I have to agree with most of the comments on c & vc, too many british trucks and bxxsxt articles such as wrecks to riches and A to Z of trucks. There is the odd decent article such as Carrying on and PD’ Gallery but other than that, it is crap and i won’t buy another issue until it improves. I much prefer Heritage Commercials which usually has a health dose of retro trucks.
I’m with Woodcutter in that CVC could improve significantly if “Carrying On” was expanded into at least 6 pages per issue. PD could be repeated without much repetition, and if the features showed more restoration photos instead of the history of Seddon Atkinson everytime a big A is featured, then things would get better. Naff readers letters (I didn’t say “crap” Cattle Wagon Man 
) could be proof read for snooze factor and ditch most of the war stories (I don’t need a day by day account of someone going over Shap EVERY issue). Oh and the A to Z is crap…oh bollox I’ve said it again CWM 
I had a quick flick through the January edition of CVC and it took less time than normal…I think it had something to do with the cover star being an Atkinson…again…
Almost three years ago I sent in some photos of old cafes to CVC after an appeal for a future series. I got them back a couple of days before Christmas with a brief but polite note thanking me and saying that they would feature in the February issue, better late than never I suppose. Happy new year to all, regards Haddy.
Hello
Yes, I sometimes buy HC magazine and Classic Commercials, and personally, I think they are a) to expensive & b) they are half full of adverts.
I do buy monthly T&D & Transport News, T&D is now £3.00 I’m shocked to say and Transport News is £2.40, and personally , is better than T&D.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I think Commercial Motor is way to expensive at £2.60. I’ve stoped buying it unless there is something really interesting.
Kindest Regards
■■■■■■■■ Gill
■■■■■■■■ gill:
Hello
Yes, I sometimes buy HC magazine and Classic Commercials, and personally, I think they are a) to expensive & b) they are half full of adverts.
I do buy monthly T&D & Transport News, T&D is now £3.00 I’m shocked to say and Transport News is £2.40, and personally , is better than T&D.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I think Commercial Motor is way to expensive at £2.60. I’ve stoped buying it unless there is something really interesting.
Kindest Regards
■■■■■■■■ Gill
£3.00 for T&D? They’ve cut their prices… Com Motor yes, very expensive for what is a load of ads. I’ve bought HC two months in a row now I have bought Trucking (in my opinion better than T&D) a couple of times in a year if there’s tipper related stuff in it. T&D is just a “look at this motor with all its’ spotlights and artwork etc.”
When I first started reading about lorries in the early ‘70s, the mags were written by qualified, experienced, professional people. CM had Graeme Montgomery, Iain Sherriff et al and Truck had Pat Kennett, who had been around the industry enough to know some stuff. These writers must have been on a good wage. The letters after their names must have cost a fortune in ink alone! In those days, magazines were a bit of a luxury good and the number of different titles on the newsagents’ shelves was small. Since then, the number of magazines, of all types, has proliferated and the buying public’s money is more thinly spread. The publishers can no longer afford to employ clever contributors, or indeed conduct formal three-day roadtests with proper scientific instruments and measurements.
The resulting dumbing-down process has given us what we have got- endless galleries of airbrushed tarts on cabs, chrome spotlight-bars (ugh!), waffle that any idiot could make up- and adverts. The internet will make it progressively worse, as readers increasingly come here for their fix.
The answer may lie in the titles below:
cvengineer.com/
transportengineer.org.uk/
Does anyone on the forum read these magazines? Are they any good?
Only my opinion- feel free to shoot it down.
Hi 3300john I see there is a picture of your Mammoth Major pulling up the great orme Llandundno on page 33 of febs C&VC
Stanfield:
Hi 3300john I see there is a picture of your Mammoth Major pulling up the great orme Llandundno on page 33 of febs C&VC
Bit more in that issue, although I still read the decent bits in WHSmith; Liked the Handyman feature.
Muckaway:
■■■■■■■■ gill:
Hello
Yes, I sometimes buy HC magazine and Classic Commercials, and personally, I think they are a) to expensive & b) they are half full of adverts.
I do buy monthly T&D & Transport News, T&D is now £3.00 I’m shocked to say and Transport News is £2.40, and personally , is better than T&D.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I think Commercial Motor is way to expensive at £2.60. I’ve stoped buying it unless there is something really interesting.
