Top Gear: Turbo Challenge is a fortnightly partwork magazine published by BBC Magazines

BBC Magazines

BBC Magazines is the magazine publishing division of BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation.A list of the published magazines and the age groups they are targeted towards follows:-Adult:*BBC History*BBC Music...

 in the United Kingdom. Each issue is priced at £2.50 and comes with a pack of trading cards.
It is based on the popular BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 TV series, Top Gear and is mostly aimed at children.

Collection(s)

As well as a trading cards there are also some other items accompanying some issues.
The first issue came with two packets of Trading cards instead of the usual single packet.
Issues 2 and 3 came with parts to build The Stig

The Stig

The Stig is a character in the British motoring television show Top Gear. The character plays on the anonymity of racing drivers' full-face helmets, with the running joke that nobody knows who, or indeed what, is inside the character's racing suit. The character was the creation of presenter Jeremy...

's helmet to keep the trading cards in.
Issues 1-3 also came with parts of a buildable poster of The Stig which also featured a check list of the trading cards available. Issue 2 included a bonus Stig

The Stig

The Stig is a character in the British motoring television show Top Gear. The character plays on the anonymity of racing drivers' full-face helmets, with the running joke that nobody knows who, or indeed what, is inside the character's racing suit. The character was the creation of presenter Jeremy...

 mask and issue 3 also included a bonus door hanger.

Extra Cards

The second wave of trading cards was Top Gear: Turbo Challenge Extra. Packets were once again provided with issues of the magazine and were also available to buy as single packs.

Platinum Cards

The third wave of trading cards was the Limited Edition Platinum Collection. This set consists of 105 cards including three Ultimate Rare Presenter Autograph cards which are available as bonus cards in issues 36 (the issue in which the collection first started), 44 and 52. Each pack contains five rare and one super rare card.
The Platinum Collection packs are exclusive to the magazine and different cards are provided with each issue to prevent duplicates.

Magazine Content

Below is a list of things featured in a normal issue of Top Gear: Turbo Challenge.

• Game Play

• Behind The Scenes

• Top Ten (Cars)

• Head-to-head

• Giant "The Stig
  The Stig
  The Stig is a character in the British motoring television show Top Gear. The character plays on the anonymity of racing drivers' full-face helmets, with the running joke that nobody knows who, or indeed what, is inside the character's racing suit. The character was the creation of presenter Jeremy...
  
  " poster. (Issues 1-3)

• TV Challenge

• A-Z of amazing machines

• Motor Madness (Comic Strip)

• Puzzles

Website

There is a website for fans of the magazine featuring free games based on challenges from the TV show and a 'garage' where users can log their cards. www.topgearturbo.com links the BBC’s fortnightly magazine partwork Top Gear Turbo Challenge and the collectable cards that come with the magazine or are available separately. These three elements provide three distinct entry points for the brand and support each other with the magazine promoting the collectable cards and card codes unlocking game content and power-ups on the website. The free games and power-ups are central to the experience, working hand-in-hand with unique trading card codes and magazine editorial to maximise the engagement, reward the user and ultimately drive subscriptions.

The website and games were designed and built by Playerthree:

Controversy

Complaints have been raised about the total cost of the collection which will be in the region of £1000.00. With some children already complaining of high numbers of duplicate cards in the packs supplied on the cover of the magazine it would appear this may be an under-estimate of the collections total cost.