The work behind every issue

Reporting from the pit lane at Killarney, weekends in Gauteng drag paddocks and long hours in workshops where older machines get a second life. This is where the magazine's access, photography and technical diagrams come from.

Why we keep showing up at the fence

Known Velocity exists because most motoring coverage stops at the showroom door. We start where the work happens: the pit lane at Killarney, a gravel stage outside Wellington, a drag paddock in Gauteng, a garage in someone's backyard with the bonnet up and the kettle on.

Access over accessorising

We stand in the pit lane, ride along on recce and sit through the long nights before a race weekend. If we can't get close enough to see how something was actually built, we don't run the story.

Plain language, real numbers

Brake bias, camber, tyre compounds, boost targets. We explain them the way a working mechanic would, with the dyno sheets and alignment printouts to back it up.

Follow the build, not the launch

Our diaries track the same cars across months, so you see the failed attempts, the parts that came off again and the weekend where it finally held together.

Written for the people who do it

Club racers, apprentices, engineering students and the parents funding half of them. No brochure tone, no polished quotes. Just the decisions, budgets and trade-offs behind the cars.

The effect we're after is simple: a reader finishes a piece knowing what to try on their own car, what it might cost them in time and parts, and who to talk to when they get stuck. That's the whole point of the magazine.

Who we are, and who we write for

Known Velocity is an independent magazine out of Cape Town. We cover the people who actually build, tune and race cars, not the ones who only read about them.

Our pages come out of real sessions: pit lane at Killarney on a club race weekend, drag paddocks around Gauteng, rally stages turning to mud in the Western Cape. When we walk into a workshop, it is usually because someone has spent months chasing a fault on an older engine and finally has something worth explaining. That is the material we work with.

The tone stays close to a paddock conversation. Plain language, no showroom gloss, no polished quotes invented after the fact. If a build failed, we say so, because failure is where most of the useful detail lives.

Club racers

Drivers running regional championships on tight budgets. They want setup notes, tyre choices and honest accounts of what a season actually costs in time.

Apprentices and students

People learning the trade in workshops and engineering courses. Technical explainers are written by working mechanics, so the diagrams match what is under the car.

Track-day drivers

Weekend drivers chasing cleaner lap times. Brake bias, camber and tyre wear get covered in plain terms, without assuming a full race programme.

Backyard builders

Garages where a project car sits for years. Build diaries follow the same machines across months, so progress and setbacks both stay visible.

Workshop trade

Mappers, suspension tuners and gearbox builders. Interviews focus on decisions, budgets and trade-offs, not on a tidy version of the story.

Families in the background

The parents funding half of this. We keep the practical side clear, so anyone helping out can follow what is being changed and why.