Club Magazines

Most of the one-make clubs and some of the regional motor clubs publish magazines or news-letters, from simple duplicated sheets stapled together, to full-scale, very professional-looking productions. Indeed, such communication with members is very important and some Club secretaries believe that many members join primarily for a magazine, which informs them about maintenance problems, availability of spares, etc., as well as about pending fixtures and that kind of thing. Most of the Clubs contrive to put us on their mailing lists, which is much appreciated and often allows Motor Sport to reciprocate by publishing news of their activities.

A contemporary had the happy idea of awarding a small prize for what in the opinion of an Editorial panel was the best of these Club magazines. The first year the award went to the R-R EC magazine and then to the BDC for its well-known Review. We would not like to have to decide. To some extent the frequency (and regularity) of publication must surely count, and also the accuracy of the contents. For our part we are gratified that the VSCC Bulletin and BOC’s Bugantics have scarcely altered their format or appearance since long before the war. Both are very lavish small books, on fine paper, but we are equally pleased to read such broadsheets as those of the Trojan OC, the Vauxhall OC (appropriately called Flutenews) and so on.

Other countries have professional Club magazines, too, of which the very beautifully-produced journal of the American Packard Club, The Packard Cormorant is an outstanding one. The Renault DC has Renotes, the last bi-monthly issue of last year containing some notes on the tuned 4CVs of the 1950s and how one once blew-off a souped Mini-Cooper, along the Autoroute du Sud, the Citroen OC has a good one, and there is no end to these welcome Club magazines! — W.B.