The Intercooler App

[mik]

No affiliation - public service announcement only. (Unless you follow ANYONE from the car world on Twitter - in which case you have already seen copious retweets I am sure).

App launched today. £4.99/month or £49.99/year, but first month free regardless.

I’ve downloaded it and will see if it is any good / whether I actually find time to read any of it.

https://www.theintercooler.co.uk/

Some good writers there (Catchpole, Goodwin) but I just spotted Andrew English - who took over from Peter Dron as editor of Fast Lane magazine 327 years ago and absolutely ruined it - for which I have never forgiven him.

[Marv]

No affiliation - public service announcement only. (Unless you follow ANYONE from the car world on Twitter - in which case you have already seen copious retweets I am sure).

App launched today. £4.99/month or £499.99/year, but first month free regardless.

I’ve downloaded it and will see if it is any good / whether I actually find time to read any of it.

https://www.theintercooler.co.uk/

Some good writers there (Catchpole, Goodwin) but I just spotted Andrew English - who took over from Peter Dron as editor of Fast Lane magazine 327 years ago and absolutely ruined it - for which I have never forgiven him.

Yearly subscribers must be punished, for some reason?

[mik]

Now corrected.

Although they could have got away with it if it wasn’t for you pesky Marv.

[Foz]

Drivers republic anyone?

At least the tech now allows it, I canned my evo sub as wasn’t reading and various house moves etc but there’s so much free content now!

[Foz]

Just had a quick look at the writers, someone pretty well heeled is clearly funding this venture, good luck to them!

[Jobbo]

I am torn. Magazines going online shouldn't need their own app; there's an existing ecosystem of news readers (Apple Newsstand for instance). Going their own way looks like a folly. They also say it'll be updated on a rolling basis, but that means there's no defined point at which the content becomes available each week/month so it becomes far more casual than buying a mag and spending a couple of hours reading it. Casual does not sit comfortably with paying for content, not when Autocar, Evo et al put so many of their reviews online and you get good videos from so many Youtubers as well; live content is just a game they're going to lose.

Having said that, Mel Nicholls, Peter Robinson and Colin Goodwin are on board? Fab, I'd be interested just for them. It does have the feel of being the right people. If this venture can have a bit of what made Car great in the 80s and Autocar in the 90s then it'll succeed based on content. Which is doubtless the way Prosser and Frankel's though process went, but I hope they aren't just going to sell to nostalgic middle-agers like me

[Foz]

I agree, the yoof ain't signing up and paying...

The names you mention mean nothing to me, its the performance car/evo guys who I remember from my formative years, late 90's onwards.

[Pete_]

I like the idea, but my only mobile device is my phone which I don't really want to read long form journalism on. If I had a tablet it would be much better.

Will still sigh up at least for the first month and see how I get on. I do like their Instagram / podcast but never got around to joining the Patreon, so might just consider it a donation for those and get the app content for free.

[Jobbo]

I like the idea, but my only mobile device is my phone which I don't really want to read long form journalism on.

I always thought that, but when I read a newspaper recently (might have been Private Eye actually) I pinched the page to try to zoom it

I still don't think I'd want to pay just to read it on a phone. There's a way to read it on your PC apparently; wouldn't that just be a website...?

[MikeHunt]

The app doesn’t seem to be quite as polished as the Athletic (sports magazine). I suppose it’s all about the content and they have some interesting journos onboard worth a free month at the very least.

[tim]

I like their snappy IG post reviews, but this does really rather smell of WE NEED AN APP! before anyone stopped to think why.

[Jobbo]

Anyone else unsubscribed already? I’m just not interested in going to a dedicated app so never read it. Instagram stories were a clever idea, not sure it translates well.

[mik]

That’s well timed - I opened the app about an hour ago purely because I realised I hadn’t opened it since the day after I downloaded it.

I looked at some of the stories but couldn’t be bothered reading anything.... so I guess that defines things for me too. I like Dan too.

[Jobbo]

Bumping this because they offered a 30% subscription discount on Monday and now I'm fairly used to reading Autocar online, I thought I'd give it a go. Every now and again over the last three years I've spotted that there's an article I'd like to read but can't, and they have a growing list of contributors - many of whom I know and love from the old glory days of Car magazine in the 80s and 90s.

Their podcast is sufficiently boring that it nearly put me off, but in print both Prosser and Frankel are much better. I've read quite a few articles now and am impressed; I'd recommend the month's free trial (I had one when it launched but they don't seem to mind me having another before my paid sub starts); there's plenty of reading material to keep you busy now.

I'm not sure there is quite as much existing content as I would have expected for a title which has been going for nearly 4 years, so maybe the updates will be slow; we'll see. But at the moment it has a nice mix of new stuff, old cars, revisiteds and articles which aren't just road tests (development stories, background etc). I haven't ever quite gelled with the pretentiousness of The Road Rat; TI is far more the sort of publication people on this forum would enjoy, I think.