Hot Rods New Hot Rod Magazine

They're just following the market.
I restore cars for a living, if I was to restore what I used to restore only and what I love : 20's to 50's cars and refuse what customers bring me now : mostly 60's and 70's cars with some 80's. I would have almost 0 customers. Fortunately until now I can cherry pick what 70's and 80's cars customer bring me.
It's not that I don't want to restore those older cars anymore, it's just that the customers are not the same and don't have the same interest.
When I started working, my first boss was all about pre WWI cars, he thought that anything after was trash, yet in his shop the only pre WWI cars were his Darracq and DeDion.
HR has always been about new stuff, new stuff from 1948 is not the new stuff from 2024, you can still try to appeal to what really rocks your boat but if you don't want to die as a business you have to follow where the market goes.

 

they have now removed the digital archive of hrm that was on motor trend

 

Sucks !!!
Well my self I only have 48 - 70 something ,
I used the online a few month ago for some mid 80s articles .

 

That's weird, they still have the digital archive of their other magazines (including Hot Rod Deluxe.)

 

Most likely gearing up for pay per view , if it isn't already .

 

I tried to pull up several ways,received a error code
404 not found !

 

yep

 

I call it small man syndrome watch live on patrol and you will see what I mean.

 

For those saying 1000hp can't be used on the street join the real world. Do yourself a big favor and go watch a drag and drive event. These days 1000 hp is entry level power. This is nothing new. Bangers were replaced by flat head v-8s. Those were replaced by overhead valve engines. Efi replaced carbs. Tradition hot rodders have always used the latest parts and construction methods to make their cars look and perform better. Traditional hot rodding never stopped evolving.
Personally I have about 2500 hp in my car. Do I use it? Yes every chance I can on the street and the track. It takes big ones to hang on to it. No small syndrom about it.

 

just received Hot Rod Winter 2024. yep, nothing to do with what goes on here. but, does show what is happening now for so called street cars. last page talks about David Freiburger starting pump gas drags. like what you see here in that how big is your wallet, & how talented you are & connections that you have to stay on top, if that is important to you. reliable basic comfort & performance more important to me.

 

Look at it another way: Suppose Ryan had too much turkey tomorrow and decided what he really needed to do in order to increase site activity here is to change the focus of this site to electric cars.

Or maybe Monster trucks?

Would you “change with the times”?

 

When all is said and done, if there was enough demand for a periodical that caters to the desires of the HAMB members, it would exist; as was pointed out by Moriarty, this is probably the tiniest sliver of the car hobby. Nobody goes into the magazine business to lose money and fail...

 

Modern focus is fine for modern times. There are a million things you can do to even a modern car to make it go faster, but the issues seem to cover more of who you can pay to do it than how you can do it yourself. I wish they would do just a little better with that.

I know some Hot Rod magazine alumni, and although I love them to death I have long referred to it as “comp cams magazine”.

 

There is no doubt your car is bad and could have been the poster boy for a modern street driven Traditional Hotrod. We understand your desire to see what it can do in more of a purpose built track mode. I doubt there are that many that would run it flat out down the track if given the chance. I’m sure there is no shortage of people who say they would like to. 4 digit horsepower is not that hard to achieve with modern technology. And parts that fall into HAMB friendly mode can certainly get you there. I doubt many on this forum build something to a cutting edge level and then never touch it again. And if it is new tech that will get you to the next level, how many can honestly say they wouldn’t try it or at least consider it long and hard? Hot ridding and competitive are not either or. The magazine caters to the on their way crowd. Those of us in the found our comfort zone in pre 65 can and should understand that we are the minority. Most enthusiasts want to hear about what is new and or better. Occasionally they will throw in a throwback article with a BAMB friendly car. It if you are only buying the magazine for that, you are guaranteed to be disappointed.

 

I would never have met Brian (racer-x) if not for Hot Rod magazine, and them encouraging folks to build really fast street cars.

Strange how things that we bitch about, have changed our lives....

 

Some people just will bitch no matter what.

 

Just pulled it up. The archives are still there on the MT site.

I found the 1961 issue with a feature on the then new Ford 221 more interesting that the current Winter quarterly edition.

 

You where able to pull up the page that @ one time Started @
1948 , all magazines by mouth
For each year , all 70 years ,
If so how did you get there ?
The web pages is not same from few months ago .

