Unless you’ve been living in a small, dark, media-unfriendly cave community for the past decade, you’ll probably know that the TopGear brand has become a worldwide phenomenon. For my part, I’ve worked on TopGear Magazine for the last eight years, and seen the printed product grow into the largest automotive magazine in the UK. Since I started, our global business has developed exponentially: we now publish 23 international editions covering 45 countries. We sell an average of one million magazines a month worldwide. Big stats.
Which means we must be doing something right. So why change it? Well, the answer is simple: we may be doing a commercially successful job, and yes, we have a fantastically loyal readership that loves the product to death. But we think they deserve more.
The starting point was a great deal of research, giving us the opportunity to get a deeper understanding of what the standing readership really wanted. And while it showed that readers were still enjoying the product, it also showed there was room to redevelop and refine, to ultimately deliver more value.
We’ve been busy. Every page has been redesigned and developed with a new font set, immediately making the product feel less cluttered and more contemporary. The section titles themselves have been changed to make them more explicit, so that where before we had sections entitled ‘Metal’, ‘Faces’, ‘Gear’ and ‘Drives’, we now have ‘The News’, ‘Planet TopGear’, ‘Gear & Gadgets’ and ‘First Drives’.
‘The News’ is the TopGear take on new and coming-soon cars that our readers need to know about. If you read or watch TG, you become part of a club, and 'The News' is specifically edited to feature only the products that we know our readers will be interested in, backed up by a cleaner, more structured layout that makes the section easy to access and visually impactful.
‘Planet TopGear’ is our monthly round up of car culture, featuring the monthly columns from Jeremy, James and Richard as well as a stream of fascinating regulars. In addition to their columns, James and Richard have further regular contributions, with Richard reviewing a monthly iconic classic (this month a Lamborghini Countach, next a more prosaic Ford Escort Mexico) and James contributing monthly pieces on ‘Engineering that chaps should know about’ – subjects close to the authors’ hearts that also appeal to our readership. Retro-car and engineering content with a TopGear twist.
‘Gear and Gadgets’ does exactly what it infers: a review section that gives us the opportunity to showcase the peripheral hardware associated with car culture, and now features regular App and wristwatch review panels.
As for the rest, ‘First Drives’ - the bedrock testing element of the issue - has been expanded. From here on in, there’ll be an even greater depth of opinion, on even more cars and in more fabulous detail. The regular reviews are now complemented by a more in-depth specification panel, giving us the flexibility to deliver even more sought-after TopGear opinion.
One thing that remains largely the same is the world-class features section. Everything from epic drives in the hottest new cars to consumer testing, via James May setting World records and Richard Hammond giving us the low down on the latest Porsche, and Jeremy Clarkson shouting vociferously somewhere in-between.
And finally, the TopGear new car buying guide’s independent and authoritative opinion will make sure you steer clear of the rubbish. Completely redesigned and now featuring editorial panels offering advice on rivals and new entries, along with Clarkson’s entertaining and divisive opinion on every manufacturer, the data section really is the place to go if you want the low-down on the second biggest purchase of your life.
So why change TopGear Magazine? Simple answer: because we knew we could make it better. And I promise you this is only the beginning – the magazine will develop in the UK and internationally in 2011. Meantime, I’ll leave you in the capable hands of a certain J.Clarkson: “You want to know about cars. You want to see the best pictures. You want to read the best words. You are in the right place.”
