fantastic story-teller)

Automobile: Dyer, Jennings, Cammisa (sp?), Cumberford (By Design).

0-60: Seems to be very well written, hip, and very atypical to it's contemporaries (in a good way)

Sports Car Int'l: Very interesting stories on older soon-to-be classics.

@graverobber: Check out 0-60. I just got my first issue a couple of weeks ago, and besides getting to read some more from Spinelli, the writing is a definite improvement over CandD. Big pictures are pretty too.

Also, no yellow highlighting.

Cumberford@Automobile is ponderous, but his is a viewpoint you can't get anywhere else. The rest is mostly filler.

The Hemmings magazines are really fun, and v.cheap if you subscribe. Well worth $12--18/yr.

The latest editorial tweak to Motor Sport (UK) is more modern racing, less historic (but not the DSJ-style modern race reports).

I read CAR for 20 years, but gave it up.

I still read R&T, but that's because I'm a fogy. I can't imagine someone 20 years younger liking it.