I concur with most of the above comments - I definitely have mixed feelings about Hot Rod Magazine. I miss Custom Rodder & Rod and Custom - grumble about many years of canceled subscriptions being rolled into Street Rodder. Not sure what happened to the RoadKill Magazine subscription (I liked the fun with affordable cars aspect - my avatar is a reaction to too many "Gold Chainers" and "Power Parkers") - I will NOT miss Street Rodder that much. I did not get any emails about the magazine cancellations (I wisely did NOT give them an Email address and paid by check). I DO NOT have mixed feelings about TEN, the Hot Rod renewal offer just got fed to the shredder! Debating about attending the RoadKill event in Tucson next month (only 80 miles from here). I had fun the last 3 years, not so sure about feeding the TEN money machine...
I followed Hot Rod magazine for years through all the trends. Dune buggies, the van craze, the rebirth of customs and the billet aluminum era. I was not always on board with all the trends they covered but in order to keep current with whatever the trend was of the day they presented it. I got the impression in the early seventies they were struggling when they had Rod& Custom combined with Hot Rod magazine in the issues.
Things started going downhill in the magazine business in about 1970 or so when Car Life was discontinued.
This 75 year old says it was correct. The Volvo 122 sedans got front disk brakes in 1962 (also the more expensive P1800 used the same parts) and these brake parts quickly found their way onto Ford spindles . p.s. It occurred to some of us that the ability to go faster required better brakes. (Clue in the choir singing: "Properly adjusted Ford mechanical brakes stop just fine for me...")
I suppose I had a old soul as a teen and a young adult, I tolerated the dune buggies, I got caught up in the van craze, I had a 66 Dodge A-100 and shoved in a V8 (340) from a Duster with all the go fast goodies of the time, I really liked following the custom rebirth and totally hated the billet and Easter egg paint era and that's when I dumped hot rod, I never subscribed to the newest styles, I really liked the resto styles not realizing it was along the lines of a traditional look. I would have loved to seen Rod & Custom survive, they seemed to cater to what I liked about hot rods. HRP
And when they still build the popular stuff and the mag goes under because there is a form, and no one is filling it out, it's the subscription form. Print is dieing if not dead. Today I noticed that the town ten miles away that is 36,000 newspaper is the same size as the paper from my little town of 1,500 and that's sad.
I still read Hot Rod. I enjoy most of the coverage. I'm amazed at the Drag Week cars and their performance. Great tech! The most amazing story was the on the new Mustang GT500 7 speed manual transmission.
The only time I wanted a dune buggie was when I watched the Thomas Crown Affair . Having Faye Dunaway as a p***enger did not hurt! That was a Meyers Manx Corvair powered. You had to love when he left her standing there.
I hear you Mark, same thing holds true with the 1968 Highland green Bullitt Mustang, it seemed anything McQueen drove excited us all. HRP
How do you go under featuring popular stuff? If it’s popular, folks buy it. HRM has always been trendy. I like that about it. Print isn’t dead it’s changing. I know a guy that makes a good living shoeing horses. That trade never died. It changed as the market for them changed.
After 64 years of subscribing, when my subscription runs out, it is all done for me. there was a time when it was a hot rod magazine, but not any more. Too bad.
Hot Rod made it? That’s kinda surprising. I mean, all that content about LSX, Mustangs and erectile disfunction ads wouldn’t have been hard to replace.
Steve McQueen was the Man!! Saw the "Bullit" at Charlotte Autofair (it looked like a $2500 Mustang) & will watch to see what it brings at Me*** next month. I responded to TENs email that I wanted a refund for Cl***ic Trucks & Street Rodder. The only reason I re-started my subscription to Hot Rod was "the price was right". I like & have a variety of older vehicles i.e.; '34 Ford Roadster (my Avatar), a '57 Chev Sedan Delivery, mild custom '51 Ford 2dr, 1st series '55 Chev truck, '67 Camaro, '67 C10 PU & a '70 Chevelle convertible & too many others that have been traded, sold, etc. Flatheads, SBC, BBC but I discovered the LS. Put one in my Chevelle (took out a crate 502 BBC) & sold all my carburetors, then put a 6.0 LS in my '55 truck. They are so far trouble free & keep up with everything on the Interstates & seem to last forever + longer stretches between gas stops. My bladder requires more frequent stops. I will still admire the Flatheads, HEMIs & SBC/BBC but not mine. When Hot Rod expires I'm done.
