Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Car Magazines

Worryingly, I'm again in agreement with Howard.
Car was anticipated monthly until about the early 2000s, when it discovered graphic design and big silly photographs appeared to sell more copies than solid prose.
I used to read Motor but took umbrage when it was taken over by Autocar and stopped reading it.

I buy the occasional car magazine, but mostly the content leaves me unsatisfied and irritated.

I'm returning to reading books...!!

I agree with Howard as well. In the 80's CAR was the petrol-head's magazine par excellence. In the 90's we had Performance Car which was also excellent. CAR is a shadow of it's former self.

LJK Setright was a prince among motoring journalists. Everything he wrote was superb. He was the only writer that could discuss Weber Carburetors, Honda, the Quabbala, Bristol cars, Rabbinical Judaism and Xenophanes in one sentence. A very erudite and eloquent writer - I have a few of his books at home, including his magnificent tome on the Grand Prix car, and I seek them out whenever I can on ABE books. Apparently, his book on Bristol cars has to be treated with caution because he had to twist the truth a little or else Tony Crook, the domineering and tyrannical owner of Bristol, would not have allowed him to publish it.

He wrote a great article on the Plus 4 which I also have at home. He said (words to the effect of ) " a Morgan just is..." (ie: you have to accept it on its own terms or else move on). He loved the "Englishness" of the car ("never mind the proximity of Wales"). He had a Morgan three wheeler as a young man, on which he wrote -

"There is something so intrinsically right about a tricycle properly planned - the most vital criterion being that the centre of mass should be as low as feasible. That was certainly true of the low-slung Moggie: when I first took my brother out for a drive he shook his pipe out over the side prior to recharging it with tobacco, felt a slight jar and brought his hand back holding merely the stem, for the bowl had hit the road and shattered! The Morgan was not to be criticised for this, but rather the design of tobacco pipes."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/2742921/Setrights-Morgan.html

Howard, I have a terrible memory for names but remember LJK Setright, as his articles taught me so much, most of which I have forgotten it seems..Duh! Car and car conversions was another favourite mag that comes to mind..

For any of those with collections of Classic & Sportscar mags who like me are of an age/condition who have been advised to self isolate. If interested and to pass some time, you might care to look through your mag stock and find a couple of articles in which my old +8 appears, once when Kevin owned it, that article appeared in the Jan 2000 edition, and again in the Dec 04 edition when I wrote an article for the mag and provided a few pics of our travels up till then.

How can they be "free" if you have to have amazon prime to get them?

Yes. He has the attitude to complexity and weight that both of us hate. He would have been outraged by the size of modern motorcycles and the bloat of cars like the big VW/Audi/Porsche/Bentley SUVs. I wonder what happened to the Bristol car he drove

You could hack somebody else account or have a 30 day free trial.

You don't need to hack it. If someone you know has an Amazon Prime account there is the ability to grant access to other people as part of it. For those of us home isolated you should pester your progeny to let you have a go as there is a LOT of TV content to numb the brain. You can stream to your SMART TV's iPads etc etc to pass the time.

For those with Sky there is a similar capability in the Sky account to share your login with some others (family purpose) so that they can use the SkyQ app on their various iThings to watch the massive library on line, this can then be HDMI or cast to your smart TV from the iThing.

Obviously there are Free to Air options (until the BBC get taken out and start to charge for iPlayer anyway) C5, 5 etc etc. The walter presents sub-titled for us monoglots) box sets on All4 are excellent.

Totally agree with you around LJKS and Bishop. When I was young it sometimes took a few passes to absorb it all and clearly with my IT driven spilling and grammer levels it did not rub off sadly. The three lambos back from Italy issue almost had the words worn off the page. Anyone dare admit to Custom Car...

CAR magazine was a tour de force in those days with LJK Setright, George Bishop and "Steady" Barker.

Any one of them would be a treat - all three on the same magazine was something very special.

I used to buy car and bike magazines back in the day ..... the big glossier were never cheap and one day I added up the cost of the big pile of old mags sat getting in the way and realised I could buy real stuff with the accumulated dosh ....saved it and bought a BSA C15 that was heaps of fun to blast around on .

K

I used to get a couple of car mags but stopped about a year ago. I stopped my Mogmag subscription too.
Few years ago I used to get some kitcar mags as contemplating building a kit. Bought a Morgan so stopped!
I also have some old Practical Mechanics and other mags, some back to 1950’s ! Good fun to read. Bought a box of stuff in an auction to get a couple of books about Ronnie Peterson and other drivers. Also in the box were some old MG Owners Club mags, parts lists etc. Still got them somewhere.