 

Big power is exciting when I'm around it in person but I can't afford to be a player in that scene. It's pretty much all greek to me. I don't pay attention to media about it.

 

False. https://www.hotrod.com/magazines/hot-rod/3169/

https://www.motortrend.com/magazines/

 

It's still there, I posted links above. Since links sometimes change, go to www.hotrod.com, and there are two ways to get there. On the banner at the top if you hover over "Magazine" on your computer there is a link to "Digital Archive". If you click the 3 bars on the left of the banner and scroll down and expand the menu for "Magazine", there's a link to the archive there as well.

For everything other than Hot Rod, if you go to www.motortrend.com, and in the banner at the top under "Magazines", there is a link to "Digital Magazine Archive" where you'll see every title that they currently have in their digital archive including Hot Rod Deluxe, Street Rodder, etc.

Not sure why Hot Rod isn't in the Motor Trend archive, but it's still online.

 

@05snopro440
Thank you ,
In pass , it was much easier to access , For the Ones that did not visit the web page ,M-T, there was 15-20 plus different Mag Company /Titles On list ,just click & open ,
Scroll a year, then it showed Covers & Month
In order , I believe, the last time I used.
Started December backwards towards
January,
& Present years to Previous years ,

I was using phone , Some time its better to use Desktop instead of Mobile on web pages ,
Desktop shows more information.

 

My gripe with Hot Rod is somewhat about the choice of cars they wish to feature, but mostly about the lack of content. They use really large pictures so they don't have to do a lot of journalism. I know a picture is supposed to be worth a 1,000 words, and most of the pictures are very well done........but I prefer to read, not just look. There is also a shortage of technical stories. I think the basis of interest in a magazine is the technical explanations and documentation.....accompanied by smaller pictures. Not the real small ones, but ones that show the details that were explained in the journalism. There is a lot less work needed to just publish big pictures than gathering information and presenting it in readable content.

 

I gave up on HOT ROD. Last issue sealed the deal. Loved Hot Rod Deluxe. I get my HAMB friendly old car fix with bi monthly issues of CANADIAN HOT RODS magazine. Loaded every issue with old school rods, kustoms, vintage drag racing coverage, car show coverage. Ads are strictly car parts, tools, shop ads...no male enhancements ads, no bs. They cover US shows too, eg TROG and feature cool US cars too. Dec issue has Santa working on a model A roadster gasser with a blown hemi on the cover, features a trad built deuce sedan, time capsule Anglia gasser, hamb friendly real deuce roadster, etc and tech article by Lee Grant how to drop an axle. And they welcome US subscribers. It's been around a long time and still going strong. I have no connection to the business whatsoever but all of us Cdn hambers love it.
And the print isn't microscopic either lol.

 

There is. It's called Rodders Journal.

 

and nobody will buy any of them

 

THIS ^^^^
All of it.

Way back, the magazines we remember fondly, were all about technical journalism.
People were doing cool stuff, and magazines were documenting it, and spreading hard won knowledge.
And advertisers were along for the ride.
Many years later, the advertisers were calling the shots, and journalism suffered.
Paying customers were taken for granted, an after thought.
Now, bean counting suits that have never got their hands dirty,
are producing glossy picture mags with a familiar title, every quarter.
Old school technical journalism is DEAD.

I have often considered that maybe we think current magazines suck,
because we have changed. We are older, more knowledgeable, more experienced.
We have a different perspective than we did 50 years ago.
So I went and dug up some Hot Rod mags from the 60's.
NOPE.
They really were better. MUCH better.
And this was a few years ago now.

Yes, times have changed, the world is different, but the decline started (probably) in the 80s.
But what we have had for the last 25 years, is a laughable shadow of former greatness.

