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September 8, 2005Honda Tuning MagazineAs you may remember, I published a warning about the car enthusiast magazine trade. I pointed out that the car magazines are not in the business of telling their readers the best information, but rather the information that will help sell their advertiser's products. In many instances, a magazine will shamelessly feature an advertiser's product in an article on the pages facing the very advertiser's ad. Rather than truthfully helping readers by suggesting less cost effective ways to solve a performance problem, the article will lead the gullible reader to believe that the ONLY solution to the problem is to buy that advertiser product. The basis of the Magazine Business is to attract readers to the advertising. Readers base their selection of which magazine to buy upon the lifestyle that the magazine promises to deliver. Guys who daydream about a life of daring and adventure read Solider of Fortune magazine. Guys who can not get a date, and who may never get a date, read Jugs magazine. And guys who like sport compact cars read Super Street magazine. I do not mean to pick on any one sport compact magazine, the list seems to be endless, Super Street is the largest of the genre. But there is one magazine that is aimed directly at the sport compact car market, and the Honda fanciers in particular, that is different from the crowd. Honda Tuning magazine is the best of the "import tuner" magazines because they emphasize the actual hands-on technical stuff with true advise of how the work should be done. Before I go any farther, I must disclose that Honda Tuning had the good taste to feature me and my car in the July 2004 issue in a quarter page sidebar to their story about the 2004 gathering of CRX enthusiasts called "Las Vegas CRXPO 2004." Because my model of CRX (it is the 1987 "1st Generation" of the Honda CRX model line) is so old and is not often modified for show or track, my car stood out as a curiosity amongst all the much newer and shinier CRXs. I am sure that my car was added to the story only because it was so strange to see an old car like mine as an ugly duckling amongst the swans. But regardless of their reasons for including my car, Honda Tuning gets my praise as the only sport compact car magazine worth reading. Yes, they make a bow to attending to the hormonal interests of teenage boys by including a few gratuitous pictures of shapely young ladies in revealing garb. And tucked at the end of the magazine is a tiny review of current video games. But those concessions aside, Honda Tuning makes a point of delving into the technical fine points of specific engine and suspension jobs with step by step instructions and informative illustrations. Additionally, they make an effort to report upon the various professional racing series that concern Honda automobiles, although the magazines lead time make their reportage less than timely. If you are a fan of performance Hondas and are serious about attempting to perform some of the work yourself, I can not recommend the magazine Honda Tuning enough. Posted by Scott at September 8, 2005 1:54 PM CommentsYoung car geeks often have trouble getting dates. And since they spend much of their disposable income on cars, and car related magazines, they have no money to buy Jugs and thus the auto magazines have been kind enough to add some T&A to the mix. Posted by: Bryce at September 9, 2005 10:34 PM Post a comment |
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