Tim Pollard’s just moved house. And carted half a tonne of car magazines in the process
Four hundred and something kilogrammes. That’s half a Lotus Elise, or my life’s collection of car magazines. I found this out when moving house recently – lugging dozens of cardboard boxes containing back issues of CAR and other rags I’ve picked up over the years. I couldn’t resist weighing one box and doing the maths. And that’s not even the full lot – I’m sure my complete stash of Performance Car from age 12 onwards is lurking around somewhere at my mother’s house. Come to think of it, there are more hiding under the desk at work, too.
I am a car magazine addict. I can’t throw out old car magazines. Even the bad ones. These perfect-bound and stapled collections of paper worm their way into your being. You never know when you might need to flick through CAR’s back catalogue: the supercar-frenzied There Will Never Be Another Month Like This, the front cover dominated by a lemon (our fault-prone VW Golf VR6 long-termer at the time) and the provocative musings of LJK Setright, Russell Bulgin and Gavin Green. Some of it for work research, most of it for downright enjoyment.
Of course, my better half has other ideas for my car magazine collection. Most of them starting and ending with our local recycling centre. I’d be grateful for any tips from CAR Online readers on how to persuade the family to live with my burgeoning magazine mountain. Click ‘Add comment’ below and let me know!