Ben26

yea i know

Ben26

.............now

Davemurphy007

Have their technical articles started improving to the stage where they are even vaguely accurate? FF aren't perfect either but the PF mag I bought a couple of issues ago was absolutely fucking appalling. One of the tech articles had been lifted straight out of a BMW magazine...........the final line in it was along the lines of 'if you have any questions then your BMW tuner will be able to advise' - plus a picture of a V12 crankcase with the caption 'this is what your cylinder head looks like'.

Piss poor journalism IMO. If you're going to plagiarise an article then at least have the decency to not make it blatantly fucking obvious.

Ben26

^ have u any scans or links to that one , sound funy as fuck

Rsmat

iTrader: (2)

FastFord for me im afraid...I sometimes buy Performance ford tho on rare occasions.

dojj

iTrader: (3)

i had a year off of pf as they were a bit dire, everything that you would expect of a mag to get right, they were getting wrong, from printing figures in teh wrong columns to putting white words of a cloudy background, it looked like it had been put together by a 4th year high school class

but slowly, over the past few months i've noticed a general improvement in the attention to detail, things that you don't realise but make the mag that little bit easier to read and follow and flow rather than the haphazzard way it seemed to have been put together, there seems to be an actual bit of pride going into it as well as effort so it's all good

ff though has been leaps and bounds ahead in terms of being a good read, that and the staff have been generally much more open and approchable on the internet, especially here so i feel that if you had a bit more cross communication on the forums and stuff it would soften the stance a lot of people have against th pf lot

its only my onion but i've only been collecting them for 20 odd years so i think that might count

Chopshop85

iTrader: (4)

I used to get classic ford, but i dont bother anymore as the only thing they feature is mk1 escorts. There is so many old skool fords being restored and modified and none of them get a look in that magazine. they may as well have called it "rally prepped mk1 escorts monthly"

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

Chill mr chill only having a joke. Ive got every copy of ff since 2004. Ive even bought double copys when the good old scotch corner meets were in.

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

I know what you mean mate. Ive got a saff cossie but it would do my head in if the mags only featured cossies. Tbh im not a lover of track cars. I like cars with full interiors n cd players n nice seats lol.

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

forgot to say this months ff is a cracker. I think it will be hard for pf to beat it this month.

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Fucking hell, surely thats a joke?
As above, do you have a scan of that, as although ive seen some monumental fuckups in PF over the last few years that really would take the biscuit!

Fastford for me all the way, Im probably viewed as biased anyway as I do some freelance work for the company who owns them, but even before I worked for them I found fast ford to be far more professionally produced and a much higher standard of technical writing, which TBH is why I choose them to feature my car in the first place.

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Umm, this is from my photoshoot for fast ford, as you can see, im clearly sat in the corner of a garage polishing my car at the time



Was only 350bhp or so at the time as well, the reason it got featured was they liked the fact it was home built by me and my mate from this starting point:



EVERY single person I've met who works for fastford, is properly into cars and all of them either do currently or have in the past modified their own cars, so they like people who get stuck in and do it themselves, so a home built car with a home built engine and home mapped is right up their street even if it isnt mega powerful (mine was on greens a t34!), and they liked the fact I dared to be different with the colour as well.

Thats the good thing about fast ford, they really do show all the different ends of the scale from home built stuff on a budget, to monster spec tuner built cars.

I dont like every single car they feature, and I'd put money that some of the staff feel the same way, but their true to their audience and realise that different people have different tastes so they put lots of variety in the mag. I honestly havent ever seen an issue in the last decade or so that I have been reading it that hasnt had at least one technical article I find interesting and at least a couple of cars I find interesting.

The few times Ive written articles for them Ive actually been genuinely proud to do so, I view it as a very high standard of mag to be working for.

kosman

fast ford is sweet,pf sucks arse havent bought it for years.

dojj

iTrader: (3)

surely that's pie induced oversteer chip

Ben26

well i think ill be subscribing to fast ford then.

if the link will ever work for me !

STeve

iTrader: (11)

I have also noticed PF going back to the car enthusiast roots attending meets and all manner of shows,So fair play to PF as it has been noticed by many club and meet organisers ,It just seems FF are only interested if your running mental power and have spent £1000s ,there is more to the ford scene than bhp and concourse FF so take note,

DanW@FastFord

iTrader: (1)

Have you actually read the mag? How many concours cars have we featured this year? Er... about 3. Bhp is just one of the many factors we take into account when choosing feature cars - having massive power has never been an essential requirement, and it never will be. It just helps.

We go to ALL the shows, and over the summer go to 3 meets, and at least 1 club rolling road a month. How many of PFs team were at Nat Day today - 1, how many FF staff - all of us.

By all means have your own opinion but when it's just plain wrong I'm gonna pipe up

EDIT: We went to great lengths and a lot of aggro to put the RSOC dates on our calendar, yet we rarely get invited along. If you want coverage for your club all you have to do is get in touch!

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

If i get a lot of the scotch corner regulars to come to my new meeting place will ff do a feature. I had a meet last month and got a good turnout. There must of been 30 fords easy.

