What's new(s)? Ferrari in periodicals.

Thank you.
So, those three today are:

• Octane.
• Classic Cars.
• Classic & Sports Cars.

Right?

Marcel Massini

 

Yes

 

Marcel don't forget Magneto: 4 times a year, by subscription only, i.e. not in newstands anywhere.

Superb content, paper, graphics, a big heavy issue each time. That's who I did the Thomassima III test drive bio, issue #23.

https://www.magnetomagazine.com/

 

Thank you very much.

Marcel Massini

 

I am a subscriber to Magneto and Road Rat and have been a subscriber to all three other GB mags mentioned earlier today. Suddenly Classic Cars stopped delivering, after 158 issues (13 years of subscription. I did pay, of course.).
Both Octane and Classic Cars are mags that very rarely show up in my letterbox, they either have chaos in the UK, or the customs employee steals it or somebody else steals these mags regularly.
All is paid for, guaranteed. I have subscriptions for forty (yes, 40) different car magazines from all over the world. The Italians are also extremely unreliable, notably Ruoteclassiche. Just today I got two issues together (November 2024 and December 2024, arrived today 14 February 2025). World record, from Milan to Zurich.........

But the worst is the German mag "RAMP" which I subscribed to in November 2023 and paid the same day. Should arrive 4 times/year. Not a single one ever came. Despite endless emails from my side. Insanely arrogant people.
I am often at airports and so I buy that mag there. Paying twice......

Marcel Massini

 

Sorry you have such problems. The only time I had a magazine stolen was when I was in Modena in 2006 for 6 months: two copies of a Maserati magazine were sent to me from the US but when I got the envelope it had been opened and only one issue was inside. Pretty sure the theft happened on the Italian side.

The other problem is the drastically reduced magazine selection in major Newsstands; at Smith & Son in Paris (formerly WHSmith) the English (and US) car magazine selection used to be several dozens...I went there saturday and there were maybe half a dozen titles; I asked and they said their new supplier cut 190 magazines of all kinds from their list...

An hour later at the Gare de Lyon one of the 4 big train stations of Paris there were zero titles in English; there used to be a good selection but because there were no international travelers and less demand during Covid a lot of magazines are no longer carried by these newsstands...whereas they carry all the European daily papers, NYT, London Times...bizarre.

 

AFAIK "Thoroughbred and Classic Cars" changed into Classic Cars a very long time ago (around the year 2000????). It is called "Classic Cars" for at least 15 years now.

 

There is also Evo, Car, Top Gear, and a bunch of more niche stuff, marque-specific stuff, and the weeklies too. The UK has a good magazine scene.

 

These are all magazines on today's cars; I took Marcel's question as asking for general classic car magazines with regular (but not exclusive) Ferrari content.

There are other classic car magazines, like "Practical Classics" which has a strong focus on DIY maintenance, or non-Ferrari magazines ("Jaguar World", "Classic Ford", "Aston Martin driver", "Mercedes enthusiast" etc).

 

For American readers, Magneto has become available at most Barnes & Noble stores; Tazio is available at some, The Road Rat quite seldom. Automobilsport used to be available but seems to have disappeared, so I order it from The Motorsport Collector in Illinois.

 

Did not know these were at Barnes & Noble but when I was last in the US, Scottsdale 11/22, I visited several and yes they had a great selection.

 

and Magneto is sold at Indigo book stores in Ontario Canada to for some time now.

 

Nice bit of Ferrari content in the April Classic and Sportscar.
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3615GT

 

Also a nice advert for my new book

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I did see an issue of The Road Rat at my Barnes & Noble today. The magazine is still not my cup of tea.

 

It takes itself a little too seriously, I think. Its obsession with “design” is often to the detriment of its readability.

 

Could not agree more. They are overrated and overreaching. Slick design be it cars or magazine layout only matters up to a point yet some artsy fartsy design/photo directors are full of nonsense.

Quality text is what it's about.

When one of their writers -Jamie Kitman I think- wrote a whole article about Maserati needing to be shut down I wanted to tar and feather him.

 

A bit late replying to this but just for completeness:
Octane monthly since July 2003. Now owned by Hothouse Media who also own Magneto
Classic Cars was originally Thoroughbred & Classic Cars, monthly since October 1973. I don't have a note of when the title changed but it was many years ago.
Classic & Sports Cars was originally titled Old Motor. I'm not sure of the first issue. I have a note of June 1980 but it might be before that but monthly since then at least. The title changed to Classic & Sports Cars in April 1982
Magneto has been published quarterly since first quarter 2018 (currently on issue 25).
The Road Rat is more-or-less quarterly and currently on issue 19.

There have been others that have come and gone. For me the best was Supercar Classics which was published by the publishers of Car magazine, initially quarterly with the Autumn 1983 issue then monthly from June 1987 to the final issue September 1991.

 

The Road Rat is ridiculously pretentious and certainly not for everyone. The covers are almost all awful. I can't imagine anyone else deciding it would be a good idea to photograph a black car against a black background in the dark (issue 18)! But... there is a lot to read in each issue about diverse motoring subjects rather than the usual "we've driven this car". Magneto, for example, is really much nicer but I will likely have read an issue in an hour. I don't expect to be a subscriber to The Road Rat for too long and there is a lot to dislike about it but I do applaud that, for all its faults, it isn't afraid to give its writers a big enough word count or to be a bit more imaginative in the motoring subjects it covers.

 

Great assessment. To their credit they do tackle topics that others tend not to think about.

Re world count I miss the old days of Cavallino when I wrote for Barnes 1992-2001; there was NO wordcount limit, I did some 2 or even 3 part 15 page articles. In the April 2000 issue I had 34 pages of content. Now the current sad version of the magazine has only very short articles and I stopped buying them years ago.

It is SO FRUSTRATING to have to be kept to short wordcounts by all publications nowadays...

 

Even more frustrating is the fact that several magazines take subscriber's money and then do not deliver.
To name a few: Octane (UK), Ruoteclassiche (Italy) and especially RAMP (Germany). They all have my money since years and mostly do not send the mags nor do they react/reply in any way to mails and calls. This simply is fraud, nothing else. Especially RAMP who - after massive insisting from my side - claim they send another copy, which then also never arrives.

Marcel Massini

 

Well as you know I have raised these problems with Octane publisher Geoff Love this morning, he answered immediately and he is investigating them.

I can't speak for the other two publications, I have nothing to do with them.

 

Kitman has always been a little off-kilter, intentionally provocative. I missed the article you mentioned; just as well.

 

I have the complete run of Supercar Classics. It was really good.

@Nembo1777 I used to buy it at Bob’s News.

 

Yes I have a lot of Supercar Classics...40 years old now, hard to believe. In 1982 during an Easter London trip at 17 I went to the offices of Car (the title was written in Chrome) to buy past issues, IIRC they published both, felt like Christmas!