Categories | Automobile magazine |
---|---|
Circulation | 150,884 (ABC Jul - Dec 2013) Print and digital editions. |
First issue | October 1993 |
Company | Immediate Media Company |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Website | topgear |
ISSN | 1350-9624 |
Top Gear (stylised in-magazine as TopGear) is an automobile magazine owned by BBC Worldwide and published under contract by Immediate Media Company. It is named after the BBC's Top Gear television show. It was first published in October 1993 and is published monthly at a price of £4.35. The major presenters of the television series—Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May—were regular contributors, along with the series' production staff. "Tame racing driver" The Stig also regularly features in their car tests, though only communicates his thoughts and feelings through the articles of others.
It is Britain's leading general interest car magazine in sales terms, with over 150,000 copies distributed each month in 2012, a drop of 50,000 from 2007. Previous columnists have included former Top Gear presenters Quentin Willson, Tiff Needell and Vicki Butler-Henderson.
Licensed editions are also published in China, the Czech Republic, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Middle East (with localized versions for each of the Arab countries), Indonesia, South Korea, South Africa, Russia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Thailand, India, Belgium, Romania, Finland, Sweden, Malaysia, and Singapore. On September 2004, the Philippine edition was released. On 7 May 2007, it was released in Bulgaria, on 16 November 2007 in Italy, on 14 February 2008 in Poland. An Australian edition was brought out in June 2008. A Hong Kong Chinese edition was released in October 2008. A Turkish edition which name is TopGear Turkey was released in May 2011. More recently, Portuguese was released in June 2011. A German edition was released on 25 April 2013. After a year, the Polish edition is the third largest market, after the British and Russian editions. In January 2010, Top Gear magazine released its 200th edition, and a free 'best of TopGear magazine' supplement was included. In April 2014 the first issue of the Croatian edition was released, and in May 2015, a French edition was launched.