Worst motoring magazine articles

[ShaunTheSheep]

Car Mechanics magazine espousing the virtues of on board hydrogen generation as an MPG improver.

Perpetual cack.

[TimLambert7]

I find Evo a bit hit and miss. That said, David Vivian's write ups are marvellously written and I always enjoy reading his unique way of explaining things.

I must say Motor Sport is consistently the best magazine I've read.

[Ultrasound]

You occassionally see very odd group tests. I remember Autocar did a group test with 3 cars. One escapes me now but the other two were the original Audi TT and an S1 Exige. I doubt there were a large number or people considering a new car where it was a toss up between these options.

[carinaman]

s m said:

aka_kerrly said:

Top Gear to, they used to do proper group tests of a half a dozen or more cars with huge amounts of data and pictures of the vehicles involved.

Yes, they're good to look back on - like the old CAR ones from 80s/90s

Thank you for the scans s m.

[benjj]

I got an email from Classic Driver (sorry Garlick) saying, "click here for our article on the top 10 up and coming classics".

I clicked.

Wish I hadn't.

3 lines of text saying, "We can't all afford a 2.7RS or an E Type these days, how about these:"

Followed by 10 adverts from their own classifieds.

fking pitiful.

[coppice]

It isn't content but style that most offends me. Far too many current journalists are strangers to even basic grammar and resort to the same tired cliches to make their point . If I read 'rifle bolt gearchange' once more I will scream. Two new expressions also bemuse me 'roll on acceleration' (ie acceleration) and 'spin-up the wheels ' (ie spin). Daft.

[Strawman]

Troy Queef does a good parody of that sort of thing.

[Ev_]

Fantuzzi said:

Gaz. said:

I stopped reading EVO after that massive u-turn on the F50 after they actually drove the bleeding thing and made me wonder what other garbage had we been served based on preconceptions & no experience of what they were writing about.

Any more info on that, it sounds interesting!

Here's some more info: the first time the F50 appeared in the pages of evo was in issue 064 (February 2004), in a group test alongside the 288 GTO, F40 and Enzo. The F50 won, and since then evo has not changed its opinion on how special that car is. So I'm pretty sure that means there was no "garbage" and no U-turn.

By the way, if you fancy reading that rather epic test (48 hours, 2000 miles) it was recently uploaded to the evo app as a free article...

[saaby93]

Ev_ said:

came to put the record straight

good to see an editor joining in

[Funk]

Used to buy all the car mags as a teenager incluing Auto Express and the like. Subscribed to evo for a long time but knocked it on the head a few years back; a lot of the reviews are like a parody of themselves; back in the day it was a nice evolution from PC but it just started to get tired, repetitive and boring. I have also found that as I'm getting older, my taste in cars is moving back to older kit. The latest 'xyz' with electric steering and passive/active this that and the other leaves me completely cold.

I look at new sports/super/hypercars and immediately think of about 8 older cars I'd rather have in place of the one new one. My brother occasionally bungs me his old evo mags but I find myself skipping most of it.

I've also realised that I love the geeky, in-depth information about things - I've cited this before, but I recall when James May was vmaxing the Bugatti Veyron SS and started talking about the change from roof 'snorkels' to NACA ducts, the reason why you need to add the equivalent of a Golf GTI engine's output to it to get from 2xx to 2yy mph - and was promptly cut off by Clarkson with cries of 'booooooooooriiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!!'.

I've found I now get most of my stuff from Youtube - for example, Bad Obsessions Motorsport's Mini build has had me glued to every episode and, on the whole, Roadkill is excellent too along with a good chunk of /Drive. That's where I get my motoring kicks now instead of paper mags and Top Gear.

[scherzkeks]

coppice said:

It isn't content but style that most offends me. Far too many current journalists are strangers to even basic grammar and resort to the same tired cliches to make their point . If I read 'rifle bolt gearchange' once more I will scream. Two new expressions also bemuse me 'roll on acceleration' (ie acceleration) and 'spin-up the wheels ' (ie spin). Daft.

Heh, heh. The Internet-based operations tend to be the worst about this. Take a visit to "The Truth About Cars" for some of the most clichéd self-important automotive "journalism" ever. I dare you to find one sentence that doesn't contain an awful metaphor. As far as "proper" publications go, the new Motor Trend is another prime offender.

[MarvGTI]

I strongly dislike most articles by Anthony ffrench-Constant.

Don't always disagree with the man, I just don't like his writing style.

[coppice]

Agreed.Mr F-C's writing style is breathtakingly dreadful.Did somebody once humour him by telling him he was funny ?

[GrizzlyBear]

Any article talking up the prices of classic car; if you like car buy it and enjoy it, don't buy to speculate on values; the bubble will burst so if you don't like the car you will be kicking yourself.

To be honest most magazines seem to contain more adverts than articles now...

[Strawman]

GrizzlyBear said:

To be honest most magazines seem to contain more adverts than articles now...

Vogue magazine is king of that, obviously not car related but seems to be about 100 pages of adverts before you get to the index.