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

Love u chip

DanW@FastFord

iTrader: (1)

Certainly would! Give me enough notice, and if Ade's free we'll do it!

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

thanks fella. Im still pissed off about loosing scotch corner as the venue but not to worry. Will it be ok to pm you on here cause it will be easier for me. It will properly be in april sometime.

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

thanks again fella i appreciate it.

STeve

iTrader: (11)

I have read the mag prob since it was founded ,The question was not raised which mag has the biggest cock but members opinions were asked for, and being a open internet forum it was given and for the record I used to love reading FF but in recent years its become blah blah blah another cossie or turbo powered car and as much as I love these cars you guys need to spread your wings more as so many other ford owners do not buy the mag for this reason, Im not being silly asking you to feature a rusty mk4 cortina or even do a restoration item, just cater for all areas and be a bit more diverse as Im sure the readers will enjoy it a lot more, as for the comment on piping up ! go for it thats what forums are about

DanW@FastFord

iTrader: (1)

Not a problem mate, would be glad to cover it as it's always a good turnout and it makes a nice change from these Southern shandy drinkers getting all the limelight

Sensible question (as I'm genuinely interested) - as a long term reader what would you we rather feature more of? Bare in mind we can only cover what's out there, so we can't do more Of something if no-one's building them! We also can't really go post '83ish as then it becomes Classic Fird territory.

dojj

iTrader: (3)

It's hard to quantify what makes a good feature car as I thunk what I would want to see is very rarely catered for, but they still sell and I think it covers most of thr bases.

You have to remeber that you can please most of the people most of the time and if cossies sell mags then cossies will get featured and mondeos won't

Maybe the fact that they are a bugger publication they will go to the bigger showswhere as pf is a smaller outfit and so doesn't have the budget to go to everything and concentrate on covering the things that will be sure fire features than pic and choose which things they want to put in. This thread has already prooved that more people would prefer ff over pf so you've already won half the battle.

It's not even a case of where would you go to get your car fixed, fms or Norris where one place has had a bit of a recent dip I. Expectations so it's not clear cut as that.

DanW@FastFord

iTrader: (1)

We have a crappy marquee that we chuck in the back of a hire car - PF bring a big fancy merch unit to shows!

The battle's never won - each month is a battle

danneth

PF

STeve

iTrader: (11)

We all know your number 1 in the mag scene out of the 2 quoted in this thread,and you have a captured database of cosworth and rs owners ,many really believe you are biased towards these marks and with the sort of money enthusiasts chuck at these cars I can understand why,but it does not make it right and all i would ask of you is to not be so narrow in vision , a little thinking outside the box

dangerousbrian

i used to buy both every month but always preffered ff..only bought pf really out of habit..although i did get the impression that you had to have mega horsepower or loadsa money for a feature etc i found ff had a touch of humour in their articles that always made me giggle..i stopped buying it mainly because it was featuring cars that didnt interest me or the cars that did were all much of a muchness..(cossies and the likes with nearly all the same mods)but thats fair play..they are selling to the masses not an individual..if its making money then i suppose they are doing the job right..

DanW@FastFord

iTrader: (1)

Like what though? We feature STs every issue, and whenever a suitable XR comes along we do that too. Not sure what other Fords we could do? As I said, we can only feature what's out there.

Sure our bread and butter cars are RS models, but that's because there's many more modified examples than non-RS Fords.

Seriously, show me examples of the kind of cars you're thinking about. I want to be sure we're not missing a trick!

STeve

iTrader: (11)

Dan your mag is a good one but it lacks what made the ford brand so good amongst real enthusiast thesedays, the sort who lays down in the p1ss1ng rain building their pride and joy with little more than know how, it gets boring and unreal when Mr X says I bought this from this shop and that from another shop as all that shows is they have deep pockets rather than know how,car wise heres a couple for instance which have had bucket loads of time spent on them rather than just buying bolt on power ,ones along the lines of maybe a well spec'ed GTi as there is a massive following of these low horsepower models as the amount of websites for these cars which have 1000s of members is rising or some Capri's as there were made up to 86 even saw a 1999 galaxy recently at FITP 2010 which was a low spec model originally but the owner had almost turned it into a pimp my ride car with shed loads of detailed work going into it all done by himself so the outlay was peanuts, just a few off the cuff cars thrown into the mix really now and again to break up the domination of Cosworth and RS models,

When the focus was introduced all ford cars started becoming bland and euro looking apart from the FRS models, so many fords lack character nowdays and by ford painting a few white stripes over the roof on a ST does not make them good if you get my drift ,just try and re capture imagination of a reader get them wanting to buy the mag again, as I would rather hear about joe bloggs who did not have a pot to p1ss in building a stunning ford whatever the model than someone chap with deep pockets walking into a place like Burton and ordering everything off the shelf as they have money to burn, readers will ask themself how come he did that on a small budget and it looks so good etc etc.For the record I love the Cosworth and RS brands as I have a owned a few and is why I help Jimmy out with Middx RSOC as im a car enthusiast first and why im mod and admin on a few other sites as I hear diverse opinions, and of course this is mine and its up to you if you take note or not as this was not a dig more constructive criticism.

