I've just phoned in reply to an ad in September 2010s Kit Car magazine for a GTM coupe . The car in question was sold through an ad in said mag in June 2009. I know that a lot of the articles are repeats but surely out of date ads could be removed. A total waste of my time and money IMHO. I for one will never bye another one! Makes you wonder how they stay in business?

I was thinking this about other mags i get about other subjects.

The reporting / ads / features get weaker and weaker

Totally agree with you

Dan

[Edited on 22/8/10 by dan8400]

I'd be annoyed if I were the chap still getting calls for a car I sold months ago

I gave up on it too months ago when i realised it was a complete waste of money. They just seem to reuse old articles and adverts all the time. I buy Complete Kit Car now which is alot better but seems to be going the same way as the other one slowly.

There is only so much new material you can talk about each nonth and forums such as this have become the best source of information that is relavant and timely to the individual.

Im not sure where the market for magazines is going, be it kit cars or other interests.

Ian

Guys

In the "Your Say" section of the Sept mag
they answer a complaint titled "I'm fed up with reprints!"

They say the mag is 1/3 new stuff, 1/3 Ads and 1/3 reprinted articles.

It gets my goat plenty as well. But I keep buying it.

The other thing in this months was a piece about clutches - a topic I know nothing about
and just reaching that part of my build.

Only to find it was about the uber expensive
DAX build they featured a while back.

I was hoping for a complete breakdown of a
silver / black top to type 9 as that has been
a popular choice amongst builders on a budget
and appears to be a mine field of mixing and matching cluctches, flywheels, etc.

Just my tuppence worth.

s

I agree with stevenB.

Too many times items featured are of MEGA expensive builds.

It is interesting to read sometimes but when one shiney chrome bit on a DAX or a Cobra etc is worth half of what mine cost it gets a bit far fetched.

Featuring stuff for us guys on a budget would be more useful


Dan

I gave up on them some time ago due to the 'same-old-same-old'.

I appreciate it's a small industry, but the mag's are hardly in the budget-read categories, so you might expect a little more!

The repeated stuff is tedious but you've got to bear in mind that a large proportion of the mags are bought by people who haven't bought a kit magazine before, so the repeated stuff is very useful to them.

I dont think its any worse value for money than the other kit mags, also it may be that the seller referred to didn't inform them that the car was sold, (they repeat until told its sold)

They're all the same - not just kit car mags. Subscribe to a DSLR mag for a year, for example, and you'll get a guide/feature on pretty much every topic/technique possible. No point subscribing for another year as it'll all be repeated again with minor differences - so we stopped. The only thing that is always new is the new kit reviews, and even then you'd just go on the net to read a number of reviews if you were actually planning to buy anything.

Magazines are just 'nice' though - to look at, read in bed/the garden/on a train etc. Always something exciting about a new mag (maybe a hangover from comic/nintendo mag days ). At least for a week or so anyway - then they are just something that takes up space.

Gave up on them years ago
Mainly due to the reasons mentioned above, Also felt they had got very expensive for what they offered

I Find the Internet is a better source of info

I stopped buying kit car mag a few years back it used to be the best mag but it has gone down hill with very little new material in it but complete kit car is now the best mag to go for they seem to have new material each month a keep you up to date on the news.

I, like others, subscribed to two kit car magazines and I had to stop the subscriptions because it was like two schoolboys bickering over who had the largest. Every month it was the same - 'I have more pages of editorial than you', etc.

One of the magazines ran articles about Cobras EVERY single month. You could not turn a page but you would see another article about a Cobra. They do not appear to realise that there are other kits out there.

@perksy & scootz - I thought that too; how are people who are building on a budget able to afford to spend so much on recycled blurb.

@dan8400 - I agree with you, the builds are mostly to do with the more expensive kits.

When I started looking at kits they were within the realms of the ordinary working man. Now you need to take out a second mortgage to be able to afford one. I believe that this was the catalyst for the birth of Locost.

Do any of the magazine publishers & kit manufacturers subscribe to or read this forum?

Articles about clutches, the Quaif bloke, are just infill, nothing more.

Ideally these mags should become bi-monthly.

CKC people used to.

Gave up on them several years ago...

