Old Car Magazines

[Stefan]

So I bought a whole bunch of old Wheels and Motor Magazines, mainly to read old reviews of some of the great musclecars of the 70's.

A few things that struck me that sometime reading stories, article and letters you'd think it was printed in 2016.

• readers complaining about speed limits
• readers complain about all these fancy safety items making life for drivers hard (seatbelts)
• Why are car makers making cars that can go 130MPH when our roads are crap.

I notice that Ford even then just did not advertise the cars or market Falcon.

Holden ads, Chrysler ads, all other car makers....never Ford.

Editorial about the potential end of Aussie car manufacturing (August 1970)

Very entertaining....

Also the new Falcon GT 0-60MPH in 8.7sec, described as blistering performance. I had a giggle, them noted the new VW fastback in the same mag managed the 0-60MPH "sprint" it in 20 seconds

[commodorenutt]

It's the same through the 80s, except radar speed detection starts getting a rap in the letters page, and so does Senator Button (a decade after he & Whitlam hatched the Button plan).

Oh, and there's plenty of XE, XF & EA ads in the 80s mags.

[last fairlane]

Re old magazines
I went to the Salvos op shop and they had old Wheels Car and driver and such so I asked how much expecting them to say 50 cents each
but no they wanted $9 each mag I had a few words
and left empty handed of course was not impressed at all
John

[Stefan]

Originally Posted by last fairlane

Re old magazines
I went to the Salvos op shop and they had old Wheels Car and driver and such so I asked how much expecting them to say 50 cents each
but no they wanted $9 each mag I had a few words
and left empty handed of course was not impressed at all
John

Got to shop around, I paid 15 bucks and get every Wheels mag from 1970. But paid quadruple that for a Motor Mag with the new Falcon GT on the cover...

[Stefan]

Originally Posted by commodorenutt

It's the same through the 80s, except radar speed detection starts getting a rap in the letters page, and so does Senator Button (a decade after he & Whitlam hatched the Button plan).

Oh, and there's plenty of XE, XF & EA ads in the 80s mags.

Interesting,

I was hoping for a few period Ford car ads to copy and make a display / picture montage for the garage but not one advert for a falcon in 15 odd Wheels / Motor mags of 1970.

[Dauphin]

The other thing I love about old car magazines is the incredibly straightforward article writing which explains a lot about the cars and how they are made. I find articles these days include too much attempted humour and things are a bit glossed over.

Maybe the car companies simply don't release a lot of info or discuss a lot about the full construction of the cars anymore, and they did in the older days.

[commodorenutt]

Originally Posted by Dauphin

The other thing I love about old car magazines is the incredibly straightforward article writing which explains a lot about the cars and how they are made. I find articles these days include too much attempted humour and things are a bit glossed over.

THIS is 100% correct.

Journalism in the 70s/80s and even 90s was so much better than the crap published in this day & age. Back then, you rarely found a grammar or spelling error in the entire magazine. Nowdays just about every online article is full of them.

Road tests back then were objective, and independant. If a bloody Volvo was deemed the best out of the lot, then they said so.

They also explained why things were noted as deficient, or as better than the competitor, and explained the tech terms.

I used the analogy a few weeks back when we were talking about Street Machine magazine, and why I haven't bought it for 10+ years, yet I religiously bought every copy from 1986 to 2000. In the 80s, an article on cams told you how they worked, how to fit them, and how to degree the cam & run it in. An article today says "cam brand XYZ is the best, pay this workshop and have it fitted"

Originally Posted by Dauphin

Maybe the car companies simply don't release a lot of info or discuss a lot about the full construction of the cars anymore, and they did in the older days.

Last media pack I got was about 3 years back, and it's not that much different to those from 10 or 15 years back.

Manufacturers still provide all the tech data & hi-res photos, but those writing the articles these days seem to focus on how many cup-holders it has, and if they can use Android or Apple with the stereo. Some articles don't even touch on how the car drives - completely ignoring the whole point of a media drive day! It goes back to the first point you were making.

Also, it's much easier for many self appointed "internet journalists" with a only a moderate amount of literary skills to publish their work online, then others follow the low standards set, and we end up with a shift towards the bottom end of acceptable.

In the 70s & 80s, a lot of work that is now published online for all to read (and clickbait on ads) would have been rejected before the editor even got to the end of the first paragraph.

[6t6m]

Sorry to be a little bit off topic but one of the first Wheels magazines I ever looked at was around late 1993 or early 1994 and had spy pictures of EF Falcon and NF Fairlane. It really peaked my interest at the time. If anyone has this copy and could post up this article I would be extremely grateful.

[lra]

Read this and weep, fellas.
I had Modern Motor and Wheels going back to about 1972 up to about 2009, I was keeping them because they may be of 'interest' to others.
I decided that it was time for them to go. About 6 months ago, after putting them up on a couple of forums as 'give-away' and hawking them around opp shops with no results, they all went in the back of the ute and 270kgs of waste paper went to the recyclers. I kept a lever-arch file of articles that I wanted, the rest I don't even miss now.

[FTE]

Originally Posted by 6t6m

Sorry to be a little bit off topic but one of the first Wheels magazines I ever looked at was around late 1993 or early 1994 and had spy pictures of EF Falcon and NF Fairlane. It really peaked my interest at the time. If anyone has this copy and could post up this article I would be extremely grateful.

Was it a green EF? If so i think it was from 1993 and had an EB GT on the cover.

[6t6m]

Yeh my memory is a bit fuzzy but i think it was a Reef Green Falcon and a bronze or orange Fairlane. I couldnt tell you what was on the cover though.

[bigwil]

Actually its a white ef falcon, I'll have a look a bit later

[OzJavelin]

Ive got a lot of mags from my Dad from late 1950s and 1960s so this one isnt "old" .. but I just found it again tonight and remembered its a great read ..