Yes, there are girls in Eurotuner. We know!I've cleared out my email inbox and shoveled away the piles of unopened mail, all in preparation for the deluge of hate mail we're anticipating with the arrival of... wait for it... females in the magazine.
For those of you who are regular human beings and either didn't notice them or can't see what all the fuss is about, allow me to explain. There is a schism of our readers who feel the presence of the female form in our magazine is the eighth sign of the apocalypse, the thin end of the wedge, the beginning of the end.
Obviously I don't have a problem with it. Hell, I enjoy it. But then I'd like to consider myself normal. I'm neither a narrow-minded purist, aggressively religious, female or gay.
However, I do try to understand our more sensitive readers who take offense at everything from oversized punctuation to the inappropriate use of italics. Therefore, rather than splash our models throughout the magazine, we've restricted their presence. You'll only find them on this page, the table of contents and our poster. And just in case that's still unacceptable, we've made the poster double-sided. So, as they say on TV, you can always turn it over!
Failing that, we'd encourage you to follow the advice of one of our Christian readers who wrote on a similar theme informing us that he simply takes a thick, black pen to the offending images, removing temptation. Clever lad.
Now obviously I'm being slightly facetious here and we really don't intend to offend anybody, especially our female readers. However, I'd like to point out we're not the first publication to associate women with cars. And we've tried to deal with it very sensitively so as not to cause offense. In fact, what I've just written is probably far more offensive, but that depends on your point of view.
Just be assured that we're not planning to do this on a regular basis, we haven't turned to Satan and the world is still round. The opportunity presented itself and we took it. And those of you who know me will understand that I'm a huge opportunist.
If, after all that, you still wish to tell me I'm a misogynist and cancel your subscription, my email address is below. At least be polite.
But if you really can't see what all the fuss is about, check out eurotuner.com and see the photos we didn't use from our day in the studio.
With that out of the way I hope you enjoy the rest of the magazine. We've been making good on our promise to increase the technical content. It's hard when there are only two of us putting this together, but we thank you for your patience and hope you like the improvements we're striving to make.
We've also been updating the design of the magazine. It's nothing radical but Rome wasn't built in a day. Baby steps, etc.
We've also got a crazy widebody Mk2 GTI in this issue for the old school fans, as well as a wild 318i for people who like cars off the wall. And let's not forget our huge Waterfest coverage. There was so much goodness at the show we wanted to cover it all. We also found time to dash over to Worthersee to give you a glimpse of Europe's craziest Euro festival.
If you're a Euro fan (and we suspect you are) you won't want to miss the next few issues. We've got more of the same goodness, plus some exciting exclusives on the very best of VW's 2006 SEMA cars. We've also uncovered new Time Attack cars, brand new widebody conversions, we're in the process of putting together the eurotuner GP '06, and have exclusive stories on the most important Euros in the USA - you won't believe your eyes.
See you again in four weeks. I'll keep the chair warm.Greg EmmersonEditoreurotuner@primedia.com