Event Coverage The Death of R&C, Again (By Pat Ganahl)

As much time as I do spend here on the interweb I still like a tangible source for reading in the evening before sleep. Although they do clutter up my house, I like a stack of mags around. I know the world is changing in this area but I will continue to buy print as long as it is around.

 

Amen, support the Independent Publishers.

 

GUPPIES EAT THEIR YOUNG!
As I asked above (post #55), I still ponder just what happens at R&C. Did they or did they not turn any profit????
Probably never know....

 

Pat and Ryan speak the truth.

It's a sad reality, but the business world today is about squeezing the last penny out of things today, and to hell with tomorrow. I once worked for a highly profitable division of a multi-national only to be laid off when the billionaire dominant investor decided the entire company made a better bankruptcy tax loss than operating concern.

It was coincidental, but I heard about the demise of R&C the same night I received the latest Rodders Journal in the mail. I couldn't help thinking that a.) I would gladly pay a fortune to have something of the quality of TRJ on a monthly basis. And b.) Wouldn't it be great to have a magazine of equal quality that catered to the builder. No, I don't want tech in TRJ, but imagine a Ganahl tech story if he had the space and the production resources of TRJ. I wonder if the trademark for R&C could be bought by an indie, and turned into a TRJ style magazine. I'd gladly pay top dollar.

I will miss R&C, but have to admit the Source Interlink (or whatever the latest name is) magazines had / have begun to run together - I'd rather have less, with top quality.

I wonder what Baskerville is thinking . . . . . . . .

 

Why not? It happened in 1985 as well.......

 

There are plenty of viewers, but too many of them
are dissatisfied with the offerings of the mainstream publications.

 

Oddly, I receive the September issue of R & C in the mail today, and it is chock full of subscription postcards. Seriously, not one, not two, but THREE postcards soliciting subscription money. What gives?? Just one last shot to gouge the unknowing reader for some money before advising them that the remainder of their subscription will be filled by Super Chevy? Seems pretty underhanded...

 

Yup. It did.......

 

I liked MAG-NETO. I will buy any copies I see. I have 3.

 

So I got the latest in the mail this afternoon. What month is the last issue?

 

Last one is October, and the September is full of cards because it was already at the printer when the decision was made. Not that complicated there.

 

Rod and Custom ran its course,so it's time for something else.

 

Guess that I will hang on to this. On my windshield since '87; getting kinda road worn.

 

I received my Sept. issue yesterday....just noticed my subscription is good until Feb. 2019 ha ha wonder what I'll be getting for so many years......

 

I often wonder how long Hot Rod will last. Seems that 75% of the time it is geared to newer cars and the very expensive speed mods that are available. I see it as a magazine divided in half. Front half is the meat and second half is the advertising. And for things totally unrelated to hot rodding unless you think having Cialis will give you a better rod! The pages are thin and the ink is cheap. How many smudges do you get on your fingers?Subscription rates in the US are dirt cheap while up here in Canada they want $50+ for 2 years! I won't renew.
A local lad started a Canadian hot rod magazine a few years back and its popular but unfortunately at the moment just bi-monthly.

 

Pat Ganahl is my hero! Long live the Rodder's Journal and the Jalopy Journal!

And bring back Hop Up!

 

I'm a greybeard, with a basement full of Rod and Custom, Street Rodder, Rod Action, American Rodder, Hot Rod Mechanix, Hot Rod and a sprinkling of many other titles. I have the utmost respect for Pat Ganahl, been reading his work and buying his books for 40+ years. I've seen a lot of evolution over the years, for better and worse, and would like to offer an observation. I agree, the bottom line- focused big media corporations are largely responsible for the demise of the "hot rod magazine" as we knew it. But in my opinion, their influence has not always been entirely bad. Big publishers took little magazines and grew them, increasing the page count, the distribution and sales. They exposed the hot rod hobby to a much larger audience, which helped create a market for reproduction parts. They made it possible to build a business manufacturing repro parts and building prewar era cars that didn't contain a single prewar part. Guys like Brizio, Lobeck, Buttera, Coddington became big names. As much as all the fiberglass bodied, Porsche Guards Red, wire wheeled restorods put me to sleep, they were the product of a huge, lucrative industry. Tastes and trends have changed, many of the pioneers are now gone, but there are still thousands of large and small, viable businesses manufacturing, importing (ugh) and selling hot rod parts that make it possible to build a hot rod. How many original model A's and Deuces are resurrected without the use of Brookville panels nowadays? I'm sure there are many more " '32 Fords" running around than were ever produced by Ford.

