History Why Print Matters: Hot Rod Deluxe #1

Curt Six submitted a new blog post:

Why Print Matters: Hot Rod Deluxe #1

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Love the read, Curt. Thanks for posting.....Don.

 

Nice introspection.

Personally, im kinda glad I didnt catch wind of the retro hotrod resurgence and the HAMB until after a graduated from college in 2000. Otherwise I might not have haha.

Heady times for sure tho.

 

Man, I remember that! I was going into my senior year of high school in a very small rural part of upstate NY! Total number in my cl*** 35, K-12 about 600!

I was an odd duck in school because I was into dirt oval racing and couldn’t give a **** about ball and stick activities, or the Junior Prom, I went to the races instead!

I liked old style hot rods, customs and race cars not front wheel front foreign cars with giant wings on the trunk lid!

I listened to Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, Elvis, and the Beach Boys not , limp Bizkit, Eminem and that other God awful t******* b*** ****

I can’t remember where I found issue one of Hot Rod DeLuxe, Walmart maybe? 30 miles away!

But man did it open my eyes “Holy ****! I am not the only young person who loves this stuff!”

 

I love this thread.

I have said it before but it bears repeating here; Hot Rod Deluxe #1 was a watershed moment in my life.

In 1999, Mike Ness released "Cheating at Solitaire", his first solo record. I was 15 years old, and to this point, had never heard of Mike Ness, or Social Distortion. But one day "Don't Think Twice" came blaring over the speakers of my Mom's 1993 Grand Caravan from 92.3 K-Rock and I was instantly taken. "Who is this?!" I said to myself. The DJ said it was Mike Ness, and I took note. From there I did some research, which of course led me to Social D, and I started buying up CDs of theirs. I was in love with it.

Independently of all of this, I had an appreciation of old cars, and a particular affinity for post war 1950s iron. In 2000, I bought my first car, a beat up 1957 Chevy Bel Air 4 door sedan. Not cool in the grand scheme of things, but killer for a 16 year old kid. While I knew I liked old cars, I really had no direction with it. I just ***umed you put dual exhaust and cragars on it and called it a day.



My high school girlfriend, knowing I was into Social D, found HRD#1 on eBay, and bought me a copy for my birthday. I vividly remember sitting at her dining room table and just being floored by the cars. The Choppers cars were so cool. But now I saw Mike Ness with his 54, and I was like, "This is where I need to be. This is what I want to be involved with". Cole Foster led me to the OGs like Winfield, Barris, Watson, the Alexander Bros... But that was the point of entry.

The "Rockstars with torque wrenches" criticism was understandable, especially in the context of the time. The traditional revival of the late 1990s and early 2000s was very centered around home built cars, doing your own work, and driving your **** hard and often. Guys that paid shops to do work were gold-chainers and looked down upon, often openly. I don't think that same mindset exists to that extent today.

We as a board have often asked the question of "How do we p*** this along to the next generation?". The bottom line is that they have to be into it to want to do it. Nobody is going to do a hobby that they don't enjoy. There needs to be a point of entry, whether it be a family member, or for those like me that did not come from a family involved at all with cars, some celebrity or influencer who does this to emulate. That's why people like Mike Ness, Jesse James, James Hetfield, Travis Barker, etc. are so important to this hobby. They bring exposure of this genre of the automobile hobby to the m***es who may not be aware it exists.

 

Do any of the old micro c***ette phone answering machines have a headphone output jack?

 

That reminds me at the REVS Museum in Naples Florida we have a McLaren F-1, 1995 vintage (think about these 31 years old) 240MPH car in its day. When we tell people about the vehicle, we tell them it has a JBL, 10-disc player in the front trunk compartment the young persons do not know what a disc player is. They obviously would sure not know about 8-track and c***ette tapes. By the way the car looks a cool as any Hyper Car out there today.

 

quick look online for #1 only a couple For Sale, asking high prices

 

****s that Roth screwed you over like that, @Ryan. Just wasn't right.

 

quick look online for #1 only a couple For Sale, asking high prices[/QUOTE]

I have both #1 and #2 plus all later issues, very sorry they were shut down.

 

Howza Bruthas-

The first issues really were fun reads, and I agree- print rules!
At Viva this past April, CK Deluxe/Ol Skool Rodz had a booth and a new launch coming soon.
The magazine looks really good.

 

I'm In for Part II!

 

I was in the same boat, no one my age were I lived had heard of them, the closest F.Y.E. was 30 miles away so I was in the dark!

Me (facing kind of camera) two weeks after my high school graduation in 2000!

The Road Agents Rockabilly Rumble East Hartford Conn


If it had not been for Hot Rod Deluxe, the Street Rodder “The Great Rat Rod Revival” (that was the name of the article don’t shoot the messenger) by Rob Fotier.

I may never have discovered the period correct movement or met many of the people who are now my friends!



Skip Readio photo

 

Hot Rod Deluxe would not have happened without Gearhead, David Perry's book on the San Francisco hot rod scene, Garage magazine, Greazzeer fan zine, Rolled in Pleats, Kustoms, TSR, and Grindstone. Aaron Lasky, Robert Williams, Ryan, and a handful of others showed what the magazines listed above were doing, and Hot Rod gave the green light to see how it would perform.

Much to the dismay of the gold chainer crowd, it took off like wildfire, and the years following the gold chainer crowd got on board because it was so popular. To me, that put a large dent in the street rod crowd and the billet machines of the day.

 

Anyone remember this magazine?

