MaxPower. Has it really changed? (maxpower.co.uk)

Name: uncle_bob

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Product:	maxpower.co.uk
Date:	31/08/01 (463 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good Car content, Still interesting

Disadvantages: Adverts very nieve

Being a keen car modifier myself, MaxPower has been a source of inspiration as well as making good reading, and allowing you to dream over that RGS Motorsport tuned Nova, running the 2.0 turbo lump.
But then RGS Motorsport is only up the road, and even my Nova has paid them a visit on a few occasions

I started buying the magazine a few years back, and brought an issue every month from then on, up until recently. I haven’t bothered to buy this months addition.
Over the last 6 months or so, it has slowly downgraded, it went into a real state of decline, where there was nothing at all in it but adverts and soft porn, but I think they realised that wasn’t helping and it soon started to make a come back as a car mag.

However, it still seems to have lost the appeal it had back when I started.
So I thought I would do a little test to see how much it has changed. The following is a head to head comparison of 2 magazines I dug out from under my bed. 1 is the Dec 1999 edition, and the other is the Spring 2001 edition. The results were as follows:

Cost:
1999 - £3.30
2001 - £3.75

First impression on front cover:
1999 – Big bright orange Punto. (Not a bad looking motor either). Small picture of a girl in corner in bra and undies, not to bad either. Good list of content cars inside mag. Good article list on cover. Although main article seems to be and I quote ‘Bare-Ar*ed BTCC Birds* But nothing to bad.
2001 – Big red MR2 from Japan. Another woman in corner, again semi naked, but nothing exposed. Guess if there was it would have to be top shelf. Featured car list is smaller and hidden by plastic covering it comes in. Good list of what’s inside, boasting some interesting looking articles.

Number of cars featured inside mag:
1999 – 11
2001 – 13

Number of pages of adverts within magazine:
1999 – approx. 120 (I did lose count so only a
pprox.) out of 235
2001 – approx. 95 out of 212 pages (excl personal car ads)

Pages of women (does not include featured car owners, or cruise pictures. But does include adverts)
1999 – 20
2001 – 23

Number of interesting or informative articles in mag: (does not include letters or cruise patrol)
1999 - 6
2001 - 6

Those are some simple statistics I rounded up, they are by no means accurate to the nearest page, as its hard sometimes to define what’s a deliberate picture of a woman, and what’s not, or what’s an interesting article, or what’s not. But it gives an idea of the content

It surprised me how much hasn’t changed over the 2 year span. In fact, the newer magazines have more cars in them, and less adverts.
The number of women hasn’t changed much and the articles have remained the same.
In fact, the only thing that has changed, is the price, by 45p.

I was surprised at these figures, because the mag seems to not be as good as it was. Am I getting older????? Scary!
I ran a few checks over other mags from recent and not so recent, and the results were roughly the same, with a few editions being way off the results in terms of women and adverts, but over all, the results run constant.

The reviews on cars has become less in depth, with some reviews not exceeding 1 page in length, where as before some reviews would span for 4 pages.

So what do I think of the mag?
Well, it is still the same mag now, as it was before. Just presented in a different way. With half naked women being more a focus point, but in actual fact that content of naked women hasn’t changed.

One thing I did notice had changed, was the attitude towards young people and their cars. It appears these days companies feel they need to stick a picture of a woman with an exhaust pipe somewhere, that in my personal opinion, could cause serious in
jury!. It is very insulting, that companies feel they need to show boobs and women to sell their products to younger people. CIA, a respectable insurance company, feel they need to have a full page spread of a woman topless in order to sell car insurance?

However I feel the reason for the content having the reputation it has these days, is not so much MaxPower, but more the companies which advertise in it.

I would still continue to buy the mag, but don’t think I will be buying it every month like I was. The car features are still the selling point I think, but they have developed a clever tactic of hiding the featured car list on the front cover, by putting a plastic wallet over the magazine, when on the shelf. This means you have to buy the mag, before you know what is in it. Good for them, but bad for the consumer. I am not interested in Ford’s (bar the Cosworth) or American nitrous fitted bombs. I want everyday cars modified, that I can relate to. And usually a glance at the front cover would tell me if the mag had what I wanted, but now that is not the case.

So overall?
Its still a good mag, and I think, it is still very popular with readers, but I think it has had to change to accommodate the new generation of ‘MaxHeads’ entering the car scene. (dang I am getting old :o( )

Worth the £3.75?
Well it was worth the £3.30 back in 1999, and the 45p increase is not a huge blow to the pocket, considering the mag itself is the same.

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