Exotics in Ink Our favorite carmakers do magazines, too
post-Brexit. Or buy a car — prices start at barely more than $100,000 — and get the magazine for free. Or skip the car and the nice paper, and read AM online at no charge.
Ferrari recently reformatted its print magazine and shortened its title to simply TOFM, The Official Ferrari Magazine. The coffee table “plop factor” is still there, though, and the glitz, gloss, velocity and car coverage are nearly ruthless — no British understatement here. UBS, the Swiss bank, speaks directly to Ferrari owners in its ad: Under a photo of a grizzled-but-still-manly dude at the helm of a sailing yacht, the tagline reads, “Is 60 the new 40?” Thanks to car prices north of $200,000, Ferrari buyers skew older; and I’ve heard rumors that some people, often men, buy sports cars, often red, in order to feel younger. Three stories in issue No. 32 concern famously successful males of a certain age — actor Peter Sellers, rocker Roger O’Donnell, diamond merchant Francois Graff — and their love affairs with Ferrari. Other articles focus on new models and what buyers can expect from them, or interesting places to visit in them. (Azerbaijan, anyone, for the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Europe?) There’s a great deal of red, some of it wine.
It’s not without humor, though. Six of these 148 pages are given to a story — titled “Brickwork” — about a Ferrari copied in 1,158 Lego blocks. Subscriptions are available online at magazine.ferrari.com. Three hefty issues a year, including a 246-page annual yearbook, cost an also-hefty $285. Or buy a car and get the magazine free. Or skip the car, save the trees and read TOFM online for free, in seven different languages and with video.
For all their editorial quality, AM, TOFM, Christophorus (Porsche) and so on are largely ego trips. The Star, Mercedes-Benz’s 61-year-old glossy, is something else: A true community-building magazine dedicated to helping owners, would-be owners and fans understand their cars, new and old. I’ve never owned a Merc, but as a lifelong magazine and car guy, I get The Star because it’s that good. It even has a “Trading Post” of classified ads for previously loved cars. Who knows — read it long enough, and I might even fall for one. Subscribe by joining the Mercedes-Benz Club of America at mbca.org. A year’s dues cost $55, for which we receive six authoritative issues.