 

I have a few things as I've skimmed through all these comments. This is my point of view that nobody asked for and it's definitely a run-on sentence or two.
Number one is Hot Rod magazine has pretty much always been about power and it is why after about 1964 it no longer really relates to our hot rod hobby because the factory was starting to produce cars that were way faster than anything anybody was building just 10 to 15 years prior. That went on through the early 1970s then we got the emissions era and because of that we got vehicles that were more focused on comfort and cool factors like boogie vans and every single sedan looking like a luxury car, I mean hot rod magazine was talking about the trans Am from the '70s like it was a rocket ship. The 1980s Hot Rod magazine it seemed like was nothing but small block Chevys the same goes with the 1990s, enter The early 2000s and you will see a little bit of a vintage revival that we would be into that came and went within a 5 to 10 year period and almost all those magazines that were dedicated to the vintage car market also died. Today every YouTube video and everybody that's under 50 is putting an LS into some square body type vehicle, The Japanese tuner kids are hung up on the 2JZ Toyota 6 banger engine and now there is even guys building that weird inline 6 that Chevrolet had about 10 or 15 years ago that I know nothing about.
My point is Hot Rod magazine changes with the times. It has went through numerous owners since Peterson died A decade or two ago and the reality is it lost its way and they canceled all the related magazines that I would be interested in. I quit buying hot rod when I discovered The smaller traditional hot rod magazines, I enjoy all automobile content but that magazine really isn't catered to my wants and needs, I don't think I've seen an article on building a banger, nor have I seen any articles on how to custom French stuff the way they were doing it in the 1940s and '50s. Its just LS type articles not that there's anything wrong with that it's just not for me, I'm 46 years old and I like vehicles that were old when my dad was born in 1944, My idea of a late model car is from the '90s that was 30 years ago and The cars from my childhood (the square era) are approaching 40-50 years old if not older and by every sense of the word they are vintage cars now even though I can't see that because they are younger than me or my age.
Thankfully for me I live in Southern California where swap meets are pretty common and there's always vintage back issues of various magazines to buy and usually for really cheap.
I used to hate the rat rods that were in car culture Deluxe and old skool rodz but I got to say I was definitely more interested in them than I am in a new charger more door.

As for horsepower and new cars, somebody mentioned the Dodge demon In it one or two of these comments, that car too is already outdated and it's gone, It's only in the history books now. The V8 Chrysler products are dead as far as I know. There was certainly some badass cars when it came to putting the horsepower onto the street and regardless if I like them or not a 10 second street car from the factory is pretty damn amazing.. we can assume It's just a matter of time before GM and Ford do the same thing and kill their larger V8s. The modern engines are so full of tech compared to just engines of 20 years ago. The LS engine that we are all complaining about being in every article I am pretty sure is also gone I think it was replaced with the LT and there is no relation between the two other than displacements (Don't quote me on that I don't know anything about these modern cars and I don't care to learn). My point is at some point the LS ngines are going to start drying up just like the small block Chevys aren't in every single classified ad the way they were just 20 years ago.

Today we are seeing little itty bitty engines with 20 and 30 lb of boost from the factory squeezing out 270 to 300 horsepower out of around a liter of engine, we are also seeing that after about 5 or 8 years these engines aren't reliable because go figure over-boosting a little tiny engine and driving it really hard all the time is certain to kill low tension rings and gaskets and I don't think there's any amount of engineering that's going to really fix this. I don't think we are seeing the end of the internal combustion engine side of our car hobby just yet and the reality is as time goes on and people are less involved with actually driving their vehicles (self-driving cars are coming quickly at this point I would imagine another 10 or 15 years that'll be normal in most scenarios and probably by the time I'm a senior steering wheels will probably be phased out along with gas stations... You're going to see less and less people interested in cars and eventually it will just be the people into noisy dinosaurs (AKA internal combustion cars) messing with cars and the proof is Hot Rod magazine is now quarterly, It's the last of the Mohicans so to speak It outlived all the other car performance magazines and it's readership is I believe lower than it was in the early 1950s, How much longer is it going to survive who knows that being said I won't miss it when it's gone.
I am a traditional hot roder and vintage car enthusiast If I'm being honest I don't buy Hot Rod magazine I would imagine a majority of people on here don't buy it regularly, I do however buy a wonderful magazine called classic truck and when I can find it I buy collector automobile magazine both a restoration magazines but they are more in line with what I'm about than a performance car magazine these days. If I see a true hot rod type magazine that is related to the pre 65 lifestyle of hot rods and classic custom cars I'm more than happy to buy it.

 

^^^ Hands up anyone who got to the end. Come on now, be honest........... I tried, I really did. ^^^

 

The magazine or this thread? I read the magazine cover to cover but I have a varied variety of interests.