Kindest Regards
■■■■■■■■ Gill£3.00 for T&D? They’ve cut their prices… Com Motor yes, very expensive for what is a load of ads. I’ve bought HC two months in a row now I have bought Trucking (in my opinion better than T&D) a couple of times in a year if there’s tipper related stuff in it. T&D is just a “look at this motor with all its’ spotlights and artwork etc.”
Hello muckaway
I agree with you about Commercial Motor but Trucking, I’ve always regarded it as one of the crappier magazines of the Haulage Industry.
Kindest Regards
■■■■■■■■ Gill
Hi ■■■■■■■■ Gill, I miss Truck magazine; There doesn’t seem to be a mag to replace it what with T&Ds’ obsession with blinged trucks and music reviews, CMs endless classifieds and Truckings’ endless “classic” sections that seem to be American/Canadian logging trucks. That and military stuff from Europe which I always ignore.
I miss Headlight magazine, used to read my Dad’s copy as a wee lad, it was about real drivers and real issues.
I do subscribe to CVC but am getting p*ssed off with the same old motors being repeated when there are plenty more to be seen.
And when the so called experts refer to an LV as an A series, or a KM as a TK - so frustrating !!!
Didn’t an “expert” from CVC ask someone to tilt the cab of an Atkinson Borderer once?
Muckaway:
Didn’t an “expert” from CVC ask someone to tilt the cab of an Atkinson Borderer once?
Yes indeed - I was one of the two people he asked.
He actually asked how long it would take to tilt the cab, so he could take some pictures of the engine.
“About a fortnight, ■■■■ - it’s bolted down to the chassis through those two big, thick rubber bushes there…” was the actual reply.
Oh how we guffawed. At him. Not with him.
I was unloading at a landfill site this morning and found a 17th may 1963 copy of Commercial Motor amongst the crap i liberated it but as i looked for more a machine came over and buried everything so i will never know if there were more.The magazine as a road test of a 8 wheeler Seddon tipper with a 150 Gardner and a 6 speed Brown box top speed 44 mph.Another gem was Atkinson Vehicles are now fitting as standard quilted bonnet covers and they are also available at an extra cost to vehicles already in service.There`s a section on new companies and what capital they have started with .The classifieds are something else
ramone:
I was unloading at a landfill site this morning and found a 17th may 1963 copy of Commercial Motor amongst the crap i liberated it but as i looked for more a machine came over and buried everything so i will never know if there were more.The magazine as a road test of a 8 wheeler Seddon tipper with a 150 Gardner and a 6 speed Brown box top speed 44 mph.Another gem was Atkinson Vehicles are now fitting as standard quilted bonnet covers and they are also available at an extra cost to vehicles already in service.There`s a section on new companies and what capital they have started with .The classifieds are something else
Get it scanned!
fryske:
ramone:
I was unloading at a landfill site this morning and found a 17th may 1963 copy of Commercial Motor amongst the crap i liberated it but as i looked for more a machine came over and buried everything so i will never know if there were more.The magazine as a road test of a 8 wheeler Seddon tipper with a 150 Gardner and a 6 speed Brown box top speed 44 mph.Another gem was Atkinson Vehicles are now fitting as standard quilted bonnet covers and they are also available at an extra cost to vehicles already in service.There`s a section on new companies and what capital they have started with .The classifieds are something elseGet it scanned!
This, as there’s bu66er all in any of the lorry mags this month; Unless you want T&Ds’ Actros DVD
Thats it, after the recent CVC i bought i will definately not buy another, what a load of crap and waffel!, nothing of interest what so ever. I realise that everybody has different interests and i feel that the best mag to cater for that is Heritage Comercials with the retro F12’s 142’s etc and the older restorations and features to boot. As for T & D and Trucking, i buy them now and then but i must say that the latest Trucking is reasonable, with a feature on classic Canadian Hayes logging trucks amongst other things. As i say, everybody has different tastes in the truck/lorry world and i personally appriciate pictures/features on 70’s & 80’s trucks but i guess that’s a reflection on my age, i’m 37.
Why do HC feature car derived vans though? I always skip those except that Austin hearse the other month; that was different but I’m not interested in ex Post Office vans thanks very much. What letter is CVCs A to Zzzz upto now, G?
Fair play Muckaway, thats an interesting point re the vans in HC, wrong mag for vans in my humble opinion!