![](\"https:\/\/media.autoexpress.co.uk\/image\/private\/s--3qwlmJV9--\/f_auto,t_related-embed-mobile@1\/v1695825184\/autoexpress\/2023\/09\/Opinion%20-%20AEX%20covers.jpg\")
\u201cAuto Express broke the mould in 1988 and still leads the way today\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nMyself and my fellow founding fathers had backgrounds in either newspapers or car magazines \u2013 or in my case, a bit of both, having served time as a departmental editor on Motor Trader and Motor, and motoring correspondent at London\u2019s Evening News. However, we weren\u2019t branding specialists, so didn\u2019t know what to call the mag we hoped to launch by Autumn. That\u2019s why we gave it only a working title: Auto Express.<\/p>\n
More than a third of a century later, the name and the magazine remain alive and kicking. And because I\u2019ve been around since before day one, subsequently lost all my hair and acquired a pipe and slippers, I\u2019m the only journalist left from those planning and launch days. Most media-industry \u2018experts\u2019 and a few auto-industry snobs predicted we\u2019d survive a month. Some 420 months later, Auto Express magazine retains its position as Britain\u2019s best-selling weekly car mag and now boasts one of the world\u2019s biggest car websites. Not bad, eh?<\/p>\n
Back then, life was simpler, fairer, more tolerant of drivers. Anyone aged 17 or older and armed with just a few hundred quid was rightly praised for having enough get up and go to put a foot on the motoring ladder by booking a few lessons, passing their test, then buying a perfectly usable second-hand car, a third party, fire and theft insurance policy and a few gallons of leaded petrol. We \u2013 Britain\u2019s self-reliant motorists, young and old \u2013 appreciated the benefits of 24\/7 freedom of movement that afforded us better social lives and the ability to drive to work rather than rely on iffy buses, trains and other much-hyped \u2018alternative\u2019 modes of transport that many misguided politicians and eco-mentalists have become evangelically obsessed with.<\/p>\n
Late-eighties\/early-nineties Conservative Transport Ministers, including Peter Bottomley and Christopher Chope, occasionally popped into our office\/pub\/Chinese cafe complex. Conversely, Labour\u2019s punchy Secretary of State for Transport and hypocrite-in-chief, John \u2018Two Jags\u2019 Prescott, almost chinned me after insisting I interview him on a rancid bus, on which he objected to my entirely accurate observation that he hadn\u2019t paid his bloody fare!<\/p>\n
Another Labour Transport Minister was Steve Byers \u2013 who couldn\u2019t drive. Honest. Years later, the Conservative\/Lib-Dem Coalition wheeled out its version of a transport secretary: Norman Baker, the only car owner I\u2019ve met who was so disinterested in the subject matter that he genuinely and hopelessly didn\u2019t know the make and model of the vehicle he drove.<\/p>\n
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Of the Prime Ministers I briefly interviewed, I thought Tony Blair was a bit creepy, and spoke but said absolutely nothing; John Major seemed clueless and just sounded and looked knackered; and when I said to David Cameron \u201cAre you a friend of the motorist?\u201d, he cleverly\/deviously replied that he was (past tense).<\/p>\n
Motorist-loathing matters then went from bad to worse. Intolerance for, and taxing of, drivers intensified via measures such as a higher (20 per cent) VAT rate on cars, cynical \u2018congestion\u2019 charges, and revenue-raising speed cameras.<\/p>\n
London Labour Mayor Khan\u2019s extended-ULEZ racket that followed a decade or so later was the most blatant example ever of motoring being used as a political football, while also pricing countless motorists off the road. Equally disgraceful: Khan and others said car exhausts were the No.1 cause of poor air quality \u2013 despite the fact that they\u2019re not.<\/p>\n
A VW Polo could be bought new in 1988 for \u00a35,697. That\u2019s equivalent to \u00a315,081 today, says the Bank of England\u2019s inflation calculator, yet the cheapest Polo now is \u00a320,070. But if you think that\u2019s bad, the median price of a new car in 2023 is \u00a341,000, which is unaffordable for the majority of private motorists.<\/p>\n
Insurance costs have gone the same way as new-car list prices. I\u2019m more convinced than ever that wide-boy insurers unscientifically invent prices as they go along in the hope and expectation that enough mug punters will pay up. It\u2019s a similar deal on petrol-station forecourts, where some companies have long been charging obscenely high prices for fuel. The most consumer-unfriendly brand I\u2019ve spotted recently is BP, which has greedily facilitated pump prices of \u00a310 per gallon\/\u00a32.20 a litre.<\/p>\n
Driving in continental Europe is no longer the joy it was, due to unpleasant channel crossings plus uncompromising French traffic cops demanding cash from drivers accused of minor offences. As for airport car-rental desks, they\u2019re now my idea of hell.<\/p>\n
Disappearing acts have included everything from Ford\u2019s vehicle factories in the UK (Dagenham is a shadow of its former self, just making engines), to MG Rover\u2019s jinxed Longbridge site and Honda Swindon. Equally tragic is how the organisers of what was (but is no more) The Greatest Motor Show on Earth \u2013 Geneva \u2013 were forced to cowtow to mounting pressure and cancel the Swiss event in 2020, transferring it to Qatar. They say they\u2019ll be back in Geneva next year. Let\u2019s see…<\/p>\n
Among my top heroes and disruptors were and still are Sir Stirling Moss (RIP you lovely person), Peugeot CEO Linda Jackson, Goodwood\u2019s Earl of March, brilliant but odd Elon Musk, and ahead-of-his-time Daewoo founder Woo-choong Kim. Villains include VW\u2019s Dieselgate mob and Nissan\u2019s Carlos Ghosn, now a fugitive and my least favourite industry bloke I ever had the displeasure of meeting.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere in the magazine you\u2019ll find endless exciting examples of the greatest cars since \u201988. But if I had to name just 3.5 modest, but historically significant, models of the last 35 years I\u2019d opt for the affordable sports car (MX-5), the breakthrough hybrid (Prius), the first EV for the masses (Leaf) and the ultimate quadricycle (Ami).<\/p>\n
The most important and successful car-producing countries on the world stage between 1988 and 2023? First Japan and Germany, more lately South Korea, today China. America, with its obsession with pick-up trucks, rather than cars, isn\u2019t even in the mix.<\/p>\n
During the recent past and for the next several years, pure-petrol and petrol hybrid cars from several continents will continue to rule. But by the time Auto Express approaches, then reaches, its 50th birthday in 2038, UK showrooms will be utterly dominated by EVs \u2013 many of them from Asian brands we haven\u2019t yet heard of, some of which will have about as much individuality, visual appeal, and style as today\u2019s mobile phones. But hey\u2026 that\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n
Click here to\u00a0subscribe to Auto Express now for just \u00a31…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nSource: Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a founding father of Auto Express, Mike Rutherford is uniquely placed to look back at changes in its lifetime<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240322,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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