{"id":65009,"date":"2025-06-08T04:18:06","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T08:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/the-rise-and-fall-of-90s-car-magazines-a-wild-ride-through-automotive-publishing-history\/"},"modified":"2025-06-08T04:18:06","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T08:18:06","slug":"the-rise-and-fall-of-90s-car-magazines-a-wild-ride-through-automotive-publishing-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/the-rise-and-fall-of-90s-car-magazines-a-wild-ride-through-automotive-publishing-history\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise and Fall of 90s Car Magazines: A Wild Ride Through Automotive Publishing History"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 1990s marked a vibrant chapter in the world of car magazines, a time when the industry was not just about cars, but about culture, competition, and a bit of chaos. If you\u2019ve ever flipped through the glossy pages of a car magazine from that era, you might have sensed the palpable energy and rivalry that defined the landscape. Let\u2019s take a closer look at how this decade shaped automotive journalism and the magazines that became household names.<\/p>\n

What Sparked the Battle for Car Magazine Supremacy?<\/p>\n

The 1990s were a battleground for car magazines, much like the lads\u2019 mag scene that was also blossoming at the time. While the antics of Loaded and its ilk might have involved more scandal, the car magazine world was rife with its own drama\u2014think subterfuge, fierce egos, and a hefty dose of financial stakes. The stakes were high as major publishers vied for dominance in a lucrative market, leading to a flurry of launches and closures that would shape the future of automotive media.<\/p>\n

In January 1993, I found myself stepping into the shoes of James May at Autocar, a publication that had been around since 1895. May had just been dismissed over a minor scandal involving a cheeky word in the Christmas issue, a moment that would foreshadow the unpredictable nature of car journalism. This was a time when the industry was about to undergo a transformation, with new titles emerging to challenge the established players.<\/p>\n

How Did the Landscape Change?<\/p>\n

To understand the shift, we need to rewind to the 1970s. Car magazine had begun to disrupt the complacency of established weeklies like Autocar and Motor, which were both published by IPC. The rivalry intensified in the 1980s when Haymarket acquired Autocar and subsequently closed Motor. The launch of Auto Express in 1990 signaled the beginning of a new era, but it was the early 1990s that truly ignited the competition.<\/p>\n

In 1993, the BBC launched Top Gear magazine, leveraging its television show\u2019s popularity. With a sleek design and a cover featuring every new car in the UK, it quickly captured attention. Meanwhile, Emap was busy developing Carweek and Max Power, the latter of which would go on to outsell its competitors despite initial skepticism from traditional car journalists. Max Power\u2019s irreverent tone and focus on modified cars resonated with a younger audience, proving that there was a market for a different kind of car magazine.<\/p>\n

What Were the Highlights of the Era?<\/p>\n

The 1990s were a golden age for car enthusiasts, introducing iconic models like the Mazda MX-5, Jaguar XJ220, and McLaren F1. The excitement of new launches and the emergence of brands like Audi and BMW with their sporty models added to the thrill. Car journalists were living the dream, attending launches and test-driving some of the most exhilarating vehicles ever made.<\/p>\n

However, the decade wasn\u2019t without its challenges. As magazines experimented with lifestyle content, some traditional publications struggled to maintain their identity. Autocar attempted a bold redesign with a striking yellow masthead, but the shift towards a more lifestyle-oriented approach didn\u2019t sit well with its core audience. Sales dipped, leading to a return to a more traditional look that ultimately proved successful.<\/p>\n

What About the Legacy of This Era?<\/p>\n

The 1990s also saw the birth of Evo magazine, launched by former Performance Car journalists who believed in the power of high-quality writing and photography. Evo became a beacon for enthusiasts who craved in-depth reviews and stunning visuals, proving that there was still a strong demand for traditional car journalism.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the decade also witnessed the rise of independent publications like Petrolhead, which, despite its short lifespan, left a lasting impact on the automotive media landscape. It even influenced the naming of the popular website PistonHeads, showcasing how interconnected the media world can be.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the 1990s, it\u2019s clear that this era was about more than just cars; it was about the culture surrounding them. The competition between magazines pushed the boundaries of creativity and journalism, resulting in a rich tapestry of content that still resonates with enthusiasts today. <\/p>\n