Totalkitcar used to be a decent web mag, but now that's utter garbage, too - and the printed one isn't any better (IMHO)

Yep got to agree phoned up abou a car the bloke said it sold 12 mths ago. I got it on the way to france early this month and it was the same articles and lay out from page one to 36 from the last month even the reply to the letter about it being a re-run, they can't even be bothered to write a new reply just copy and paste.
What a load of sh**^

It did have a canny article about saturn sports cars, wel done spud69. its got to be complete kit car.

Just had a reply to the email I sent to KC asking if it was a red GTM Libra I enquired about when I had made it clear that it was a GTM Coupe. Obviously they don't know the difference between a Libra and Coupe!. NUMPTIES

I stopped buying it as well. More repeats than " Dave "

I've gave up on them totally.It's like a pre school playground.Mine is bigger than yours etc.When will they realise that if they keep on going like this they will both be out of bussiness.If they had the sense to join forces then maybe we could get a magazine that would be worth buying.Until then my money will stay in my pocket.

Totally agree with the majority on here, too many reprints and too many adverts (out of date). I find I get more intresting reading on here

I know that it's already been said about people buying mags occasionally so reprints of some subjects are to be expected, but not quite so often!

Another thing is that most of them seem to have pretty much the same stories in the main sections, a particular new model of car or reports from a show, IVA information etc.

Dropped my subscription to KC a couple of years ago and just buy the occasional one now.

I'm quite happy with CKC and still subscribe to it. Look forward to it arriving each month. I did buy KC but didn't enjoy it, CKC is a good read and I do generally think they're trying to keep it fresh and interesting.

Like "InterestedParty" points out though - there's almost got to be some repeats to pick up on those new readers - I think CKC set a good balance.

There's often some excellent write ups too from here - Cloudy's and Ash Gardiner's builds for starters!

Michael - a happy CKC reader!

I have a subscription to CKC and on the whole enjoy it. I think it's fairly fresh each month with a big focus on the readers. If you have any problem with it they're always quick to reply too so they're very in touch.
On the down side I think they over review everything and everything's too great and fantastic and I'd like more honesty.
Worth the money though and keeps those long hours sat on the throne pasing by

se7en, you asked if any mag publishers read this forum. We at Complete Kit Car do!

Firstly, I'd like to thank all the posters who have made positive comments about CKC. It really does make all the work we put into the magazine seem worthwhile when we read them so cheers for that!

Secondly, I'd like to make one point very clear: you have never and will never read anything in CKC that criticises other magazines.

A few posters have said that they don't read kit car magazines because of all the "we have more pages than you" arguments. CKC has been going for over three years now, and has never included anything like that in its pages - and neither will we.

A couple of you commented that the magazines only build expensive project cars. We've run build serials for four cars at CKC, and try to strike a balance. So alongside the Adrenaline Murtaya and Ferrari 430 body kit, we've also had AshG's Haynes Roadster and my Sylva Riot. We're currently planning our next project at the moment - and that won't be expensive either.

There was another comment that there's only so much to write about each month. I really hope that CKC doesn't come across like that as we really make an effort to make it as diverse as possible. It's certainly not wall to wall Cobras as I'm sure any regular reader will attest!

I really didn't mean to waffle on for as long as this, but it seems very obvious that a lot of kit car owners and builders haven't picked up a kit car magazine since the long-gone "mag war" days. Give CKC a try and let us know what you think. We'll be watching the thread to hear your views

AdamW
of Complete Kit Car magazine

[Edited on 23/8/10 by AdamCKC]

I am glad to see that CKC is more mature than the other mag who still goes on and on like a 5 year old in the play yard.
Its good to see them do articles on lots of cars including some older models who most would not have see or know what they are.

One thing, still have not recieved my calendar which i applied for on line but not much use for now

Keep up the good work

I used to buy KC as it was the only one i could get at my local shop. I've since subscribed to CKC and find it so much better. Even though i'm a mechanic i still like reading the tech stuff like this months on pistons and bolts. I got so fed up of KC going on and on about Nigel Dean's dax rush and how amazing it is, it is very nice but how many of us can really afford something like that. I even paid a tenner for a SVA book from KC to find out alot of it was adverts and the important stuff i wanted to know about was printed in the mag the next month. It's nice to see the build updates in CKC aswell.