(UPDATED FROM 11/13/2020)
Automobile appears to be dead. On July 6 MotorTrend (2021) announced that the magazine would be folded into its website. This looked inevitable. Automobile ceased publishing a printed magazine as of February 2020. A website continued to post new material but the front page had a fair number of ads promoting MotorTrend content. The MotorTrend Group had purchased the magazine in 2017 (Wikipedia, 2020).
I don’t find Automobile’s death to be a huge loss. The magazine primarily offered new car hype for the wine-and-cheese set (with a few articles on collectible cars thrown in). This was similar to the formula developed by David E. Davis when he launched the magazine in 1986, although he was big on “lifestyle” content. My favorite feature was Robert Cumberford’s columns about car design (go here for an example).
Also see ‘Robert Cumberford: Car grilles suffer from ‘wretched excess’’
Road & Track is attempting take over Automobile’s upper-crust market niche with a “collector’s magazine” and other trinkets (go here for further discussion).
The automotive journalist as country gentleman
In the wake of Davis’ death, Jack Baruth (2011) offered a brutal critique of Automobile. He argued that the magazine’s motto, “No Boring Cars!” served as “an excuse, er, reason to demand an ever-greater variety of exotic machinery from the world’s press fleets and cross-continental promotional junkets. Hell, Automobile didn’t even bother to publish performance numbers. Why waste a day somewhere with a stopwatch, doing atmospheric correction like some kind of Bedard-esque nerd, when you could be tossing the keys to the valet and settling down for a long lunch at Detroit’s ‘London Chop House’?”
Also see ‘Automobile magazine’s bookshelf was fairly different from ours’
I never felt drawn to subscribe to Automobile. Its production values were a cut above other auto buff magazines, but the editorial tone was rather bland. Even in its dog days, Car and Driver had more journalistic spunk. In addition, Automobile’s coverage of automotive history lacked the depth of Automobile Quarterly and Collectible Automobile.
Arguably the biggest contribution Automobile made to the buff media was putting an unusually large number of women in senior editorial roles. This was an important step forward. Alas, in time the “boys with toys” mentality returned, and the increasingly generic magazine sunk into obscurity.
Automobile | Facebook
- Free access to website; subscription/issue purchase required for print edition
RE:SOURCES
- Baruth, Jack; 2011. “RIP David E. Davis, Jr.” The Truth About Cars. Posted March 27; accessed November 11, 2020.
- Wikipedia; 2020. “Automobile (magazine).” Page last edited September 25; accessed November 11.
This is an updated version of a mini-review last updated Nov. 13, 2020.
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