Printed items and diecasts are worth the rememberance, just don’t get lost in it.
Honestly, the reason one would buy brochures, magazines and general printed media for their car in current times is to haolian (show off) and present it with your car at meets.
From an archivist angle, buying printed media is to both own the item (which is optional) and then have it scanned for future-proofing just in case the media is completely lost forever one day. This piece of worst-case scenarios happen often in limited-market cars, or disposable-mentality countries like Singapore.
Singaporean materials are on the harder side to find, although always not impossible, happily. An interesting thing is that some of these media can randomly find their way in other countries. This early 1990s Singapore Motoring magazine was found on Japanese Yahoo Auctions.
For one, those who want to occupy themselves if they have too much time to spend can go on the rabbit hunt for finding these printed materials. Be it auctions, marketplace and what not, there’s definitely a slight bit of fun at a minimum to come across something at a nice price or elusive or lost media from time to time.
But as someone who has jumped into this moneypit, printed materials are honestly pointless in general apart from a 15 minute read at best and a 20 second glance at least, but its a huge compliment to the real car, whether you have it or not.
It isn’t always pointless. These printed materials are also a product of their respective time of production, which would be ideal for direct inspiration if copying a stylized build from a specific era.
For some cars, the right materials mean you are accessing the available optional parts or rare factory specifications that, with the mindset of doing a car up to a OEM or OEM+ spec, is more than ideal for sourcing inspiration, part numbers, and more.
Magazines like Hyper-Rev detail builds and an entire catalogue of parts for specific models, whilst brochures like MUGEN detail their bits and pieces for the respective cars they support. These brochures can also provide alternative parts if a part used in a build is unavailable due to high demand or prices such as alternative exhaust systems.
Not to mention that some magazines such as MotorFan will also provide interviews with designers and people in the respective car companies that they are focusing on, which is a super good read into what ideas went into a particular car. Tuning magazines also do this plus interviews of owners with their modified cars.
I wager that if you’re a creative person, these magazines are also good material to study some design for your own projects. I have incorporated some elements from other magazines into my own works from time to time, and they’re a great inspiration to work with.
If you are looking to buy them, I strongly suggest not poisoning yourself to the point of collecting religiously. These can command anywhere from less than a dollar SGD, or stretch to 300SGD in some instances. If you cannot justify spending on “marked up” stuff in book stores, there is hardly a chance to justify spending the money on these materials.
For the Japanese side of the market, they’re right around this price but do factor in the shipping costs. Some companies such as Doorzo do allow consolidation which can cut down on shipping costs (one shipment vs several), but prices can easily strech beyond 100SGD with only a few orders.
Importation isn’t always necessary with off-the-shelf magazines from retail stores, but it no doubt will limit what is available.
Still, the best way to go about collecting is to just collect in moderation, because unless you’re an avid reader (which I haven’t found anyone in the car community to be), these printed materials will really just be a white elephant.
This applies with diecasts too, except people only look at it for at least a second and five at most. Diecasts are a slightly different but more common things around cars.
They’re a more accepted version of self-expression of collecting models of your liking and displaying them. Having collected a few hundred myself, these are also a way of self-expression.
It also is an early entry to car-ownership in a way. Some feature customization – plate numbers can be added or even parts for some models, giving these models a video-game like customization experience. Its a nice way to experience car culture early, without fussing with the real thing yet.
Unforunately for some countries like Singapore where ownership is nothing but a dream for many, these diecast cars become a replacement to real cars. I completely understand the rationale of being interested in cars but only willingly dealing with diecasts – it is an expensive hobby but not often is it more expensive than local car ownership.
Its an unfortunate hobby, cars. The barrier to entry gets higher and more unreachable globally, and worse for some, like Singapore. But, these materials and things can act as a piece of motivation to keep working towards those goals.
~Efini
Read more: Fuel for Thought: Video game car ownership is more fun than the real counterpart
