Car magazines are very dead. Or at the very least on the back of a flat bed waiting to be driven in the direction of the scrapyard. Everything you want to know about the latest battery wonder is a click away on you hand held device. Aside from a few posh colour publications with the emphasis on classics, there’s no money, credibility, or point in running a conventional car magazine. I should know, I still go to the bother of keeping Free Car Mag on the straight and narrow.
Nominally Bangernomics as presented here on the modern platform that is Substack, sort of delivers a magazine format, largely devoted to crappy old cars that we can all afford. There certainly isn’t any money or kudos in doing that. However, it has been tried before and just possibly you may remember Jalopy Magazine in 1992 which was essentially a Punk Fanzine appreciation of what was at the time, MOT borderline Bangers.
A5 size and resolutely black and white, it was very funny and printed until 1995. Jalopy was very niche and involved the legendary Mark Williams who was a writer on Bike the two wheeled equivalent of Car. I ended up writing for him briefly when he set up his own title The Classic Motoring Review which ran from 2017 to 2019. This was a lovely A5, softcover, perfect bound collection of stories on cream paper and published quarterly. It contained ex Car writers like me, Colin Goodwin and Richard Bremner. The sub editor was John Lilley also from Car’s hey day. In many ways it could not have been more different from Jalopy it really was an old fashioned pocket sized version of Car/Supercar Classics with a few black and white illustrations.
Jalopy struggled for distribution and sales, but deserves to be reappraised and was in many ways the only car magazine not to take everything too seriously, a sort of Private Eye on wheels. It understood Bangers completely and anticipated the modern trend for ironic classics. Enthusiasts appreciated the 2CV as something specisl, everyone else regarded it as a Gallic joke, but the biggest laugh in retrospect is that you could still buy them for buttons. It was a Banger with class and that’s what Jalopy understood. Also, buying cars and breaking down was not the norm in the usual magazines, but they enjoyed and celebrated the reality of running real cars. Few appreciated such honesty and growing to an A4 format for a couple of issues could not save it.
At this time in the 1990s, magazines aimed at working class car owners were still on a roll.
Max Power sales hit almost a quarter of a million at it’s height, but the printing party was all over by 2011. This was mostly due to the Internet. Not just the free online availability of partially clad babes, but access to all sorts of words and pictures on a personal communication device, better known as a telephone.
Max Power was a strange reincarnation of the original Custom Car crossed with Car and Car Conversions and possibly Hot Car. So let’s reverse into these titles. Performance and modification magazines can be traced back to the ‘60s when disposable income was up. Also, instead of just tinkering at the weekend to get the motor to work on Monday for work, there was some disposable income to make cars quicker, or look a bit different. That’s because those who could afford to buy and run cars were getting younger and motorsport was becoming an option.
In the beginning there was Car and Car Conversions, Triple C to the fans. Into the fairly staid world of magazines here was a breath of quite exciting petrol fumed air. It was a heady mix of motorsport and practical hands on engineering to make ordinary cars go faster and compete more effectively on the track or rally stage. It never especially deviated from that successful formula which translated into six figure sales.
Link House then produced a slightly softer and accessible magazine called Hot Car. I remember it being almost Dune Buggy Central when they were starting and I entered a ‘Design a Lotus’ competition in 1970. Largely forgotten as a title now, it would morph into Performance Car, which I ended up inside, which is a story for another day. However, the next magazine to make an appearance on the rack would become a sales and cultural phenomenon.
Custom Car (CC) magazine arrived in March 1970 and was published by Link House and became the biggest magazine of the decade. It wasn’t simply Ford Pops with slot mag wheels, a V8 and air scoop above the bonnet line, although mostly this is what readers loved. CC would also evaluate brand new big engined motors as well as championing drag racing and the oval stuff. At some point ladies arrived, usually without tops on. It was the Page 3-isation of car magazines and it worked. That drew in teenagers who didn’t have cars.
Thumbing through a January 1978 edition, all the important ingredients are there. On the cover a bare naked lady perched on the chrome bumper of a Chevrolet Bel Air. It was an American car special, so loads of Yank Tanks inside. The ladies in some of the advertisements were also economical with their clothing, also Bullworker ads (muscle building device) aimed at insecure teen males who might get sand kicked in their face. It also included a visit to the Capital Radio Cruise, which was a massive event, every month, with loads of Americans and British built Crestas and Consuls that had been given a transatlantic twist. Practical ‘how to’ pages invited readers to do some hands on engineering by upgrading their steering. Not only that there was a Drag Racing round up with a report from the NHRA finals in California. Oh and the Super CC comic strip was funny and a bit naughty. Easy to see why it struck a chord with those great big sexy adverts for bolt on parts. Here then is the blueprint for Max Power.
