IMO, very few of the magazines cater to the biggest crowd. They all seem to cater to the "1%" if you will. I don't know anybody who can afford a 100K dollar build, yet that's what most of the magazines today have in them.
Also, I absolutely DETEST the fact that magazines push the hell out of sponsors products that hardly any of us regular guys can afford, while they are either getting said products for free, or at extremely reduced rates for pushing said products and running ads. It's all become a money game. One that I've had no part in for the better part of 20 years.
Car Craft used to cater to the regular guy and build stuff on real shoestring budgets. I remember the big block Dart they built and ran great numbers with and it had a large steel band hose clamp holding the transmission tail shaft to the cross member. Course they fixed it right, but they did what they had to, to meet the deadline and get it in print for all of us to see.
I also remember one magazine literally pulling a 360 from a junkyard, putting it in a car with more and more No2 in an effort to blow it up. They went fast, but never blew the engine.
People can learn from stuff like that. Like "How to build a car for 2500 Bucks" and things like that. If they start supporting what most people can afford, they might start selling books again.
I think the most I ever subscribed to was maybe four at one time. That was a very long time ago. Through the years, I lost interest because the goals in those books were far out of my reach, or anyone I knew.
I'll be damned if I'll subscribe to any again unless someone comes out with a newspaper style page, non glossy, bare bones cheap *** magazine that has tips and tricks for most anyone's budget and doesn't cater to the sponsors so heavily. I know they have to have sponsors. But having ads literally every page is ridiculous, along with trumped up dyno numbers just to make those parts look good.
Somebody comes out with a magazine like that and I might be in for it. Otherwise, they ain't getting my money.