Why is it so hard to make a decent VW Car Mag?

[Jay2 0]

Can someone please explan this to me?

 

PVW = Full of American shows & Cars, why?

 

Golf+ = Thinner and thinner every issue, another blinged up MkI, yawn....... And the style seems to have gone all Chavtastic! What's going on? The latest issue features the W12 on the front, which is a great looking car, but this is then tarnished by a lazy, bright red photoshop background, with graphics that belong to the Max Power of old.

 

Is it that difficult? :shock:

 

I don't expect a Corrado in every issue of either mag, just a decent informative read, with great cars and images.

 

Think I'm asking for too much. :(

[Neil VR6 0]

All marque specific mags seem to be a bit comic-like. They great if you want to sit on the throne for 5 minutes and look at some pretty pictures but in terms of insightful editorial they's distinctly lacking. Anyone can write that so and so has fitted this engine and that suspension so make it faster and handle better but they never take the cars out and actually test drive them. Still, so many of the show cars are so compromised that after half a mile down the road you'd end up with loose teeth and a cracked sump!

[mattnorgrove 0]

Gotta disagree with the comment about PVW, yes they do feature american and european shows, but if they didn't, would you EVER see anything from them? Not like you can jump in the car and pop over for a look on a Sunday.

 

I reckon they assume you will visit the UK shows yourself, hence the apparent lack of coverage...

[Toad 0]

I don't buy PVW any more as I found the text was a repeat of the previous article, with the relavant bits changed. There didn't seem to be any imagination from the writers, so I gave up.

 

I'd have liked to hear more about the car other that "it's super shiney, and super low and the owner is such a bad ass as he gave someone a massve cheque to sort the car with"... As already mentioned... Yawn.

[corozin 0]

Good quality editorial with top quality pictures costs a lot (more) to produce.

 

The problem with the specialist Volkswagen magazine market is that "quality" magazines just don't sell enough copies sto be economically viable. It's a hard fact of life, but most of the people who generate mass-sales for these mags are illiterate chavvies who can't understand words with more than two syllables and like lots of nice pictorials with blingy cars in them.

 

I think the other thing that's killing the VW Magazine market right now is a lack of articles, and a relative shortage of good project cars on the scene generally. A lot of the decent "builders" out there who do great cars no longer have any interest in having thier creations featured, possibly because of the kind of audience those mags now appeal to.

 

Of course there are car magazines out there which have become very successfully by concentrating on quality (Evo, Practical Performance Car, Classic & Sportscar, Porsche World) but the demographics of those readerships are much older (and wealthier) than your average VW Magazine reader. That's not meant as a condescending statement, merely a harsh truth.

 

Of course we have VW Driver and Volksworld, which are living proof that you can write a good "in depth" magazine and get (relatively speaking) sod-all sales. Me? I'm a regular of PPC these days - you learn more about hardcore Volkswagens when they feature them in that than you'll find in a year's subscription to one of the VW Specialist mags IMHO.

[junkie 0]

I agree both have gone downhill but i still buy them, dont know why but i just have to.

 

When i started to 1st buy them in approx 2001 i found them very informative, good pictures and a good read over and over again, maybe because i was just getting into the scene and each issue taught me something new i dont know but i read either new issue in 10min now.

 

And yes Golf+ lose the chavness

 

And PVW stop trying to be pimp daddy, with all the scene nonsense. they're just too style focused even when a 400bhp comes in, its 1 paragraph on the engine then 14 pages on style.

 

In both mags need to balance the feature/write up out.

[Jim 2]

I must admit i've sort of lost my way with the VW mags and have just gone onto the bigger fish like Car / Top Gear / Evo..

 

Yeah, admittedly they do feature articles on cars you are just really never going to buy (SUV's, etc) but they do interesting articles on real performance cars, history of manufacturers, etc and I just really prefer that sort of stuff over VW specific show reports and so forth. I think mags like PVW do a pretty good job considering they're limiting themselves to a few specific makes / models especially as the winter months set in and the show cars (and the shows!) dry up.

