NEW RIDES. SWEET.
Judging from the latest crop of car magazines, the auto industry behaves just like any other industry when it comes to a hot new product. In the car world, the equivalent of the iPhone is Infiniti’s new G37 coupe.
Car and Driver is for everyone from the total gearhead to the more casual enthusiast. Big on making road tests interesting by comparing vehicles to their peers, the magazine ratchets things up by doing so-called “comparos” of various classes of sports cars. The highlight of the magazine is a road test of the updated Infiniti G37, which the magazine claims is a worthy contender against the benchmark of the class – the BMW 335i coupe. Another plus: the photos of the cars will make even a hybrid driver salivate.
Road & Track is aimed more toward the race car driver in all of us. It treats us to comparisons of a range of high-end coupes, including head-to-head battles between the BMW 335i and the Infiniti G37 and the ultra-luxury Bentley Continental GT and the Mercedes-Benz CL600. The only real drawback is the fact that the articles about these sweet rides are not supported by equally compelling photos.
Automobile shows its loyalty to European cars, coming out for the BMW 335i in its fight with the Infiniti G37. Despite the shaky economy, the magazine remains optimistic about sales – at least for the 32 sports cars it features in its cover package on the motoring good life. One featured model is the Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupé, which it calls “the most amazing convertible on the planet.”
Motor Trend, always a friend to the Civic and Kia gas misers, was also seduced by the Rolls-Royce Phantom convertible, relishing in a first-person story about what it’s like to push one hard. Motor Trend sides with the Infiniti proclaiming, “The King Is Dead!”
New York is turning out to be the true chronicler of the city’s media circus, with stories on embattled CBS news anchor Katie Couric and former Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin. After failing to lift the “Evening News” out of third place, Couric admits she sometimes asks herself, “Oh, my God, what did I do?” Levin lets the mag inside his California sanctuary for stressed-out public figures and discloses he and his wife want to open a branch in New York.
Time seems to have shaken off the dust. The newsweekly balances serious topics with lighter fare, making the transition from the science of addiction and the bungled London bombings to a profile of “Transformers” star Shia LaBeouf effortlessly.
Newsweek covers a lot of political ground but not much of it comes off as particularly new. The mag asks whether Barack Obama is “black enough.” Considering how much money he is raising, maybe it should be asking, “Who really cares?”