The big takeaway? The evolution of car magazines in the 1990s wasn\u2019t just about the vehicles themselves\u2014it was about how they fit into a broader cultural narrative. Whether you\u2019re a die-hard petrolhead or just someone who appreciates a good story, the legacy of that decade continues to influence automotive journalism. So, if you find an old issue of your favorite car magazine, take a moment to appreciate the history and the passion that fueled it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Scalextric176\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n A young James May watches the Autocar team do battle on a Scalextric track<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The 1990s was a golden era for consumer publishing \u2013 and for car magazines in particular<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Anyone who enjoyed the recent BBC documentary on the birth of the groundbreaking lads\u2019 mag Loaded may be surprised to hear that the 1990s was also the scene of a bloody battle for the soul of the car magazine.<\/p>\n

True, it involved less debauchery, but there was plenty of subterfuge, egotism and tantrums \u2013 not to mention the incineration of millions of pounds as the three big specialist publishers fought to dominate one of the most lucrative magazine sectors.<\/p>\n

In January 1993, I parked my \u2018hospital\u2019 blue Escort 1.3 Base in a side street as far from the Autocar & Motor office as possible (deliberately hidden because I didn\u2019t want my new colleagues to judge me) and stepped into the rather large shoes of one James May.<\/p>\n

He had been fired when the national press picked up on a \u2013 shock, horror! \u2013 rude word the Autocar production team had embedded in the Christmas double issue, for which James carried the can.<\/p>\n

He also carried a tape recorder into the meeting in which he was dismissed, immediately returning to his colleagues in the Autocar office to relive the tragi-comic moment. This act of defiance provided a hint at not only his future self on Top Gear but also the spirit of the car magazine sector at the time.<\/p>\n

This specialist media supertanker, which set sail with Autocar\u2019s launch in 1895, was about to go to war with itself across the pages of Top Gear, Autocar, Max Power, Carweek, Auto Express, Car, Performance Car, Complete Car, What Car? and, finally, Evo. Three of them never made it back to base.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

To understand how we got to this point, it is worth rewinding to the 1970s and the profound effect that Car magazine was having on the profitable \u2013 and complacent \u2013 weeklies of Autocar and Motor.<\/p>\n

With the likes of our very own Steve Cropley <\/a>and Mel Nichols (later to become Autocar\u2019s editorial director) at the\u00a0helm, Car had regularly \u2018stuck it up\u2019 the\u00a0weeklies with its ingenuity and scoops.<\/p>\n

By the early 1980s, long-standing rivals Autocar and Motor were somehow being published by the same company, IPC, whose nickname \u2018the Ministry of Magazines\u2019 told you all you needed to know about their commitment to internal competition.<\/p>\n

Haymarket, which was already publishing What Car?, then acquired Autocar for \u00a3250,000 in 1984, and in 1988 it bought and closed Motor. Less than two years later, Auto Express was launched.<\/p>\n

No surprise, then, that both the BBC and Car publisher Emap decided to pounce with new magazines of their own, resulting in a splurge of launches in 1993. And then things got interesting.<\/p>\n

First, the BBC\u2019s publishing partner, Redwood, which had just failed to buy Car, produced a dummy issue of a new magazine, Top Gear, with three competitive advantages: first, a great design, inspired by the women\u2019s title Elle and conceived by Paul Harpin, who later became creative director of Haymarket; second, free advertising at the end of Top Gear TV episodes, which was manifestly unfair to everyone else; and third, the hard work of two people who were moonlighting from rival magazines in an act of subterfuge that, for some, still rankles today.<\/p>\n

