Hi all,

Can you help me settle an argument i am having with Which Kit Car Magazine?

Can you vote for what type of feature you would like to see more of in Which Kit Car please.

Kind regards,

Darren

Tuning all the way. There's never enough power sliding going on!

Darren,

Good lad - bout time somebody argued with them

gee i wonder what option everyone on here will choose hmm.

Can we have another?

"Can Filby and Tanner and their spats and make room for a newcomer"

Oh...that's already happening...welcome Total Kit Car...

Stephen

PS As I can't get TKC around here, I've stopped buying both the mag and tend to purchase PPC or one of the classic mags instead.

[Edited on 11/7/06 by stevebubs]

Which Kit Car, about as good as their Python, (crap) if you ask me. Chippy.

Ive stopped buying which kit car and the other one ... they are forever bitching about each others mags... I want to read about kit cars not some twat slagging off how many adverts the other mag has and what the ratio of article pages to advert pages is. Thats just a waste of newsprint..

Sorry.. but I have already voted with my wallet.

I wont buy either. Total kit car seems to have it right, as so does Practical perfromance car.

Hi all,

Trying to be helpful to Which Kit Car yesterday, i asked them to look on this and other web forums, and analyse the type of things people were talking about on here.

I said to them that their magazine would have a broader appeal if they wrote about what you guys want to read about, and the best way to gauge that wa to visit this site and see what you talk about.

They wouldn't do it because in their words, its just full of tittle tattle. Now there are parts of any forums that have tittle tattle, but, far and away the most talked about topics on here are to do with techical things.

Looking at the focus of Which Kit Car this month they are trying to push features on cars built by punters. Great, i would love to see some features on what people at home create, because a lot of the time they are better and more imaginative than the manufacturers can do. But, i think the bulk of the articales ought to be technical based. The reason they aren't in my opinion is that the journalists are not engineers, and to admit they aren't would somehow preclude them from speaking in a fully informed manner about the cars, they think they are expert on.

Which Kit think they run technical features in the magazine, but, i really can't think of when i last saw one. This leads me to think that they don't actually know what a techincal feature is and how to write it.

Although you have by and large voted for more technical features, i suspect that you wont be seeing any more technical features in the magazine.

The lack of professionalism in their bitching as some one called it, for me is a slightly different argument. That could go away if Peter Filby was to be a bit more unbiased, and drop the Python's over exposure. But, if they don't recognise the need to reflect what the readership wants to read, then i think its just a long slow death for them.

They moaned at me for not advertising and not going to the Donnington show that the organise. But, if they are not appealing to you guys, whats the benefit of me advertising with them, you are my market and if you aren't reading i can't sell to you.

I agree with wilkingj, on this I dont want to pay for pages that have a load of snide remarks about total kit car.
This is a great way to alienate which's readers, do they not consider that their readers might be happy buying both publications, so in effect they are slagging off their own readers. Thats why I wont ever buy that badly put together rag again, it doesn't look slick or professional, most of us could do better here.

Thanks guys,

Having said what we have said though, i think its only fair to say that if they do react to what we want that we should be prepared to support them in making that change.

That means reviewing the mags and buyng if there are interesting articles, and making suggesions as to what you would want to read about.

The industry is so tiny, and fragile, that everyone needs to support everyone else.

Anyone care to suggest some interesting topics that they could reserach for us? I know Total Kit Car would probably go out of their way to write such articles, so would PPC.

Kind regards,

Darren

Hi would be nice if they told the truth about some of the project cars that they have built instead of giving every thing a verry rosie stamp of approval and then leaving the punter to realise that he has brought somthing that needs a crowbar to fit the bits together.

cheers matt

Now we have sort of proved the point i'm going to take these results and comments back to them and see how they respond.

Its easy to be negative, but, for the time being i think we can take our point of view back to them with some weight behind it, and save the negativity for if/when they fail to respond positively to it.

I believe that if you have a problem with something/someone you should give them the oppotunity to sort it out before condeming them too much.

We all know what we want from the magazines but it will never happen

Sadly the adverts are the real money for the magazine owners,and they are in this to make money.

It would be nice to have more build help and tech stuff, problem is they would probably just rob a year old article from another mag that we have all seen before.

Hi Bob,

I'm not so anti adverts as a punter, i think they are very useful as reference material.

I wouldn't mind the mag doubling the amount of adverts, so long as i didn't have to pay to be bombarded in that way, and as long as the content is there that i want to read.

What i have asked for in the other poll post, is an idea for some technical articles. Between us i'm sure we could write some very useful and informative features, and these would benefit everyone, and advertise Locostbuilders to the rest of the industry, and show them what we are made of.

So its over to you, what do you think we should research and write articles about?

Kind regards,

Darren

Ok to get the ball rolling:
One of the most informative articles, that have interested me for a long time was the one a few months ago in PPC on DIY fuel injection.
I don't really think the subject matter is that important, it is the depth of technical knowledge and information that counts.

Articles on suspension geometry, spring rates and choice, steering, engine tuning, Tyre choices, fiberglassing techniques, etc. etc. The list is quite frankly endless and all these subjects get discussed here.
The key issue is that articles have to be well written, by people who know their subject. It should also be based on REAL projects where possible as well.
Articles that are clearly nothing more than an advertising feature for a manufacturer may have their place, thats a debateable matter, but that should NOT be the main content.
Neither should cheap shot sniping at the competition.
I honestly don't think the main 2 Kit Car mags are capable of putting their respective houses in order but I would love to be proved wrong!!!!

IMO we should go back in time a few years and take a look at the way "locost car club" Newsletters were made up.
There were once plenty of articles of interest in the Newsletters and everypne could get 4 copies a year for a tenner.

Darren, you made some good contritutions to the newsletters "suspension set up " and "Dampers" this is the stuff thats missing from the main magazines.