Custom Car faded because cars became better and more tuned to younger tastes. The young man’s hot hatch replaced the old blokes MGB roadster and the imported Yank. They were no longer sticking V8s in Pops, the more subtle GTI got things done. Also the Indecent Displays Act 1981, might have been clamping down on lurid signage outside sex shops, but what it also meant was magazine covers and content became a lot more chaste. Incredibly Custom Car is still around in print and digital courtesy of Kelsey Media and doing what it does best: modded Ford Pops plus random American hardware, but no babes.
My own Custom Car story involves me applying for a job on that magazine. In 1978, or was it ‘77? They advertised for an editorial trainee, where I would have made the tea, or scored soft drugs for the ones with the talent and V8 Pops. I can’t find the advert, but for someone like me who knew hardly anything about anything, I had the supreme confidence and arrogance of youth that I thought the job would be my stepping stone to greatness. I wrote a very pretentious CV and incredibly they fell for it. I got an interview. It was at the editorial office at Link House, in South London. I can’t tell you how it went, because I didn’t go. Had a GCSE that day. Might have been something useful like English Language or Literature. Instead of following some sort of dream, I bailed out and did what ‘The Man’ told me to do. Pass an exam, get a proper job. I made the right decision as I would eventually go out into the automotive world and learn things so that in nine years time I might have something of value to say based on actual experience and knowledge.
Street Machine arrived in May 1979 as the only credible rival to Custom Car and was a companion title to Hot Car so it could concentrate on the wilder customs and I ended up in one or two of their issues in the middle ‘80s when Clive Househam ran it. I even got a death, or at least a very serious injury threat, after writing about what car dealers can get up to. Eventually it became American Car World but there was also a very well known Australian ‘Street Machine’, just to confuse matters.
There is a lot more to be written about the golden age of car magazines and I probably will at some point. I’ll leave it here at the cul de sac that is mags dedicated to reader modified motors. Let’s briefly look at ones you can go and buy right now.
Here’s a 1960 VW Beetle in the So-Cal style for just £6250. seems to have done less than 1000 miles since it was put together. Country Classic Cars are selling it on behalf of a customer and it was a ground up job completed in 2021. a long list of what’s been done and still more can be added, but the price seems very fair and worth it, deserving a four Slog rating as a sort of budget Custom Cars project from the ‘70s.
I rather liked this 1978 MG MGB GT called a Sebring Outlaw put together by Godspeed Customs and you can find a youtube video on it if you tap in Gaisha-77. On offer at £11,995. Built from a bare shell, it seems to be finished to a high standard with a tweaked 1800cc and four speed ‘box with a massive list of things that have been done to make it look so cool. Apparently the design was inspired by Kunimitsu Takahashi's Hakosuka of the 70's JAC Fuji Speedway races, which means nothing to me but looks incredible. Five Slogs and a credit to the spirit of Car and Car Conversions.
Finally, here is a 1943 Ford Willy Custom at £12,010, although you will have to travel to the Beverley Hills Car Club to collect it. I suspect that there isn’t much 1943 in it, not least because the design is much later CJ inspired. Still it’s equipped with an automatic transmission, V6 3. 6-liter Turbocharged engine, 2-barrel carburettor, four-wheel-drive system, CJ2 fiberglass body, CJ5 frame, front wheel disc brakes, power steering, Motor Meter Racing instruments, 3-spoke steering wheel, roll bar, racing harness, Americus Rugged MT tires, and Method Race wheels. Five Slogs though, love the look of it. Find it on Car and Classic.
See you next time.
Please note that all images are copyright of the selling garage, no recommendation is made for any vehicle featured and ideally it is best to go and check for yourself.
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Steven, good to hear from you and thank you for your kind words. It would be wonderful to think that CCC could come back! you might be young enough to make that happen! Clive was great as a publisher and owner. Thanks so much for reading and commenting.
Yes George the writing in Custom Car was actually superb. Tremendous response to this, so nice to think that there would be people prepared to support a real magazine again.