The following statement was issued by Cars in Action magazine"s Michele Lupini:

Firstly though, we’d like to address a little confusion regarding the perception in particular of Cars in Action magazine. It happens all too often that we get feedback from ad agencies, marketing folk and PRs that a particular vehicle ‘is not a performance car and thus does not fit in with Cars in Action’s profile…’

That is not true at all. Cars in Action is not a performance magazine. Cars in Action is a car magazine and indeed the only title in South African dedicated only to cars. We leave the bakkie & truck info to our dedicated Bakkie & Truck Action magazine…

In fact Cars in Action is no more a ‘performance magazine than Car or TopCar – look at the covers and content of those titles and you will quickly notice that they are little different in intent to Cars in Action. In fact we basically always compete with them for content and covers.

But both those titles and others seem to always qualify for general motoring advertising when so many advertisers use a lack of a product’s performance orientation against Cars in Action when placing less performance-oriented car ads…

We feel that isn’t quite fair and we urge you to reconsider Cars in Action’s positioning as a general car magazine that’s dedicated to all kinds of cars, rather than just performance models…

We’d greatly appreciate it if you could consider that aspect next time you discuss strategy internally – we feel that too many carmakers and other advertisers are missing out on so many great opportunities in Cars in Action simply because you are perceiving the magazine to be too performance-oriented, when it is indeed just as middle of the road as any of our rival titles…

Please call or contact me any time if you feel the urge to discuss this increasingly frustrating (to us!) misconception…

Beyond that, you will find the latest ABC info below – we’re delighted with the fact that we have more or less maintained sales through perhaps the most difficult period we have yet experienced. One title grew very slightly, but for the rest, it was all rather unsurprisingly a downward tend that we seemed to suffer least and which also heralded some most interesting movements…

Once again, thank you for your continued support during these trying times and please, remember that Cars in Action is not just a performance motoring magazine – it’s that and a hell of al lot more, too – and there’s no need to keep it aside just for your power products…

Thanks and all the very best,

Michele Lupini & the Action Publications Team

Cars in Action latest ABC figures:

April/June 2006: 14 990 +2%
April/June 2007: 15 376 -2%
April/June 2008: 15 093