The 1990s wasn’t just a golden decade for sports cars and supercars: it also ushered in the era of the modified car.
Young drivers, buoyed by a strong economy, access to innumerable cheap motors and an explosion in the fibreglass and in-car entertainment markets, flocked to put their own spin on almost everything they could get their hands on.
Peugeot 205s, Citroën Saxos and Vauxhall Novas were by far the hottest properties, but even Rover’s utterly dreary 25 hatchback could be redeemed in the eyes of the generation’s cash-flush creatives.
It was only natural, then, that publishers would seek to capture the attention and indeed the wallets of this booming market. Tens of modded-car magazines popped up seemingly overnight, but none did it quite like Max Power, the first and best of the bunch.
In its tone, presentation and, crucially, access, Max Power absolutely nailed it. From the very beginning, plastered on each cover was a car modified to the absolute hilt with a witty cover line, from ‘Manic street creatures’ above a Mk2 Ford Escort to ‘Pugger me!’ next to a wide-bodied Peugeot 306, and the light-hearted tone of the copy within was a total break from the stately voice projected by traditional titles.
That was its unique selling point: a tongue-in-cheek attitude, almost self-satirising, with a wink in acknowledgement of the whole culture’s silliness, that nobody else could quite replicate.
Let’s not forget the cars, either. Tuning powerhouses such as Dimma, Carisma and Rieger appeared to wage war on one another, locked into an arms race to build the most outlandish car possible. A V8-swapped Renault Laguna? Sure thing. A Vauxhall Astra swollen to nearly six feet wide? Why not?
Meanwhile, keen readers engaged in their own war of style, bidding for kudos in car parks up and down the country on a weekly basis. Forget picking up a nice pair of trainers or a designer outfit: if your car wasn’t wearing TSW Venom alloys, you were nobody.
It all formed one great, proud celebration of the car but one that was seemingly corrupted by commercial interests as time wore on.
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