A few years ago someone showed me the 50th anniversary edition of this magazine. It was a great read and a reminder of how far Car and Driver has fallen.
Once a bastion of creative iconoclasm, today’s magazine is like one of the final Saabs — a generic General Motors car with a few vestiges of originality. In Car and Driver’s case, what’s left except the ritualistic screeds against governmental regulation (go here for further discussion)?
Oh, wait — Patrick Bedard and Brock Yates are long gone and the next generation is more open minded. For example, a column by John Phillips (2018) actually concludes, “From what I can tell in matters automotive, our government has gotten it right more often than wrong. I mean, think how considerately the feds have usually left us to our own vehicular mayhem. Two words of proof: Dodge Demon.”
So what’s left is some fairly generic information about new cars. Not terribly exciting to me, but that does seem to sell magazines. in 2017 Car and Driver had a circulation of 1.2 million, which was roughly 200,000 higher than Motor Trend (Wikipedia, 2018).
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RE:SOURCES
- Phillips, John; 2018. “It’s Too Late Not to Get Political About Cars; They’ve Always Been Political.” Car and Driver. Posted February; accessed June 11.
- Wikipedia; 2018. “List of magazines by circulation.” Page last edited, May 17; accessed June 11.
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