Dire Consequences

How could I have ever let it get this far? Despite the five hundred renewal notices, I failed to renew both my Car and Driver and Automobile subscriptions.

Car and Driver and I have been together since I was ten years old. I've even been to their offices in Ann Arbor, Michigan. How did this apathy come about?

Honestly I'm not the only one. I don't think editing a car magazine is an easy task, but I would guess that is what drives readers to continue subscribing. I think the biggest problem is editorial inconsistency when it comes to reviewing cars. A certain car can be the the star of one edition and a dog only a few months later in a comparison test. Also, as per previous posts, testing every car as a performance model when it clearly was not intended to be that can raise a few eyebrows. The once latest hot new car news can now be retrieved from the internet daily making monthly publications less timely.

Yes buff books are dying off. If you didn't know it before, pick up an issue of Car and Driver today. You'll notice the dearth of advertisements buy such brands as Ford and Chrysler. In the past you could count on at least two ads from each somewhere in the magazine. I can't say I really blame them for looking elsewhere. Their products are usually panned in both magazines. When you spend the money to place and ad, are you going to put it pages from a review that disses your product? Certainly you don't have worry about that when you're advertising on television, radio or the non-automotive internet sites.

The slick car ads of the past have been replaced by sexual enhancement ads that we would have never seen before. It's sad to see heroes and legends fade to shades of their former self this way. I guess I haven't renewed as part of me can't bear to look. Like watching Farah Fawcett go from pinup to punchline, some things don't age gracefully.

But I know I'll renew. At $16.00 for twelve issues, it's not going to break me. I just wish my heart were in it.