This week, Malaysian automotive enthusiasts can add another site to their web browser's bookmark list. NST's weekly motoring pullout; Cars, Bikes and Trucks or more commonly referred to as CBT has finally gone online. Prior to this, CBT is published on every Sunday for the past 10 years as a pullout section in the New Sunday Times. The publication is headed by veteran motor journalist Yamin Vong. His editorial article is usually the first page that I will turn to on every Sunday as I appreciate his insights into the industry, insights that many other motoring journos are either ignore or do not write due to various reasons. See, the car industry is more than a sum of exotic models and what not, but it is very much a result of regulatory and government policies in place. Reading Yamin's piece often gives me a better overall picture than none other motoring pullouts provide. Yes I really do mean none other.
A good motoring publication should be more than just about test drives and product reviews. There are two types of publication that sell well, one that caters to blokes who talks better than they can drive (think Top Gear Malaysia) or those that write stuffs on a deeper level and is often referred to by auto industry professionals - think Automotive News and Auto Motor und Sport.
At the moment Malaysia still lacks a strong and credible automotive publication of its own - while AutoCar ASEAN is rather influential here, it is largely a local franchise of a UK based publication, meaning that the local journos will have to adhere to AutoCar UK's standard of journalism, which may or may not be the best way forward for our local preference. However, in countries like Malaysia and Singapore, our small domestic market means that it is not viable to produce good quality print publication on our own, as evident by AutoCar ASEAN which has to pull editorial resources from Malaysia and Singapore to produce it.
Image from CBT.com.my
And this is where an online portal comes in. The Internet is a great leveler of many inequalities. Suddenly the problem of not having sufficient circulation is no longer an issue. Personally I believe the days of exclusively printed automotive publication are numbered. In this time and age, mainstream car models are increasingly being sold in greater number of countries. Due to varying market trends and sales performance across different countries, it is not possible to have a simultaneous global launch across all markets. Thus, potential car buyers now often turn to the Internet before placing their order for a newly launched model. Also, spyshots of new models are often the most frequently Googled keywords in the automotive world. Then you have high profile motor shows in Geneva, Tokyo, Detroit, Paris and Frankfurt where car manufacturers often use to launch or preview a new model.
Faced with such rapidly changing habits of car buyers and also enthusiasts seeking the latest news, there is no way a monthly or even a weekly publication can keep up. Many Internet based car portals are known to deliver the latest news from international motor shows almost in a real-time manner. After attending the launch event, journos of automotive portals often type out their piece as soon as it happened and attached the relevant photos, sometimes captured with a hi-res camera phone and uploads it within an hour or so. In countries with high Internet penetration rates, some magazines have even gone completely online - like Winding Road and GoAuto. Why bother paying for a magazine with news that you already know, when you can have them delivered to your mailbox for free, in PDF format?
As a keen auto industry observer, previously I can only rely on MotorTrader and the assorted blogs. Now I have another to rely on. While blogs are a good form of alternative media, they can never replace the authority of a well managed dedicated portal. Bloggers in general, didn't enroll ourselves in journalism school, thus while there will always be a place for automotive blogs run by enthusiasts, we still need more credible publications for the industry to move ahead.
Thailand has the Bangkok Post Motoring (which still lacks a good online portal though the print versions are superb), Singapore has OneShift.com, we can now add CBT for updates from the Malaysian scene. I am still looking for a good English medium automotive publication from Indonesia. Please leave a comment should you know of any.
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