As long as many of car addicts love to read many kind of car magazines. We have to admit that there are tons of car magazines available in the market now and I am confident that all of them has a section called “Test Drive” or “Car Review” or something like that.
However, as car magazine addicted person, I have read a lot of car magazines and find out that what elements that good test drive section should have so we can define what is the ideal information that we need from that section.
But first of all, may I emphasize that there are big different between car magazines, in terms of physical and all detail inside. Therefore, there are no standard conclusion apply to all magazines in order to judge whether they have good test drive section. However, it is your own judgement by using this guidelines.
What is “Test Drive” section
It is a place where they have a person who called him/herself as a writer or expert in the area of car test drive to test one or more of car models. After they have tested that car models then they come to write how they feel about those cars as well as give some recommendations to people who may want to by a car, especially of the model that have just tested
What are ideal elements that good test drive section should have?
Author of the section
In my opinion, this is the most important element that we have to focus on. The reputation of the author is something that we can rely on and this can guarantee that we will get concrete and reliable information. However, it is not just the reputation, it is also about experience of the author as well. I am talking about some of the author may be a specialist in only specific car type of model. For example, he might be expert for MPV cars meanwhile some other may be expert only in sport cars. So you have to see if which type of car that has been tested by which author. The author who expert in spot cars may not give accurate information if he has tested a MPV or SUV cars.
Features of the car that has been tested.
This is also important to us if we are reading test drive section. From many years of experience reading a lot of car magazines, I have discovered that many of car magazines lack of information about the full features of a car that has been tested. It looks like only a car advertisement from car manufacturer, which only provide information about colour, model and prices. This is really wasted of my time to read this kind of test drive section. So you have to make sure that they have something for you to read, apart from the basic information from the advertisement.
Suggestion and recommendations
This section is very important, apart from what I have mentioned above. Of course, writer should give something in return to readers such as opinion or suggestion about the car that has been tested so readers can get some ideas, especially if they are about to make decision to buy a car.
