The best in British Auto Journalism (What Car?)

Member Name: karana23

Product:	What Car?
Date:	23/02/03 (975 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fantastic Content, Price , Extra Supplements

Disadvantages: Plain-jane writing style, Regularity of issues

I have been an auto-buff for years now. In fact one of my hobbies is to collect car magazines and read them again and again. When I was in India, every month I got myself Autocar India, BSMotoring and Overdrive. But it was when I came to London an year ago that I had to decide which magazine should I buy and read. Auto-journalism in UK is big business, which means there are many many car magazines published out each month. Deciding which one was the best was a tough decision, but a fruitful one nevertheless. After 2 months of research did I find the perfect magazine for myself, and that was What Car?

So let's see how this car magazine fares in the different departments:

Packaging and Style
This is the first thing that strikes you when you are out to buy any magazine?How does it look and feel?

Cover design: *** I personally don?t love the cover of WhatCar?, and there are many reasons behind this?firstly, its too repetitive to see month after month a white cover with ?W-H-A-T-C-A-R-? written in big red letters and colourful cars on it standing in the same pose as in the last issue. Secondly, its too cluttered with way too many headings of articles and small photographs and insets being stuffed into one page. Nah, they could certainly improve their presentation on the cover front. So identical is the layout of the covers that every month having almost the same looking magazine in your hand isn't that exciting.

Style inside: ****Open the magazine and you are in for a surprise. WhatCar? Is very very classy in terms of its presentation and style of photographs, advertisements, text and gives a general feeling that there is a lot to read inside. The quality of the paper used is again fabulous and there?s no cost-cutting involved anywhere. Colours are bright and vibrant at best which makes for a delightful reading.

Content
All-right. The magazine looks good, but what use will i
t be if there is nothing to re
ad in it. Isn't it. We'll rate WhatCar? By its different sections, as one goes through the magazine to give you an insight into how good the regular features are:

WhatCar This Month: ** This is one of the first pages (after contents) of the magazine and has the editor's comments on the issue. In the 12 issues that I have read, its been one of the most professional and the most boring columns in the magazine. Nothing worthwile, turn to next page.

WhatCar First Sight:**** As the name indicates, this section is usually12-20 pages long and has detailed insight into the soon-to-be-launched cars. The section starts off with news and first drives of any latest/ path-breaking models due to be launched and ends with small road-tests of newly launched engine-variants of the older cars(model updates, in short). The content is very detailed, technical, written in plain English and gives you just the exact picture. Ratings are given to every car so that the review doesen?t leave the reader in the dark.

WhatCar NewsDesk:*** Again, as the name goes, this section contains news from around the UK on the topical issues, like on congestion charges, import and internet news, new insurance schemes, new speed cameras, and developments in any branch of car production etc. My only gripe is that this section is very short-winded and could do with more length (it lasts just 4-6 pages)

WhatCar Deals and Car Price Index:*** In the UK, in addition to dealers, cars can be bought directly from brokers, importers, supermarkets and dealers, which results in owners getting massive discounts on their new cars. So we have a whole page dedicated to these owners. Nothing special about it, but good to read to know the general market trend. The Car Price Index is just a comparison of prices of cars in different classes to their prices last month. Very technical again and great if you wanna know the general m
arket trend.

WhatCar Group Tests:***
* What Car has an exciting way to test every new car launched ? it directly pits it against the 4-5 best competitors in the respective class and perform a group test. The tests are long, very descriptive, exhausting, technical and you feel wiser after every test you read. N each magazine, there are about 4-5 group tests, which ensure that you are glued to the mag for hours.Ratings are given to each car in each department and the cumulative rating brings out a clear winner. Overall, the test-method is very logical and fool-proof. The layout is flawless, quality of photographs better than that in any car?s brochure and content is spot-on.Impressive!!!!

WhatCar Q&A:*** The name again says it all- 2 pages of owner?s queries is what this section is all about. The solutions given are logical, but this part is very short-winded again, and could agin do with some more length.

WhatCar Helpline:***** Probably one of the best and the most eye-opening articles ever attempted in auto-journalism, WhatCar Helpline is a helpline run by WhatCar to help the owners who have been duped by the dealers, manufacturers, brokers or on the internet. Here, owners send queries on how they were being refused help or required to pay extra or were duped by this dealer/broker. WhatCar then acts as an advocate from the owner?s side and makes sure that the owner gets full justice. Doesen?t this sound great?an auto magazine out on the way to help automobile owners...it surely does and it is!!! 3 Cheers to WhatCar for this feature. (This feature is a regular and is usually 6-8 pages long describing 10-12 incidents of owners in distress and how they were helped by WhatCar).

WhatCar Special Features:***** Now, this section of the magazine is again one of the most innovative ones. Each month, the reader gets 30-40 page long insight into cars and their features. E.g. In Jan 2003, there were two special
features:Comfort Test 2003 and Crash Tests. Each of these investigation
s are being carried out on every car in the UK, ratings are given and class winners are announced. I have loved each one of them till now, but my personal fave is WhatCar Awards, which will be out next month (WhatCar Awards are the awards given to class-winners annually?they are fun to read because of their flawless layout and spot-on judgement.)

WhatCar Personal Shopper:***** A fabulous feature yet again, this one is a 3-page long story of a family (a new one every month) on a lookout for a very specific vehicle, and how along with WhatCar, they find the best car. Nicely written up and fun to read.

What Car Our Cars:***** A flawless feature yet again, this one is actually a long-term update of all the cars that the magazine?s editorial team has?wonderfully written up, technical and detailed!!!

What Car Buyers Guide:***** This accounts for more than 200 pages in the magazine, and without doubt is one of Britain's most comprehensive car buyer?s guide. Firstly, it has the list of all the vehicles on sale in UK in chronological order with immense detail and prices on every variant being given. Next up is the depreciation index which tells you your car?s worth four years down the line. Then comes price and tax index which lets you calculate company car tax, then comes used car price tables and then there are 20-30 pages of car-supermarkets and the latest deals on cars by dealers etc. Very detailed, constantly updated and the most complete feature I have ever come across!!!

Price
WhatCar? Costs £3.60 for the monthly regular issue, and is great value for money because, in addition to the regular 340-350 page magazine every month you get extra supplements every month like Top 100 Used Car Bargains, Hot 100 New Cars, Used Car Of the Year, Diesel Car of the Year and many more.....

Overall
Time to sum up...and I am confused on what to say...there is no doubt that I would recommend this one to every one of you...it is ve
ry complete..but there is one problem and that isthis magazine doesnt have much of repeat value, I mean its not the sort of magazine that you will pick up once its gone into the shelf, and there are two reasons for it. Firstly, WhatCar is, as its tagline says The Only Plain English Car Magazine, which means no naughty one-liners, no stylish words and just plaaaaaaaaain text, and secondly, each and every issue is so complete in itself that you doubt why you preserved the last one....

But yes, I repeat this, What Car provides you with the most unbiased, logical, detailed and easy-to-follow information on British cars that no other car magazine can beat.....

For more information, visit WhatCar on web at www.whatcar.com

Comments are awaited like always.....

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