Sport Compact Car, beyond Civics and Integras in the car tuning world.
Written: Sep 07 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Very well written articles, they talk about cars other than civcs and integras.
Cons: A lil too many adds in the wrong places.
The Bottom Line: A great THICK car tuning magazine which covers everything from super-chargers to engine swaps.
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| Wisky's Full Review: Sport Compact Car Magazine |
Sport Compact Car magazine is definitely one of the best magazines when it comes to modifying compact cars, mostly imports. It features well written, no-nonsense articles about various things from the explanation of turbo/super charging your car, to an article called "Detour" which is a one page summary of a life and history of a car that is simply forgotten by the people, and it goes into why it was rejected by the market, and such, for instance; the October 2001 issue (the one I am using for this review) talks about the Mercury Capri XR2.
What automobile magazine is complete without reviewing actual cars, Car and Driver and Motor Trend's main purpose in the market is to review cars; minivans, luxury cars, sport cars, etc. . Sport Compact Car only reviews about 1 - 2 cars per issue, usually they are cars such as: Mitsubishi Lancer, Nissan Sentra Se-r, Honda Civic Si, etc. . However, Sport Compact Car's doesn't review too many actual vehicles, instead, it concentrates on changing, and improving the performance and looks of ordinary sedans (a very common one is the Honda Civic).
And Sport Compact Car does a GREAT and thorough job too, meaning, if one wanted to perform the modifications on their own car, they can look at the magazine and find out, what would be a problem, what would he/she need, and so on. It does such a great job of providing quality material that it is probably the thickest car tuning magazine, the issue I posses is over 300 pages long, well over the 150-250 other magazines of the same topics use.
Ads, Ads, Ads
"Give me a magazine without ads, and I'll give you a publishing company that is going bankrupt." And according to that statement, Sport Compact Car magazine wont be going bankrupt anytime soon, thanks to their abundance of advertisements, however I don't find it an annoyance because all of the ads are of car modification topic (what I like), and usually there is something interesting and new that I see in the ads. Some of the ads server as an excellent reference as to what aftermarket options are available for your car, such as the Nopi ad, which is over 6 pages, and has many easy-to-read charts listing most common cars and shows what aftermarket parts are available for it. Of course, lets not forget that they are trying to sell you something, but I like to think of it as a way to see what's available for my car, so I can go to my local shop and request it. One pet peeve about the Ads in Sport Compact Car would have to be the fact that they squeeze in ads wherever there is space, some articles only fill up half a page (and continue on the next if necessary) because there is an ad on ˝ of the page, and ˝ of the page can sometimes be vertically and sometimes be horizontally. Most of the time, that means that you can't see the page number- which is irritating because since many of the pages are covered with ads, you don't see the page number, making it hard to jump to a specific section listed in the table of contents.
All in all, Sport Compact Car is a very solid magazine, with very well written articles, If you are into the import modification scene, street racing scene, or even domestic tuning (Neons and Caviliers, not Mustangs and Camaros), pick up one of these magazines today, it is cheaper than most of the magazines of it's subject, at only $4.25, you are getting a great 320 page car tuning bible.
Recommended:
Yes
Primary Reason for Buying: Product Reviews/Information
Recommended For: Hobbyists/Enthusiasts
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Epinions.com ID:
Wisky
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 - Top 1000 |
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Member: David Wilinsky
Location: moonachie, nj
Reviews written: 155
Trusted by: 45 members
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