Octane Magazine:RIDICULOUS!!!

I agreee only partially. No doubt Octane is a wonderfull magazine for small children new to the world of classic cars and your remark about the 12 year old kids is spot on, it is exactly how my interest in classic cars was born.

However, target market for Octane is the connaiseur of the better things in life, not only automotive but also others (hence the articles on boats, cigars, watches etc in the back of the magazine) and not children. For this audience the information provided better has to be correct; e.g. you can not afford big mistakes in the buying guides. The error itself might look minor, but it leaves you wondering what the quality of the other information provided is.

If the text of an article is (partially) incorrect or without any real in-depth information, the magazine degrades to a kind of picture book which does not appeal to me (the market is already flooded with these). For me the reason to buy Octane is that they provide information not available elsewhere: driving impressions by knowledgeable experts like Mark Hayles (sp?) and columns by people like Stirling Moss, Jay Leno and Nick Mason.

Octane also has to be carefull with their editorial independency; many cars tested are for sale and it is only too obvious that negative comments in the driving tests do not help sell these cars.

 

The problem with this kind of misinformation is that it becomes the new reality simply because it is printed somewhere in a glossy publication.
Literally thousands of people will take the Octane statement as gospel truth.
I have no doubt that there will be heated arguments somewhere on the planet where two people go at each other, where one has "Octane" as his unimpeachable source that Pininfarna designed the 250GTO, and will not be convinced by anything short of a court affidavit.

 

Strangely I have seen the buck for the 330 LMB at Pininfarina. The nose is very GTO like.

 

nose jobs can be done by anybody.....

 

For sale at Talacrest at the moment (see Anamera.com), #4381GT. This is at Goodwood Revival 2007 (copyright me, myself and I). Awesome car, although the GTO lines are a little cleaner.



Onno
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FWIW Evo and Octane are owned by the same people. I find this thread quite interesting since I've generally known more about cars than the guys writing on car magazines since I was about 14. That has not however stopped me buying many issues of the publications here and various others:

C&D and R&T - some good front line editorial, useless road tests.
Automobile - living in the hinterland and I only pick this up for free on the NY-BOS delta shuttle.
CAR - used to be good, is now very annoying and shortform media bite.
Autocar - used to subscribe, but its a bit too real, I'd rather read about interesting cars than the next renault.
Classic Cars and Classic and SportsCar or whatever they call each other - basically both books of car adverts and I buy them for this purpose.
Octane - similar to above, BUT with fun editorials written by Mason and Leno (Shelby's column however is an embarrassment).
Evo - genuinely enthusiastic.

I met Harry Metcalf at the Maranello RM auction by the simple fact of being sat next to him. He was shopping for and bought a 330 (this was '07). He's passionate about the business of cars.

I'm with the "Yes they were wildy wrong, but its just a car-magazine, what's the big deal" crowd on this one.

 

I disagree.

You're not reporting on a view, but on an almost absolute subject. There is only one truth, and in this case a well known one, the history of the GTO was probably put on paper (correctly) more times than any other car, and verification is easy.
If you say that it is just a car magazine, that is a blanket statement that puts all car magazines in the 'entertainment without value' bracket. Maybe that's the truth at the moment, who is to tell. But just like we get information from old magazines, in 30 or 40 years time the same will happen with what is written today. From its' appearance and style, Octane puts itself at the 'top' of the general publications on these subjects, and if the content can't be trusted it's worth less than the paper it is printed on.

 

+1,000,000,000,000,000,000 !!

Marcel Massini

 

There's an enormeous amount of pure and plain bull*** published in car magazines lately. Here a few examples:

Swiss "Automobil Revue" #46 of 12th November 2008:
Report about the Goodwood Revival 2008: They describe the famous 250 GT SWB Breadvan (2819 GT) as a 250 GTO and also say that the Goodwood Revival 2008 was its first and last appearance in public. Hahahaha! Fact is, that it is a rebodied 250 GT SWB Berlinetta. And they obviously haven't seen the Breadvan in the past few years at the various events of the Shell Ferrari Maserati Historic Challenge and other meetings too.............

Swiss magazine "Auto Illustrierte", issue #12, December 2008:
Test of the new Ferrari California, a blue car. Text says that the predecessor was the "275 California of 1967" and then they even state that they have consulted the history books for that.............Hahahaha! They must have mixed it up with the 275 NART Spider which was never named California.

UK magazine "Classic & Sports Car", issue of December 2008:
Page 10, top right, report about the Fairfield County Concours in September where Ralph Lauren won with his 1958 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa #0734 TR. They describe that car as the "ex-John Surtees 1964 NART Ferrari Testa Rossa"................and there is even a small color photo of the car. 0734 TR never raced in its life and was never owned by NART and never driven by John Surtees and was built in January 1958 already, not in 1964.

Seems to me that all these journalists only listen to the media and press kits and get their "information" from the Internet only.
At least they are able to read..........

No further comments.
Marcel Massini

 

Your comments are always interesting Marcel...

 

isn't your name in the Octane colophon?

 

how unlike you......

 

In spite of all the above I bought January 2009 issue at the airport this week and look and behold, Bobby Rahal selects his favourite racecar. What doe he come up with?: The Mercedes W196, which according the words above his statement was "way ahead of it's 1950's rivals with its TWO STAGE SUPERCHARGING etc.....Somebody should have proof read that a little more consciously....

 

Bit of a stretch, knowing the shortcuts for copy and paste is probably more accurate.

 

I couldnt agree more.

 

I enjoy Octane and it is one of my favorite car mags. It is Forza that has been printing some rather "simple/basic" articles such as those found in American car mags (Mustang Monthly, etc). I thought the last issue of Octane was great. Jay Leno revisiting the first Jaguar that inspired his love for cars was very enjoyable as was the GTO piece. That does not excuse writing bad facts and they should get on the ball.