That's interesting; my Hot Rod collection only runs through 1975 also. I had a lot of later issues up to the very early 2000's and wondered why I had them. Sold all of those on Craigslist. The van craze, how to tune 4 cylinder Pintos, then Pro Street with ridiculous paint schemes and now $100,000+ pro builds and new muscle cars. They certainly lost their way a long, long time ago.
Hmmm. Just found it interesting that Andamo and I kept our collections thru 1975, that's all. Sorry to have offended you.
While the popular thought seems to be to turn our backs on Hot Rod magazine, I think most of us owe it a debt of gra***ude. Its not the magazines fault that most of us have grown old and every day there are fewer of us to keep them on the market. Its not their fault that technology moves forward and newer generations have more interest in a $500 LS motor making double or triple the HP of a $5000 flathead. Its not their fault that computers came along and revolutionized the way information is available. Personally I subscribed to all the popular magazines and still do, and as long as Hot Rod is available, I will continue to subscribe. Just last night I read a very informative article on valve springs. It discussed not only the reasons for choosing a particular type of valve spring, but what the different shapes are. It gave insight into how much clearance is needed to avoid spring binding and how the amount varies with the choice of spring type. Since I just bought some aluminum heads for a 500 Cadillac and will need to replace the POS factory rocker arms and ***ociated parts, I found the article to be very helpful. I don't remember what I paid for the subscription as I always took multiple year subs on several magazines. If it was $20, then that one article paid for the subscription by arming me with knowledge on how to spend my money effectively. Went over and randomly grabbed the June 2016 copy off the top of the stack. Article on Smokey Yunick and his Trans Am Camaro Article on a Chopped Channeled 32 Ford with Hemi thats been sitting in a garage for 50 years Article on a 65 Buick Riviera with an LS engine disguised to look like the original Buick engine Article on building high HP Ford 460, Ford FE, Chevy Big Block, and a Pontiac 400 (465) Article on Blown Hemi Dragster using nitrous in 1961 Article on how aftermarket aluminum wheels are made Small article on why 62 Dodge/Plymouth are so ugly Explanation of valve train geometry by Marlan Davis with excellent diagram Other articles that were not of interest to HAMBers Now, at about a $1.50 a month/copy, I still think I got more than my money's worth out of a subscription. I hope that many of you will reconsider and thank Hot Rod for all its done for you in the past by supporting them in the future.....however long that might be. When/if Hot Rod goes away, we all lose a part of our history.
Dropped my Hot Rod subscription 8 or so years back. Just nothing of interest. Dropped Hot Rod Deluxe two years ago when my subscription ended. Some interesting stuff, but too much filler, not enough beef. The only magazine subscription currently is TRJ (lifetime) but I'll re-up on Hop Up as soon as they sort out their international subscriptions.
Hi Dean, I have the issue with you on the cover. To bad things chang. I have been subscribing sinc 1960 but I stopped a while during the van phase and the " how many way can you builda Camaro " age.
I am proud of that cover. It is one of the very few color covers with only one car on it. There was one Camaro I really enjoyed reading about. Mark Steilow's "Big Red". That is a real race car!
Back when............ Hot rod cost 50 cent per copy, that was when it was the coolest magazine. Can remember when they first had ONE color picture per issue. The other pictures were green! yuk. Roger Huntington was the man. And Eric Rickman. I had a m***ive stack of Hot Rods from late 50's to mid 70's I gave away to a son of a co worker. (late 70's) Wish I had'em back now fer sure! 6sally6
read hot rod from mid 70's up to about 88, and have a collection of older hot rods late 50's thru 60's. but it seemed as though it was a beginners magazine in as far as articles and the way they were written. kept street rodder up till around 5 yrs ago and rod and custom till they were no more. really lost interest in the magazines when they had a revamp 10 yrs or so ago. you know it really is true as we get older we don't like change at all. same goes for this site seems we lost a lot of members when ryan changed the format. i think it made it difficult for some older members to work the site and the whole social media thing is something that seems most are not interested in. now just for one i can think of, poverty flats see him on face book more than here....miss his stories.
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