Top Gear hit the shelves in October 1993 under editor Kevin Blick and with a cover that featured every new car on sale in the UK on the banking of the old Brooklands circuit in Surrey. The magazine cost \u00a32.40 and had a \u2018cover flap\u2019 with a metal-effect finish that featured Quentin Willson at the top and Jeremy Clarkson at the bottom. The prize giveaway was an Escort Cosworth.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Emap was working on two launches: the multimillion-pound Carweek, led by the decorated editor of Car, Gavin Green, and \u2018Project Petrol\u2019, the brainchild of Grahame Steed and which was launched as Max Power.<\/p>\n

As we now know, the star of the show was not Carweek, which, despite a host of quality writers and the chance to win an Aston Martin DB7 <\/a>in its \u00a31 launch issue in August 1993, only survived 18 months.<\/p>\n

Instead, it was Max Power, which frankly did not make any sense to us car journalists when it appeared in April 1993, that went on to outsell everyone before closing in 2011.<\/p>\n

The new competition had a transformative effect on Autocar, which got bigger and glossier in 1994 and full of great ideas as it embraced\u00a0the big-ticket car launches of the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Truth be told, it was a great time to be a car journalist. As you will read elsewhere in this issue, the 1990s first brought us the Mazda MX-5<\/a>, Jaguar XJ220<\/a>, McLaren F1<\/a> and Honda NSX<\/a>, then the Elise<\/a>, MGF, XJ8 and S-Type, plus ever more brilliant 911s<\/a>, M3s and M5s, the Ferrari 360 <\/a>and F50, the Freelander, Discovery<\/a>, new Range Rover, Audi TT, Cayenne, X5, Beetle and new Mini.<\/p>\n

Even the Rover 75 sent sales northwards. What could possibly go wrong?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The answer can be traced to something that became common in media circles at the time, namely \u2018lifestyle\u2019. There had been hints of it in car magazines for years, not least through Performance Car columnist Clarkson, who had pioneered a blokey tone that was more akin to the emerging lad culture of Loaded, FHM et al.<\/p>\n

Max Power went several steps further, needling the establishment with its underground modded car cruises and something largely absent from car mags\u00a0of the time: humour. How dare they.<\/p>\n

As the magazines evolved, so did the focus of some advertisers, shifting from the bread and butter of \u2018Vorsprung durch Technik\u2019 to more brand-oriented concepts, where cars were associated with things that were inherently cooler, such as, you guessed it, lads\u2019 mags.<\/p>\n

It was around this time that Autocar, hot on the heels of its 100th birthday, relaunched with a striking yellow masthead penned at great cost by Pentagram, a renowned design consultancy. Inside, the photos became less descriptive and more atmospheric, while the features section evolved into something more weird.<\/p>\n

Autocar readers, accustomed to their weekly dose of car news and sport, were not convinced. The sales went backwards, and in less than 18 months the yellow masthead, known internally as \u2018the flying arsehole\u2019 (it was supposed to be a tyre), had been replaced by something altogether more traditional. The circulation recovered.<\/p>\n

Autocar was not the only car magazine to suffer from this identity crisis. Emap, revelling in the soaring circulation of Max Power, decided to close Performance Car in 1998 because of a perceived lack of demand for traditional performance motoring content.<\/p>\n

The senior journalists on Performance Car, Richard Meaden and John Barker, thought otherwise, and, with the backing of farmer Harry Metcalfe and publisher Allan Pattison, they launched Evo in 1998 on a shoestring budget. Evo made the definitive case for the traditional car magazine in the mould of Car and\u00a0Autocar, complete with high-quality writing and \u2018photos you could frame\u2019. It worked brilliantly. The car media\u2019s lifestyle experiment was not quite over, however.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In a final twist, an independent magazine called Petrolhead was launched by Tony Middlehurst in 1998, complete with a fashion editor and the likes of Suzi Perry on the cover.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t hang around for long, but it has had a lasting impact on the automotive media landscape, because it stopped the founder of PistonHeads, Dave Edmonston, from calling his groundbreaking website Petrolheads.<\/p>\n

And, believe it or not, Middlehurst still writes for PistonHeads to this day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-featured","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}