I love the HAMB and will continue to support it. No better bargain for fifty bucks. I also hope paper and ink magazines survive in some form, to some degree. I'll continue to buy some of them because I still prefer them to the digital version. And old paper magazines have a funky smell about them. Old laptops, not so much...

 

Whenever there is a transition from the current norm into something else... people mourn the loss.
When the last common folk had to put their horse to rest, and their buggy out to pasture, they shed a tear. I suspect when the horse and buggy came along and people had to abandon their push cart, people were sad. Before this, men reluctantly gave up their stone wheels for ones made of wood...
Amidst all of this change "in the name of progress" there are those of us who hang on to and get all teary eyed when the things we love, and are used-to, are taken away. There are also those that are among us that hear the stories of forefathers and can see the joy in their tales of the way things were, and seek to live a little bit of (or a lot of) "the good old days".
When we desire to live this way and experience those things... we do it at a cost. The cost is almost always above and beyond that of the normal.
Oh sure there may be a honeymoon period where what is old is cast away and cheap to attain... but then the popularity of it all catches up to you and the supply and demand model takes hold... and prices go up.
Our magazines are currently morphing into media... all differences aside; it's a hell of a lot cheaper to send this content to you over a cable or from a satellite than it is to print it out and mail it to you.
So don't be a cheap-ass when the prices go up and one single issue costs that of a years subscription from days gone by.
The good old days aren't really gone for good... you just going to have to pay more for them now.

 

Same here. Mine also had three subscription cards inside. Two were loose and one was stapled to the crease.

 

I have always bought R & C but lately it was reluctantly with the paper quality and too many tech articles for me. I support the small specialist mags like Kustoms Illustrated, TRJ, Hot Rod Deluxe,
Rodding USA, and locally we have Australian Rodder and Hot Rod International.I have actually gone back to buying Street Rodder as it has surprised me lately with a good deal of hot rod stuff.

 

PS: I am currently reading Pat's Hot Rod Gallery and love it

 

As much as I love TRJ, and I have subscribed since issue #1, it does kind of get to me when I see that it is printed in China. Understand that this is just my $0.02 but I don't like to buy parts or shoes or clothing or books or anything made in China for lots of reasons - primarily the way that workers are treated and the political system exists there. Certainly Steve Coonan and his partners have to make their business decisions for themselves just like anyone that chooses to offshore their production but it does make me proud to support US producers anytime possible.

 

As I see it Corps. Have ruined everything they touched. They have no interest in the product or consumer. There main aim is to pay top officials million dollar salaries (which they don't earn). This is just (sadly) another victim of their GREED. The same is true of for example ,Auto parts stores,few employ anyone with automotive knowledge. Just there for a paycheck. Just as the top brass. I worked for a top manufacturer and repairer of jet aircraft. The company was and is top heavy with excs.,who nothing of the product and actually don't care. Just Looking to enhance their own pay. Afterall,when the company folds,they have taken most of the money out of it. And they just go on to BLEED another to failure.

 

I bought the Aug 14 issue of R&D because of the 60 Falcon that looked much like the one I had in the early 60s. For $6 I got 43 pages that were not adds and a suspension article that told me that negative caster is when a line drawn through the king pin intersects the ground ahead of the tires contact patch. Like a motorcycle. With info like that I can see why it died.

 

The legal team, at McMullen Argus/PriMedia, etc, pretty much ruined my wanting anything to do with their publications. The only time I have received them, since 1999, were when people gave me subscriptions as gifts.

(feel free to google "mcmullen argus bret chrismer", and you'll see what I'm talking about)

 

Pat I checked this post out today after our conversation at Blairs Speed Shop where I got you to autograph my Hot Rod Gallery book you have just done - great book too by the way. Your words are on the money and I for one have been victim to magazine cuts here in New Zealand. However, I totally agree - support The Jalopy Journal and The Rodders Journal - both high quality gigs! Beware of Rodding USA - your money is going offshore - do your homework folks if you want to support USA based or owned businesses...

 

Tex Smith's take on the Source Interlink fiasco:
http://www.hotrodhotline.com/slaughter-source#.U61qexbobu1

 

Many of us saw it coming 20 years ago when Emap first came around. Tex has a good write up there. Too bad the Pete Petersons and Bob Rodales are not still with us.

 

Petersen sold Petersen Publishing in 1996. He sold it for $450 million. Smart move on his part.

Corporations have a fiduciary duty to make money for their shareholders. They are not in business to provide jobs or print magazines that are losing money. It's that simple.

 

Right on, brother, right on!

This is cutting edge cultural transformational shit playing out in front of us, and the Boss has given us a front row seat. Cool.