Feb 18, 2003 02:16 AM
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(Updated Feb 18, 2003 02:16 AM)
If I have written the review on the best in British car magazines, then the worst can’t be really far behind, isn’t it? Its funny because Top Gear comes from the house of BBC, one of the most respected names in terms of news worldwide. But that won’t deter my judgement one bit, as I think of Top Gear has now become one of the most biased magazine published in the auto-journalism world ever, and the only reason why it is alive is because of the support of BBC.
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 like the cover of Top Gear, and there are many reasons behind this—firstly, it has got a different theme and layout every month, giving it an all-new look every month and secondly, its not too cluttered with small photos and headlines about what’s inside kept to a minimum. Nice and good to look at!!!
Style inside: No surprises here, as Top Gear comes across as a cluttered magazine with confused layout and there’s very little text to be seen anywhere in the first sight. Full page-length photographs and advertisements dominate the whole magazine, which doesen’t look to be very impressive. Moreover, the size of the text is too small to make an impact on the first look. Quality of pages is again nothing to write home about, and this is one department where Top Gear gets beaten by its ace competitor What Car?
Content
All-right. The magazine looks good, but what use will it be if there is nothing to read in it. Isn’t it. We’ll rate Top Gear by its different sections, as one goes through the magazine to give you an insight into how good the regular features are:
First Gear: ** This is one of the first sections of the magazine and has news on the latest cars from around the world. Its not at all detailed, provides very little in terms of information on the car, and the only thing you notice is stretched photographs. There is a section on Motorsport as well (just 1-2 pages long) and even after buying 3-4 issues, I am still not able to make out what it wants to convey. Not at all impressive!!!
First Steer:** Road-test time, but at Top Gear, people don’t seem to be serious enough...taking into account that this section contains single road-tests of newly launched cars and models, the maximum I have ever got to read about a car here is 1 page. Its just too short-winded, and the only thing worth noticing is the stretched photographs on the pages...the whole section is 20-30 pages long out of which 12-13 are dedicated to photographs, which surprisingly, suffer from proper proper lighting and appear to be dull to me. Too Bad, yet again.
Group Tests:** If there’ some stuff to read in this magazine, its all here. Each issue has 3-4 group tests which are stretched to 40-50 pages all thanks to half-page and full-page length photographs. Reading material is adequate, but content-wise, the editors seem to be heavily biased towards European-made cars and write-off good Japanese and American cars complete with mocking. This is reason enough for me not liking this magazine. Ratings are hugely absent, and seldom do they tally with the text in the magazine. Not Impressive again!!!
Top Gear Special Features: There are not many that this magazine comes with, and the memorable ones are too few and far between. And no, these special features don’t mean 20-30 page booklets as provided with What Car?, rather a 3-4 page write-up on car-rallies or a soon-to-be-launched model etc.etc. Readable this stuff is but that’s purely because it doesen’t involve comparing (which Top Gear too are biased to do). Strictly passable!!
Buying, Running, Selling:** Although the heading promises too much, there isn’t anything worthwile to read in this 10 page long section. You can find some tips here, some tips there on buying a car, but soon realise that you know them from before!!! What puts me off is the cluttered way in which this section is written. There is no detail or justification on anything that’s written or advised and there’s a section called Long Term Update which tells u in just 3 pages about the 20 or so cars that the magazine team has...and half of the content is just jokes and mockery!!!
Price Guide:** The name says it all- although Top Gear thinks that this guide is’the most comprehensive price guide on the planet’, but I beg to differ. For once, the layout is one of the cleanest I’ve ever seen on a magazine, but that’s because they haven’t written anything here that would provide to be of much help to a car buyer. The information, the prices, the car models are always outdated and new models are added months after their launch. And you can easily spot price-lists of 2-3 phased-out cars. Used car data is too short and the last 20-30 pages are full with classifieds. Too bad indeed!!!!
Price
BBC has priced the magazine competitively at £3.50, in sync with its strongest competitor-What Car?, and at some superstores like WHSmith, you can get a copy for £2.50 as well. Value for money it is, not in terms of advice and contents, but the amount of photographs and advertisements and brochures you get for this much money!!
Overall
No, I don’t recommend Top Gear to any avid reader on automobiles. If you think you are going to find some nice, unbiased advice on British cars, you’ll be thoroughly disappointed. Top Gear has got a big brand name, a TV Show and a slick cover going for it, but from when did auto-journalism mean all these things???
For all of you who think that Top Gear is a great magazine, I have 3 pieces of advice:
Visit https://topgear.beeb.com if you wanna read about Top Gear road-tests
Watch the show on BBC—Top Gear, its biased like the magazine, but you won’t mind as you haven’t plonked your money on it.
Lastly, for God’s sake, switch to What Car? for some decent British automotive advice.
THANK YOU,
Comments are awaited like always.....
