Motorsport

"The Authoritative Voice Of The Sport". That was how Motor Sport used to describe itself when I first started to follow motor racing. Unfortunately, while that might have been true a couple of decades earlier, by the 1980s the once-proud boast had become a sad joke. Betweeen its famous green covers could still be found pearls, such as the utterly biased, highly opinionated yet brilliant prose of Denis Jenkinson - "DSJ" as he signed ...
...a publication mostly filled with deeply forgettable articles. The magazine relied almost entirely for income on its glossy classifieds, and even they were drying up. Motor Sport seemed to be a terminal case.

Then, a couple of years ago, a new team moved in. The magazine was brought into the same stable as Autosport, and ceased trying to compete head-on - an impossible task, especially for a monthly. Instead, Motor Sport was moved upmarket. ... more

"The Authoritative Voice Of The Sport". That was how Motor Sport used to describe itself when I first started to follow motor racing. Unfortunately, while that might have been true a couple of decades earlier, by the 1980s the once-proud boast had become a sad joke. Betweeen its famous green covers could still be found pearls, such as the utterly biased, highly opinionated yet brilliant prose of Denis Jenkinson - "DSJ" as he signed himself - but they were few and far between in a publication mostly filled with deeply forgettable articles. The magazine relied almost entirely for income on its glossy classifieds, and even they were drying up. Motor Sport seemed to be a terminal case.

Then, a couple of years ago, a new team moved in. The magazine was brought into the same stable as Autosport, and ceased trying to compete head-on - an impossible task, especially for a monthly. Instead, Motor Sport was moved upmarket. The cover price was gradually hiked (which caused some annoyance), the quality and size of the pages was increased, and the magazine gained a spine instead of its previous staples. A deliberate decision was made to concentrate almost exclusively on the historic side of motorsport, though the level of complaints about this meant that some articles do now cover the present day. And it seems that this change has, in the end, been a success.

The thing you notice at once about Motor Sport is the photography. It's some of the best you will see in any magazine, and is often quite brilliant. Picking out a sample issue (November 2000), I find an extraordinary study of Bruce McLaren in the pits at Spa in 1964. His face is pockmarked with cuts and scratches from stones thown up at him, but he doesn't seem to notice. He just sits quietly, his expression a cross between resignation and bemusement, waiting to be told the bad news - that his battery is flat. This is just the sort of thing Motor Sport excels in, and it's common to see previously unpublished pictures appear here first.

Motor Sport does now report on present-day events, and apart from the road tests - of cars such as Vauxhall's amazing VX220 - this responsibility is carried by Simon Taylor, the well-known commentator, in his "Modern Times" column. This isn't a news section - you might as well read Autosport if that's what you want - but is more of an essay on an aspect of the current scene that interests Taylor. And very interesting it is too, written as it is from the point of view of a man with both vast knowledge and vast enthusiasm for his subject.

As is Nigel Roebuck, who writes for both this magazine and Autosport. It's interesting to compare the differing styles of his two columns - while his Autosport column often goes into events of yesteryear, there is always some connection with the current affairs of modern racing world. There's no need for that in the "Legends" column Roebuck writes for Motor Sport, and I think it makes this the more interesting read. For one thing, he doesn't have to justify his dipping into the sport's history, which means that his rather tiresome habit of moaning about what he sees as modern political correctness is much less in evidence. Instead, Roebuck's love for motor racing shines through, as does his incredible ability to talk to, and get quotes out of, anyone involved in the sport.

Motor Sport's other main columnist is Bill Boddy - "WB" - whose rather sinster photograph makes him look like a headmaster, annoyed at being disturbed by a pupil sent to his office and determined to exact retribution on the culprit. How old is Boddy now? Well over eighty, surely, as he is old enough to be a founding editor of the magazine. His articles on vintage racing are some of the most absorbing in the magazine, especially when he writes - from memory and in detail - about an exciting race or controversial incident that he was on hand to witness in those far-off pre-war days.

A rather serious magazine like Motor Sport requires some light relief, and this is usually to be found in the hilarious column "The Worst Car I Ever Drove", wherein various luminaries heap opprobrium on some appalling heap like the laughable Andrea Moda F1 - and, perhaps more surprisingly, in the letters pages. The self-conciously "historical" mindset of the magazine even extends here - all letters are signed "I am yours, etc" - but the content of the letters themselves is quite another matter. The passage of time since the events being discussed has not dulled their importance in the correspondents' minds. For example, an irritated reader points out: "Carraciola's 1936 record-breaker and von Brauchitsch's Avus streamliner are two separate entities". They say an elephant never forgets, but that's nothing compared to a Motor Sport reader!

I'm very pleased that Motor Sport seems finally to have found its niche - the upmarket, glossy feel gives it a high-quality feel as you heft it in your hands - and, though a little expensive, the price is, I think, worth it for the photography alone. One final tip: turn to the back of the magazine, and lose yourself in the classifieds. Jaguar C-types, Silver Ghosts, 1920s Le Mans cars, Sunbeam Tigers... it's all just wonderful. 

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