Nick Larkin
Our Nick reminisces about the launch of Popular Classics.
Ah, the happy days of 1989. Yes, we know they knocked down some wall in Berlin without planning permission, but the true event of the year was a fine bouncing baby magazine, born to proud parents in Peterborough, and christened Popular Classics.
The carefully chosen, talented editorial team – and I managed to get in there, too! – had the opportunity of a lifetime, courtesy of publishers EMAP. We had the summer to develop the magazine from scratch, with a virtually unlimited budget.
They even let us – surely madness, but what joy! – each have a classic company car, to the value of a Ford Fiesta. Please come back, concours MGB GT V8, registration number BNF 333N!
Having limited column inches here, it’s impossible to sum up the next seven glorious years, but here are some of the highlights: interviewing an all-time hero, designer Gerald Palmer, at his Oxfordshire home; championing the cause of the BL ‘Wedge’, an owners’ club eventually being formed; spreading the Popular Classics word at roadshows nationwide and admiring a beautiful 1968 Aston Martin DB6 in sky blue with red hide interior at Hurst Park Automobiles, advertised in the December 1994 issue (with a £28,500 price tag...); flames lapping around the engine bay of a road-test Ford Anglia; the Hillman Super Minx bought for £600 complete with badly welded front suspension wishbone that snapped driving over a kerb; and the Triumph GT6 halfshaft that disintegrated while crossing a busy Sussex A-road.
I still shudder at the worst malfunction – the steering wheel of a Lotus Seven coming off in my hands while I was leading a formation of cars on what was about to be a high-speed tracking shot at Chobham test track.
Are there any former readers out there who remember us bumping into the cast of Last of the
Summer Wine in Yorkshire, who were delighted to join in our photoshoot?
The DVLA says DJK 300, our 1956 Austin Westminster A105 competition prize that I fell wildly in love, with, is now a black Audi diesel...
Where are they now?
Having just spoken to virtually all the original team (we failed abysmally to get together for a reunion in the summer, but it is going to happen soon) I can reveal that launch editor Mike Nicks recently returned to his native West Country and is taking a rest, deputy editor Paul Clark is editorial director of Redhouse Creative, managing editor Martin ‘Warhorse’ Hodder is now 80 and about to get wed, columnist Malcolm Bates edits a magazine about dustcarts, original staff writer Robert Davies is still freelancing and designer Gerrard Noble is still designing. We are still in touch with lovely editorial assistant Emma Taylor.
Of later recruits, deputy editor Mark Dixon is deputy editor of Octane magazine and editor Russ Smith is, of course, a regular contributor to Practical Classics.
One thing we all agree on is that working on Popular Classics was a highlight of our lives. Thanks to everyone who made it possible, including the most loyal readers any magazine could ever have.
Something even I find difficult to fully explain is the true essence of Popular Classics – but the lovingly-crafted warm World of Wolseley syrup tin of pure, tingly, heartwarming nostalgia combined with a down-to-earth approach and sense of fun must have helped – it certainly made us the best-selling classic magazine in Australia and caused grown men to ring the office in tears when it was announced that the July 1996 issue would be the last.
But all was not lost – the mag was merged with some publication called Practical Classics, where the spirit of Popular lives on – not least with the sense of community here at PC. But even today, I hardly ever attend an event without someone asking me why on earth the original Popular can’t be brought back.
‘The spirit of Popular Classics lives on here’