Jump to content

CMV October Issue 185


Bob Grundy

Recommended Posts

Just adding my thoughts to the mix - no criticism or anything, just thoughts.

Have you looked at the likes of "Practical Classics" - this is the other mag I get on monthly subscription. For me there are a couple of definite draws in reading this one that perhaps are missing but could be added to CMV:

1) They have a regular readers vehicles section - 2 to 4 pages of short stories of readers restorations, either completed or in progress.

2) As well as the professional restorations there are full readers restorations of vehicles - and there is a big difference between people struggling in damp and draughty garages - or even gardens/yards and the professionals in dry workshops.

3) Readers - as well as reporters - accounts of entries on vehicle rallies (not rally sport or racing).

 

Would the future of CMV lend itself to such forms of articles?

 

 

Practical Classics? Yes, I have read this on and off since it started. I still have Issue 1 somewhere...

Readers' Restos? Happy to feature them - 100%

As a bloke who has to do jobs outside, I have a lot of sympathy for others in the same boat so again 100%

Vehicle Rallies? It is of no consequence who writes a report to me. We're all in this together so readers' reports are equally as valid as 'reporters'' but you may find that many of the 'reporters' are readers who have typed something up and submitted it. That said, I am going to do away with many of the shallow, page-filling, event reports with captions that say things like 'there was plenty to buy from the stalls'... Thanks Artists Rifles

Edited by Jolly Jeeper
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Please see my comments at post #12!

 

The dreary some potted histories of well known vehicle types is particularly irksome and just blatant word count padding.

A mag for enthusiasts really DOES NOT need to preach the origin details of vehicles that even the average school boy would be familiar with.

 

Also smacking of word count padding is what I shall describe as the lemming like "highlighted exert" (no idea what this is officially termed) which has plagued the magazine reader for the last couple of decades. It consists of a coloured block with words in large font that are an exert of usually 1/2 to a full sentence from within the article. If the reader has read those words once already in the article, why repeat them out of context a 2nd time?

This may fly as a tactic in a high school essay, but does the jounalistic world really think it fools the average reader and that we don't recognise it for other than what it really is?

 

Oh, by the way, it would be really nice if you are going to have a photo of yourself with/in a vehicle; that takes up a goodly % of the available space allocated to the editorial ("Despatches" article), that you CHANGE IT, each edition!

Using the same photo of the editor sitting in the driver's seat of an FV 432 every edition does get rather deja vu and suggests self promotion combined with either editorial indifference or laziness.

 

Good luck, best wishes and glad to see that you are open to suggestions and can take criticism (which is actually aimed at your

predecessors really). Hopefully you will sweep clean as the new broom and morph CMV into something that is worth purchasing.

 

Regards

Doug

Edited by dgrev
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Good luck, best wishes and glad to see that you are open to suggestions and can take criticism (which is actually aimed at your

predecessors really). Hopefully you will sweep clean as the new broom and morph CMV into something that is worth purchasing.

 

Regards

Doug

 

The new broom is already in use on Issue 189!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The new broom is already in use on Issue 189!

189? As someone who subscribed from the launch in June 2001 until earlier this year, when I cancelled subscription as I had finally given up hope of it improving, I will we be looking out for the February 2017 edition.

 

I enjoyed the way Windscreeen changed, and know CMV is different, but good luck with the new role.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

Just received issue 194 seriously underwhelming. A test drive in a jeep, really, isn't there anything more interesting happening in the mv world. Anyway, as I scanned through and realised, as I looked at the amount of adverts, that I was loosing the will to live, I came up with an idea. Why not put the adverts into a separate supplement, that way we could put that section straight into the bin along with all the other waste pamphlets that we get for free inside, just like the Sunday paper. I cancelled my subscription to Classic land Rover last week, looks like this might be the next cancellation.

 

 

Jon

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yerrs.....It does seem a bit dowdy but have not read it all yet. However the photo on page 80 shows a Morris Commercial that resembles a CS8. I have never seen one like this; odd looking radiator, headlamps too high and the bonnet has a centre panel where there should be one hinge, no n/s aero screen but the rad does have the MCC badge under the paint. All very weird.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The new broom has had a few issues now to make a difference.

 

The May 2017 is the most recent I have here in Oz.

I found the Kübelwagen history was interesting and extensive.

Not sure that this magazine is the place for a short article in the "News" section about M1A1 Abrams being fitted with reactive armor, plus other current vehicle snippets. We are collectors of obsolete HMVs. If we really wanted to read about the latest vehicle mods we would be buying Defence Weekly or such.

 

Credit where credit is due, I note that Richard F's gripe about low contrast text on photos has been noted and not repeated. Every photo that had text on it had sufficient contrast to be legible. Although the white text on a mid or dark background is a bit demanding on the eyes.

 

There does seem to be a W&T feel to the articles on WW1 trucks and obscure Italian (Vespa TAP) and French vehicles (Panhard 178). Not sure how much interest there is in the latter, but it is an attempt at variety and I get the impression from the posts here, that is what the readership would like.

 

A lot of self controlled must have been exerted to result in the minimal amount of text devoted to Jeeps and Landies. ;-)

 

I note the "highlighted exert" (I commented on it in post #27) went away for the first issue and then immediately came back

the following issue. Which does suggest that the editor may have got a rap over the knuckles for deviating from the official formula. That being the case, I don't envy him his job. If the readership are letting their displeasure be known here, but if those on high are dictating the corporate policy, we all know who triumphs in that battle.

 

Traditional media is suffering an identity crisis in the era of instant information, so no doubt this will be an ongoing area of interest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the latest edition of CMV July 2017 Issue 194, there is an interesting article on the Carden-Loyd VI tankette. Although near to the end of the piece there occurs an interesting sentence, 'About 200 British Army tankettes served in the defence of the Dyle-Namur line in Belgium in 1940.' I find this figure much to high as Carden-Loyd VI tankettes had already been withdrawn from front line service from the mid-thirties up to the beginning of the Second World War, being replaced by various carrier types. Granted there might well have been as many as 20 or so parked up in neglected corners of depots in the UK and Empire, but there was certainly none charging along the Western Front. I think the author has confused the 277 tractors produced by Vickers Carden-Loyd for the Belgian Army with these mythical 200 British Army tankettes.

 

CMV also produced an enlightening feature September2013 (Issue 148) about a Vickers Carden-Loyd Utility Tractor that the owner believed had served with BEF. It is an article well worth reading but not for the faint hearted or those seekers of accuracy, of note is the use of the word 'believe.'

Edited by Whittingham warrior
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I reckon that there is good reading in CMV. Tim Gosling's First World War and James Kinnear's Soviet articles are always interesting. The monthly museum slot is useful too - I would not have thought to revisit the air museum in Sunderland without a prod from CMV.

 

John.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...