At 700, thank you “Car”

Cars have always been integral to my life. My parents realised my fascination as a toddler. They helped me to learn to read by reading the word “Ford”, then transposing that with the word “food”.

Once I could learn to read, I would ask my parents to buy two things: Beatles albums, and car magazines. My fix in terms of the latter would be for them to buy Autocar and Motor magazines, with an annual catalogue of cars — called something like Car International Catalogue and published in Italy — occupying my post-Christmas time, when I wasn’t playing outside or riding my Raleigh Super Burner. (Update: I was close; it was this publication.)

While I liked Autocar and Motor, they seemed rather thin. Car magazine had more pages, a glossy cover, and seemed to offer a bigger feast. It was more expensive, but it was monthly, so I could persuade my parents to buy it.

My first purchase for me was in autumn 1983. I think that it is the issue featured in the above image; I remember reading it now, with journalists reviewing the new Mercedes 190 (now the C-Series) and the new, second-generation, VW Golf. I enjoyed the magazine so much that it became something that I favoured, until — momentarily later — it became the only magazine that I bought.

I enjoyed it so much that I wrote a letter to the editor early in 1984, asking why so many cars look the same these days. Obviously, such an observation could be levelled at any point in time. It wasn’t published.

That brief disappointment didn’t stop me from absorbing every word, every month.

A memorable period was prior to the launch of the Austin Montego. Car covered it every month as it was developed: what was it going to be called? How would it look? Would this car save British Leyland / Austin Rover, or would it finally kill the company off? It fascinated me as much as it fascinated Car’s journalists. My heart skipped a beat when I saw a prototype, codenamed LM11, going up the M1 in the dark.

Car’s journalism saved me, really. Its writers used long words which I had to look up or ask my mum about (“What does ‘ubiquitous’ mean?”). The way in which Car’s staff wrote about their stock was truly extraordinary. LJK Setright’s prose on the Honda Prelude was as if it was the Sistine Chapel. Steve Cropley, Gavin Green, Russell Fuller and co would be awarded several pages each month in which to simply express views on things. Georg Kacher, still working at Car, would dispatch grainy, monochromatic photos from the Nürburgring of a forthcoming Peugeot or Audi going through its paces, with futuristic bodywork masked up with black tape.

Teenagers often shed their pre-pubescent cultural skin, but I was still reading Car way into my later years. In trying to arrange a work experience week, I wrote to the publishers, asking if I could spend a few days at the magazine. They declined. I did, however, spend a week at Ford in Dagenham, as I wanted to be either a car journalist or a designer. At the time, I wasn’t really bothered which. When it came to being interviewed, back at Dagenham, as a trainee car designer once I left school for Ford, my application was rejected.

I am delighted that Car has now hit the 700-issue mark. The feel of the magazine. The feel of the words. The beauty of the photography. Oh my god, the covers. The humour and punch of GBU. The reflections on spending a year driving the same car in Long Term Test. The unashamed intellect of the publication, at a time when anti-intellectualism is having its day in the sun. (Hopefully, that day will shortly end.)

Everything, everything about the magazine has acted as something of a scaffold in my life.