DanW@FastFord

iTrader: (1)

I hear what you're saying but where are these cars? If there is a really nice GTi then I'll feature it, we do our best to get out there and look for cars, but if we ain't seen any, we can't feature them.

Capris are CF territory, and I've yet to see a featurable Galaxy - they're always styling based, and FF is a tuning mag, so standard engined cars don't really get a look in.

If you know of any cars that you think deserve a feature by all means point them in my direction!!

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

southern sandy drinkers eh lol. Thats right they arnt as hard as us northerners. Dan i will see when the rs central day is on in april and hopefully sort a meet out before that show. Do you know if they have a date for the rs show next year yet.

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Clearly you havent actually read many copies of fast ford, as you couldnt be further from the truth if you tried

Chip

iTrader: (3)

My car made the FRONT COVER of Fast Ford, which is about as big an honour as they can give you, and what you are asking for is exactly what my car is, other than the paint there isnt a single thing on the car or in the engine that wasnt done by me and my mates, and although I paid for the paint even that was a mate of a mate who did me a favour with it.
In fact the month after it was on the front cover me and my pensioner dad were busy changing the gearbox lieing on the snow on the driveway as the garage isnt big enough to work on the car in.

Seriously how much more "home made" could you possibly want than my car?

And look at the staff cars too, surely they're all the sort of thing you are asking for, Jamie's sierra isnt exactly a big budget tuner car or a poncy RS badged show car now is it?

STeve

iTrader: (11)

Chip come on I never stated that cosworths and some owners dont deserve to be in a mag just a bit more variety would be nice and would you be puffing out your chest so much if you owned a more basic ford, Was purely trying to put a point accross to Dan thats all, as for reading Fast Ford mags I have reads 100s thanks,one of the joys of being an old git as I have seen it all and read it,

Dan I will contact a few people I know with feature worthy cars, of course thats my opinion and pass you their details to see what you think,but really think your missing a trick in not giving some standard engined cars a look as you may get where Im coming from as Im trying to be positive not negative

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Mine says "sierra base model" on the logbook mate, its got cossie bits on it, but even on the front cover it was called a replica, this is what im trying to get you to realise, there isnt any snobbery at Fast Ford.
Here is the front page:


Even on the front page they are very clear about the fact its "only" a replica.
And look at the other stuff featured that month, it includes "how to modify the KA"
How much more down to earth can you get?!

You really are putting a lot of effort into making a point without noticing that in reality the mag already does a lot of what you are saying you want it to do.


Have you read many from the last couple of years while Dan has been in charge?



Bear in mind mate, that the magazine is called "FAST ford" so if its cars that people have done nothing to make quick, they're likely to be "off topic" for the mag.
Although of course there are more ways to be fast than a big engine, big brakes and decent suspension can make a car a lot quicker on track without needing an engine swap after all and thats stuff thats been covered extensively in the tech section recently.

dojj

iTrader: (3)

But I think what he's getting at chip is that your motor was a good few years ago and nowadays you have to spend loads to get a feature worthy car, if it's a tuning mag then you've got to get tuning and to tune you have to spend money, or get you to do it in your spare time

if money were no object we'd all be doing full body nut and bolt resto's that cost squillions but we don't, I've spent an easy £10k on the mondeo and it's not worthy of a feature unless I bolt in the focus st lump, I've spent more than £35k on the sierra an it's still sitting in front of my garage as it needs a new shell or grands spent fixing the current one before I even think about spending money to map it and get the brakes fixed etc.

I've got the money to get it done but I want to do it myself, but I can't as being a parent and needing to go to work sort of takes up most of my free time, so I fall into the nine of the above catagory.

These days, if you haven't got a few quid to throw at your car or mates who k ow what they are doing and you can vet them to help you fit that bargain big v8 engine into your motor over a weekend and a cup of tea you don't really get anywhere, so you will either get youngsters who spunk their uni fees on their cars or the older generation who have nothing etter to do and have the money to afford to get things done.

Personally, as and when I can afford to move, I'm going to buy a decent fast car the likes of an E63 and be done with this modifing lark once and for all

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Dojj, that is just nonsense too, look at Mike's transit connect that was in recently, he did that entirely himself and it didnt cost him a fortune to do it either, less than the price of buying a van a couple of years newer with a top spec diesel engine in it.

Like 1-PD you seem to be putting a lot of effort into making a point that the magazine should do things its already doing!

At the end of the day, if practically nothing was done to a car, then it wouldnt make for very interesting reading, so of course they are going to feature a lot of the stuff that has had lots of mods done to it, but they do also feature a smaller number of more down to earth cars just like you are asking for, Mike's van was only a few months ago so you cant say that it was only cause mine was 5 years ago that home made or cheaper cars were included as they still are being!

STeve

iTrader: (11)

Chip all are valid points and they were not missed honest,and your car is a credit to you

Dojj = nail on the head