 

Hot Rod Deluxe, although the same ***le, should not be conflated with the later magazine (albeit of the same lineage) that was published with David Freiberger as the editor. A great magazine unto itself, the original HRD that we are discussing here, was published by Aaron Lasky in 1999 and later an issue in 2000. Rolls and Pleats debuted in 2000, after HRD#1 was already out, and Garage (the one put out by Jesse James) did not debut until 2004.

The Hot Rod Deluxe you're referring to was the version published by Peterson that began around 2008.

 

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Over the years I had collected a huge magazine collection. When I decided to move from California to Texas, I decided to dispose of them rather than fooling with the ebaY scene. I filled one of those big plastic dumpsters (50 gallon) that trash companies like so the truck can just grab them and dump them in.
Kind of a nostalgic experience. A most shocking realization is how many ***les I had collected. Here is my list
Hot Rod
Hot Rod Street Rod Quarterly
Rod & Custom
Car Craft
Custom Rodder
Street Rodder
American Rodder
Rod Action
Rod Builder
Hop Up
Speed Mechanics
Super Rod
Popular Hot Rodding
Rodder's World
Street Rodding Illustrated
Rodder's Digest
Hot Rod Deluxe
Tex Smith Hot Rod Mechanix
I am sure this isn't a complete list but it illustrates how much information was published in the hay-day. A sad piece in my collection is a 4-page subscriber letter that Tex Smith sent begging for contributions to try to keep Mechanix afloat. He said he needed an infusion of $350,000 but donations were only 1/10 that amount. It signaled the end of the last really useful publication.

This got me to wonder why I lost my enthusiasm for rod mags. Through my youth and young adulthood, I couldn't wait for the next issue of the mags. It finally dawned on me, I already know it all! I built several cars, including wiring, body work, painting, upholstery, building ch***is, engines ******s, built fibergl*** bodies, king-cabbed a '53 Chevy pickup, rebuilt Hydramatic, 200R4, Powerglide, 350, 400, etc., ******s, built Chevy 6 and V8, hemi, Ford FE, etc., engines. I built a clone of Ed Roth's Mysterion show car that sold at auction for $240,000. In my purging I found several dozen articles on building headers, two dozen on how to wire a car, half a dozen on how to put on a rolled pan, etc., etc. There is nothing new to say. I kept a few Hot Rods, one or two American Rodders, etc., with articles that I like, such as old series on building early hemis, articles on tricking out Hydramatic and Powerglide ******s for performance, etc., that showed real modifications I could make, not just things I could buy and bolt on.

Another problem that overcame the mags is they lost talent. In the early days you had Tex Smith, Jim McFarland, and several others who wrote really meaty technical articles. Over the years technical articles degraded to printing aftermarket supplier's installation sheets and shopping guides. Street Rodder made one last surge trying to survive and published magazines with over 300 pages! That's more than many good novels contain, quan***y did not overcome the lack of meat in the quality.

Finally, there isn't anything they can publish that isn't readily available on the internet, including photos of cars. Getting pretty cynical in my old age! But I will always have the memory of the excitement felt every time the latest issue of Rod & Custom hit the news stand.

 

I've bought probably every volume 1 Number 1 issue of a car magazine I saw on the stand over the past 50 year and have that one somewhere in the stash but it probably isn't in good shape anymore as I lost several thousand magazines in my stash when my storage flooded.

 

Love the magazines from that era. Such. Time Machine to flip through them now.

 

Man what a great read, I think I still have that magazine. I will say this, seeing a picture of your car posted on social media nowadays just doesn't hit the same way as it felt when it was printed in a magazine.

Always a great surprise when you opened it up and saw your ride in there or when a buddy called and said your car just came out in so and so magazine, then you ran to the store to buy the Mag.

 

I lost a lot of desire for mags when the tech turned into commercials. Frankenstein engines built with **** from diffrent car manufacturers. Suspension clips, chops …… that was the tech I loved.
But, if you have to sell advertising, how to you balance junk yard build DIY stuff and not upsetting the 1-800 guys buying ads?
Hotrod Deluxe had **** in it that seemed simpler or more grounded to what guys could do in their home shops or hotroding roots.

don’t get me wrong, love me some high dollar builds, not bashing the guys that keep the shops busy.
The recent article here by the boss where someone stated how Ardun heads now kinda seems like a “flex” from the big $$$ guys and that they appreciate a 265/283 more now.
This is a strange hobby. “Man I wish we had more steel 32s” and “brookville isn’t real” exist on the same plane.

just got back from the dentist but no gas this time so I have no clue where this rambling comes from.

I might start my on mag that features log trucks and Taildraggers.

 

Always sad to meet someone that's been put onto icon status or even a personal hero only to find out that they **** as real person. I stopped trying as a kid and just let them live in whatever fantasy world they came from (movies, car mags or anything else).....it's better for me not to look behind the curtain.

 

Same as with Kenneth Howard AKA "V.D." Through reading material here on the H.A.M.B. as to just how ****ed up he was, I threw all of my V.D. related stuff away. That entire brand was taken over by people that had no idea of who or what he was !

 

I'm not old enough to have been around for the first two issues, but the HRD revival in 2008 really did it for me! That magazine introduced me to traditional cars and how they were supposed to look and feel. Every time my dad went to the grocery store I made him buy me a car magazine, and HRD was one of the best! I really wish they had been monthly and offered a subscription instead of doing the newsstand only format. I don't know why they got killed off, in 2020, but I think subscriptions could have helped