I've bought Car Mechanics magazine since I was in my teens!
Not that easy to obtain from newsagents these days, unfortunately, unless you place an order, but taking out an annual subscription gains you two free extra copies or a choice of a free book on cars.
The other advantage of subscribing, of course, is that you get the magazine as soon as it's published.
www.carmechanicsmag.co.uk
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I think Autocar is pretty good these days. It is rare indeed that they award a five star rating to BMW's or anyone else's cars and can be quite critical of some models.
I admit, maybe, the coverage of the 1-series has been a bit excessive but they had a test of 10 budget cars in the same issue. Some of the columnists are also pretty good.
Car still has some good articles but I tend to agree its lost its edge. I always though Top Gear Mag pretty awful but I haven't seen it for a couple of years and picked up a copy last month and found it had improved enormously. More like Car of the early 90's.
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Dont get me wrong, Autocar is one of my faves and i buy it regularly, but just in the last few weeks its been 1 series, then 1 series new car spec buying guide - which was ok but then started to look like one big advert and now the 3 series. do accept that i am interested in the 3 series and really like bmw's, its just that its a bit much. still enjoy the articles and editorials. The thing that hacked me off was the 0-100-0 shootout. generally great, but the photoshopped supercar one that was totally made up was just rubbish. you just couldnt take it seriously. Also feel they're really starting to rely on 'artists impressions' a bit too much. if you havent got the car dont show us. its good to have an idea, but they're almost passing them off as how it will look for real.
And regards their cars. they give updates then just stop. whats happened to Chris Harris Gallardo? Steve whathisfaces M5? just disappeared.
Also werent they the only people in the whole world to like the Focus RS?!
I'll give Top Gear a try i think. sounds reasonable.
EVO has just turned into to some rich guys play thing to try and blag free drives in dream cars. 'Shall we do an article on real cars. no, we're being offered a Lamborghini every month - what do you reckon?!'
It would just be great to get Performance Car back with real world quick cars, not some Lottery Winners dream garage article every month, as EVO do.
Sod it - i'm going to do my own website like Performance Car. maybe i'll be able to blag some test drives in old quick cars like the Escort Rs Turbo, Mitsubishi Starion, Daihatsu Charade Gtti and newer ones likes the Honda Integra Type R and the Alfa GTV V6. Anyone want to be a contributor?!!!
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p.s and regards UCB - i have a subscription to it, but the best feature - the auction bit is too small, and the Ultimate Buying Guides are jsut so shallow in knowledge depth. I actually considered cancelling it as i enjoyed the restyle but now its a little light in content. I like the bangernomics guy's section but Kevin Haggartys features lovely cars but is really poor IMHO. just too light and he seems like a guy who loves himself more and is a bit complacent about his writing. And someone tell him to give up the driving gloves!!!!
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What Car? magazine?
Very anti Ford and has been for years. A car magazine for people who know nothing about cars.
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