In the early 1990s when I became a young automobile fan, my only source of automotive information was 'Motoring' magazine as I was a subscriber. It's recent demise was quite sad but not unexpected.

The number of motoring publications in the Singapore market has been increasing over the past few years and perhaps one of the great threats to their survival is free publications.

'CarBuyer' has been distributed freely via petrol stations for a few years now, recently joined by another complimentary publication. Like paid publications, they offered reviews on new models, comparison between models, interviews and analysis on hot issues such as COE. Although they are free, the print quality and paper quality is pretty good. I believe these free publications earn their revenue mainly through advertisements.

Currently, I do not buy printed publications as often as before. I obtain the latest news of the automotive world from the internet, and this news is hot from the oven. However, when it comes to car reviews and comparison studies, I still enjoy reading hardcopy as I prefer to flip the pages rather than scrolling down the page using the mouse. To satisfy such needs, publications such as 'CarBuyer' are serving me well.