[kitcarman]

Kevin,
There’s been an awful lot said on this sordid subject on the PistonHeads forum, so I’ll not dig up old dung heaps here.

Let’s just say that until June this year I kept the whole argument out of the public’s eye and quietly suffered the injustice of Filby’s lying and biased reporting.

I lost my rag when following the winning of my claim in the High Court (which proved that Filby had published lies), Fibs immediately and hypocritically published that Kit Car had ‘dubious standards’ which he said were ‘tarnishing’ the reputation of Which Kit? He went on to say that ‘Tanner didn’t win’ and that he felt I had been spineless in publishing that I had, and a number of other things.

My response (in the heat of the moment) was to gather together a number of truthful facts and publish them by way of an exposé. It’s not that easy to publish the fact that somebody is a brazen liar without reference to the things that he’s lied about, so I had to include ‘the evidence’ which is astonishingly extensive.

1. Which Kit? lied about its sales figures and market position.
2. Which Kit? biased its reports to pump up the products of 3 firms in which it has financial interests (which it attempts to hide).
3. Which Kit? was biased against Sumo. That product was denied coverage and even the ability to advertise for a period of 5 years.
4. The ‘companies’ referred to above were diddling customers, which I assert is akin to the gamekeeper turning poacher.

As I said, the evidence is plentiful and it took up a fair number of pages. However it did exactly what it was intended to do in that it conveyed the truth as to exactly which magazine had ‘dubious standards’ and exactly who was ‘tarnishing’ who.

My only slight regret is that certain idiots think that the process of exposing corruption is corrupt. However, as I see it, that’s their problem.

My campaign achieved several of its objectives, some of which you’ve listed. However, the fact that I’ve embarrassed Fib’s into changing certain of his policies doesn’t mean that an honest man has been made out of him. Indeed, IMHO all that I’ve done is force him to become more subtle in his deviousness.

On a positive note, I can report that for the duration of my campaign (which is almost over), I’ve picked up lots of subscriptions from Which Kit? customers. In fact for the past 5 months subscriptions sales have been higher than last year (one issue was 70% up). Classified advertisement bookings have increased (at the expense of Which Kit? judging from its responses). Finally, wholesalers figures that came through late last week say that average Which Kit? sales have dropped from 7,100 to 6,400.

My point is that in every area my message has been received. So, if you want to have a laugh at the spelling then do so. I’ll be laughing with you – all the way to the bank.

Den.

PS – Didn’t anybody notice that Britain’s is spelt wrong too. No? But you knew what it meant, didn’t you?