[ziderapple 0]

Golf+ went drastically downhill hill when the latest editior Fabien Cotter took charge, but although its thinner than PVW, and they dont shift half as much copies as PVW its the better mag IMO (anyone remeber Golf-Xtreme???) PVW is full of American bling and "rat" sh*t, a rat used to be a car with killer performance but ratty, according to PVW as far as I can tell its just sh*t box with stickers. If you want a decent read about cars buy evo..

[corozin 0]

I wondered if there was something rather generic about the style of PVW...

http://www.performancevwmag.com/

http://www.performancebmwmag.com/

http://www.performancefordmag.com/

http://www.performancegti.com/

http://www.bmwcarmagazine.com/ and let's not forget

http://www.gtpurelyporsche.com/

 

But then I couldn't quite figure where the generic (shurely "successful") editorial style came from, But then I realised...

http://www.banzaimagazine.com/

 

If anyone notices how all these sites all look... well... the same? Is anyone in any doubt now as to why the editorial style of PVW is the same as all the others? Template websites... template magazines... original thought is no longer required, just fill in the template.... ZZZzzzZZZzzzZZZzzz

[A-J 0]

There are some good cars featured but the journalism doesn't do them justice. I bought the last couple of PVW which I haven't done for a while and can't believe how bad it now is. I agree with Toad, all shows and cars get the same story with the relevent details changed to suit.

[matthewb1985 0]

I wondered if there was something rather generic about the style of PVW...

http://www.performancevwmag.com/

http://www.performancebmwmag.com/

http://www.performancefordmag.com/

http://www.performancegti.com/

http://www.bmwcarmagazine.com/ and let's not forget

http://www.gtpurelyporsche.com/

 

But then I couldn't quite figure where the generic (shurely "successful") editorial style came from, But then I realised...

http://www.banzaimagazine.com/

 

If anyone notices how all these sites all look... well... the same? Is anyone in any doubt now as to why the editorial style of PVW is the same as all the others? Template websites... template magazines... original thought is no longer required, just fill in the template.... ZZZzzzZZZzzzZZZzzz

 

Its probably because they are sister magazines owned by one company - that's why they look the same it's easier for the company who own them all to kep them the same.

They don't have to do any interesting design because they sell. As long as they are selling there not gonna do a redesign.

[bristolbaron 10]

Why is it so hard to make a decent VW Car Mag?

 

Can someone please explan this to me?

 

Best person to ask would be Elliot at PVW.. [email protected]

 

If you emailed him, as a genuine question and gave ideas as to what you'd like to see in the mag you'd get a positive response.

A lot of mags will browse forums, read threads like this and dismiss whats written as keyboard warriors having a moan.

 

If you take the time to make contact, thats how progress/change is made.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

A lot of the decent "builders" out there who do great cars no longer have any interest in having thier creations featured, possibly because of the kind of audience those mags now appeal to.

 

Yeah that's true. I noticed Jim Cotton's tuned up Audi A4 in this month's "Performance Tuner" magazine, but haven't seen it any VW mags that I've looked through.

Jim is old school, so as you say, he's probably not doing his work for the chrome and lexus lights brigade.

 

Performance Tuner had the potential to be really good, but it's rubbish imo. Better than PVW editorily, but still choc full of continuity errors and poor writing.

 

PPC is my mag of choice now. Genuinely skilled people with good doses of humour. I have absolutely zero interest in the VW scene now, save for this forum ;-)

 

I guess it's all part of maturing.....as you get older your tastes change.....but gone are the days of the mid 90s VW scene. I hope they come back in the near future, but everything is software or bolt on now. People buy a MK5, map it to make two hundred and something alleged ponies, stick some 19s on it and that deserves a feature?!? Whoopee do. Any 19 year old with a bank loan can do that. Bring back the original hardcore trend setters from the 90s!! :lol:

[Jay2 0]

Might actually ask both PVW & Golf+ just to see what I get back. :(

[W3RKD 0]

As Baz says have a chat with Elliott i think you may be suprised at his responce...

[saysomestuff 0]

It's also worth looking at the new style Redline, it's gone totally performance focused and I find it a much better read than most of the other make-specific mags. In the past couple of issues they've featured a 550bhp Corrado sleeper and a 400bhp FWD mk2 drag car, the dahlback golf (properly) and their polo, awesome stuff