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Fruitfly01

Top Qualifier Magazine

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Does anyone remember this magazine?  I only ever had one copy.  It was before I owned a hobby grade RC sometime in the late 80's I think.  My copy had an article on a 5th scale petrol fuelled Nascar, possibly with a Days of Thunder livery, maybe just all red, and with a blonde haired, wide smiled model posing next to it.  maybe she was the one in red - short skirt, high heels - something else for the boys, as if a 5th scale Nascar wasn't enough. Does anyone know what I'm on about?  Does anyone have a copy of TQ magazine?  I don't think it was published for very long, having to compete with RRCi and RCMC which were much more established and longer running.

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Can't say I remember it (probably if I actually see a picture of one I might) but I do remember max bashing magazine it was really good but like so many unfortunately they go down the route of stop printing and just go online then the obvious just disappear! Online magazines are completely rubbish you just can't beat a magazine through the letterbox love the smell of print! I've always had a rc magazine subscription but one by one they have bit the dust until now we are just left with one "rc racer" and that's gone quiet over the last 3 months? Apparently finding it difficult to get it printed??? You can go digital (what a surprise) nah give that a miss!

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Bit of a late response to your question but I remember it well, as my girlfriend Julie got asked to do all the graphics for it. As planning progressed we took on more and more and ended up producing the whole magazine. We had about 5 months to get the first edition out, and before that was even in the shops issue 2 had to be ready for printing. We produced 6 editions in total but the last one never went to print. Biased of course but I thought it was a great magazine, especially considering it was such a small scale operation.

The editor Dave had come from RRC and was based in Birmingham. He sent us all the copy over an Amstrad modem, 2400baud as I remember, really painfully slow. All the photos came by post, and had to be scanned in. We had expected the adverts to come ready to go but we even had to typeset those. It was a complete nightmare to do it all in time, I had my own full time job so would help out in the evenings, but I remember Julie having to work through the night every other night just to get everything ready in time for issue 2. It was produced on a Viglen 286PC with a 40mb hard drive in our back bedroom in Mitcham using Xerox Ventura Publisher and the first ever edition of Corel Draw. Seems like a lifetime ago now, reckon you are right saying late 80's. By issue 3 we had a 386 PC and 150mb hard drive as well, along with an extra graphic designer, which made all the difference.

I think the first print run was about 10000 copies but the distributors "sold out" and kept pushing for more so the people financing the magazine upped the print run every month. 5 months down the line all the unsold copies (which we discovered had been on "sale or return") started to come back from the newsagents, and that finished it off. Had they stuck with the original print run it would probably have been OK, but everything was being done on a shoestring. For 5 months I think we gave RRC and RCMC a bit of competition. Still got half a dozen copies of each in the garage somewhere....think we bought more copies than anyone else!

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On 11/27/2021 at 4:05 PM, TQ Mike said:

Bit of a late response to your question but I remember it well, as my girlfriend Julie got asked to do all the graphics for it. As planning progressed we took on more and more and ended up producing the whole magazine. We had about 5 months to get the first edition out, and before that was even in the shops issue 2 had to be ready for printing. We produced 6 editions in total but the last one never went to print. Biased of course but I thought it was a great magazine, especially considering it was such a small scale operation.

The editor Dave had come from RRC and was based in Birmingham. He sent us all the copy over an Amstrad modem, 2400baud as I remember, really painfully slow. All the photos came by post, and had to be scanned in. We had expected the adverts to come ready to go but we even had to typeset those. It was a complete nightmare to do it all in time, I had my own full time job so would help out in the evenings, but I remember Julie having to work through the night every other night just to get everything ready in time for issue 2. It was produced on a Viglen 286PC with a 40mb hard drive in our back bedroom in Mitcham using Xerox Ventura Publisher and the first ever edition of Corel Draw. Seems like a lifetime ago now, reckon you are right saying late 80's. By issue 3 we had a 386 PC and 150mb hard drive as well, along with an extra graphic designer, which made all the difference.

I think the first print run was about 10000 copies but the distributors "sold out" and kept pushing for more so the people financing the magazine upped the print run every month. 5 months down the line all the unsold copies (which we discovered had been on "sale or return") started to come back from the newsagents, and that finished it off. Had they stuck with the original print run it would probably have been OK, but everything was being done on a shoestring. For 5 months I think we gave RRC and RCMC a bit of competition. Still got half a dozen copies of each in the garage somewhere....think we bought more copies than anyone else!

WOW!  That's excellent information, and straight from the horses mouth, so to speak.  

I wasn't even the proud owner of hobby grade RC at the time this magazine had it's run.  I had a Taiyo Jet Hopper, but I was obsessed with RC cars and used to dream of owning a 'proper' one.  I'd still buy the magazines though, and Top Qualifier was one of them.  I only had the one copy of one issue, and I guess it got read to death, before ending up in the bin, like so many things from back then.  If I only knew then, huh?

Thanks for contributing to this thread, and to the forums.  

If you would be willing to sell one or two mags, I'd be quite interested, especially the copy I originally had, with the 5th scale Nascar.

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