Fast Lane Magazine - 1989/1990 Track Test Tapes

Fast Lane was an excellent British high-performance motoring magazine published 1984-1994.  That era coincides with arguably the greatest period of sports/super cars and almost every issue is packed with iconic, now classic cars.  A more popular rival to Fast Lane was Performance Car, which survived until 1998 when the publisher pulled the plug and the staff relaunched it as Evo.

Although I was too young to buy many issues when new, I've since collected 30+ issues thanks to eBay.  One issue that my brother bought new was the April 1989 issue which came with a free cover-mounted cassette tape.  The tape contained in-car sound and commentary of several cars being driven at Donington Park circuit and a major coup for this experiement in multimedia was the inclusion of Nick Mason's Ferrari F40.

So what prompted me to revisit this now?  Well in his latest video, modern day journalist Chris Harris (former Evo writer who now creates reviews for a YouTube channel called DRIVE) drove a Ferrari F40 (and F50) and to my surprise he mentioned this tape as a major inspiration to him.  Not only that but he interviews Mark Hales, the driver of the cars on the tape:



Around 10 years ago when I discovered eBay, I began re-buying old magazines and discovered a follow-up tape had been issued the follow year (1990).  After finding a copy of that I decided to create a digital recording of the tapes, in case the originals were lost, damaged, etc..  This was purely for my own listening pleasure and being years before YouTube appeared, I didn't think to upload them anywhere.

Recording them into my PC I applied some noise reduction and removed any clicks, pops or other tapes noise by hand.  A few crackles and drop-outs still remain but they were caused by microphone issues on the original recording.  Last week I created video slideshows of images of the actual cars tested (from the magazine supplements that accompanied the tapes) to compliment the audio and uploaded to YouTube.

Please make sure you listen to them with headphones, as a tinny laptop speaker won't give you the full stereo experience!

In the first 1989 tape, the cars are track-tested at Donington Park circuit by Mark Hales with Beki Adam as passenger (Top Gear presenter 1988-90). The following cars are featured:

• Porsche 911 Club Sport
• Ford Sierra Sapphire RS Cosworth
• Audi Quattro
• Ferrari F40

Also tested and featured in the supplement were the Daihatsu Charade GTti and Ford Escort XR3i but these do not feature on the tape.



In the 1990 follow-up cars are track-tested at Brands Hatch circuit by Mark Hales with Dilly Barlow as passenger (radio presenter, narrator). These cars are featured:

• Aston Martin Vantage
• Porsche 959
• Lister Mk3
• Lamborghini Countach

To be honest the second tape doesn't have the same magic of the first, due to the cars tested and the passenger not being a car enthusiast but it's still worth hearing if you enjoy the original.

I must have listened to them hundreds of times and never tire of some of the engine noise.  It's a shame more weren't made (to my knowledge) and the idea wasn't copied by other magazines.  I remember emailing Evo and suggesting they should do something similar but was told the uplift in sales wouldn't justify the costs.  It's a lot cheaper now for magazines to produce YouTube videos to compliment magazine features but I find they're often over-edited, lacking in raw footage and importantly sound!