Traditional Rod & Kulture Illustrated Issue #9 “Cheap and Low” Misquoted me.

I just want to set the record straight. There were a lot of things written in this article that were either not mentioned or got twisted in the 15 minute cell phone interview.

First major mistake I noticed was this sentence: “He spotted a bone stock1930 Model A Sedan for $2500 in North Dakota in an old car collector magazine, and he took a road trip.” First off anyone that knows me, I’ve always told everyone it’s a 29. And if you’re that stupid to not know the differences between a 30 and a 29, then you’re not looking at the cowl. I also never said I drove to North Dakota. I’m not that desperate.

Another ****ed up quote he wrote, “It emerged chopped and channeled after a five-day thrash at a friend’s house.” That five-day thrash at a friend’s house was the body work and a couple coats of Feather Fill. The chop and channel was done at Blue Collar Customs, which he never asked during our 15 minute cell phone interview.

“He says he fabricated the floorboards, shifter, and the drilled gas and brake pedals all by himself.” Not once did I mention the any of that during our conversation. I did however say which I forgot we talked about until my girl who was standing next to me during the cell phone conversation remembered that I fabricated the gas tank out of a broken 12 gallon air compressor tank and drilled the hole to fit a 75 Chevy truck filler neck.

This Brandon Flannery is making it look like I’m stepping on people’s toes here. He took awesome pictures, but is ****ty when it comes to telling someone else’s story. So far Brandon hasn’t returned my call. If this is how the magazine media confirms the article before printing it, then I wouldn’t recommend any of you guys to trust these publications unless you’ve confirmed the sources or write your own article on your own car.

[FONT=&quot]I just want to apologize to Scott Mugford, Rob Cannon, Phil Cannon, and Donny at Blue Collar Customs having seen this article. You have to believe me that I would never take credit for **** like that. We’ve known each for a long time now and I would never sell you out. It’s been one day since I read it and I’m so ****in’ mad right now that I’m considering filing a suit against this publication.[/FONT]

 

It seem your are already setting the record straight. Your friends will understand that **** does get mixed up.

As for the magazine, he should have ran a copy of the story by you first.

Can't wait to see the photos.

 

i dont believe anything in those magazines. the words and pics are just filler for advertising.

 

yeah, lets set the record straight. brandon is our best writer. he does an awesome job, and i personally have received many e-mails complimenting the job he has done on there story. now, im sorry your **** got screwed up, but before you beat up brandon too bad, i didnt want to feature the car in the first place. brandon kicked me in the nuts for months because he liked you and the car. as far as i know, this is the first time he has made a mistake on a car feature, if it was truly a mistake on brandons part. the reason brandon has not returned your call is that he is in bakersfield at the march meets for the weekend, so i would imagine you will be receiving a phone call from him first part of next week. i dont normaly even bother responding to the **** talking, but when you start bad mouthing my magazine and our quality, i feel the members of the hamb should hear both sides. we have featured many hambers cars, and this is the first complaint.

zombie

 

I heard about the article a few days ago and that the facts were all jacked up...never once thought you didn't give 'em the right story. I'm sure the rest of your friends thought the same. Good on you to set the record straight for everyone else.

Later, Bryan

 

Not to play devil's advocate or take sides - but I hope that all parties can understand it was probably a misunderstanding or miscommunication. I hope that it doesn't have to escalate to torn loyalties or friendships since we are all in this for the same thing: building and celebrating traditional cars. There is a lot to be said for any magazine that publishes this material, and even more so the readers and people who build and drive and own these cars.
I think it's a wonderful magazine - and I can't wait to see the next issue. I understand that poorboydrew is pissed, but I would think that TradRod&Kult would gladly ammend their mistake in a short paragraph or two in the next issue, similar to the efforts of many other publications that make mistakes from time to time, before escalated **** slinging gets involved. At least give them a chance to set the record straight for the entire traditional rod and custom world.
I don't want to stick my nose in other people's affairs, but if there is a chance I can help make peace - then so be it.

 

Thanks, Drew for putting the record streight.Your car is one ov the coolest cars we built. And just getting credit for helping with the frame and the 4 bar set up seemed like a low blow. A lot of the cool things were not mentioned. Like the rear suspention witch is a trialangled four bar with the top two bars run backwards and it's run off of toriton bars instead of springs. Plus we built the headers,the pedal ***embleys ,choped the car and did the chanel. Plus all the litle **** like making adapters to run small block chevy engine mounts on the nail head and re clocking the water outlet so you could run a cheeper pre made radiator instead of a custom radiator.
I'm sory if this make no sence I hurt my back Snowboarding yeasterday and I'm on some good pain pills. But I did not want to wait to thank Drew for letting people know what was up. Scott,Blue Collar Customs

 

Why would not want to feature this car? Scott

 

I ve had 12-15 magazine articals done on cars I've built or worked on over the years. NONE of them got the info correct, some worst then others. I've been on both sides, pissed when someone else was credited for my work and embar***ed by getting credit for someone else (usally a buddy) work. The writers always say they got wrong info, I think that was the case sometime but I know sometimes writers change the info to make the story read better. One writer told me this when I questained why the artical said the car was "owner built" when he knew I built it. He said readers would rather read about homebuilts then pro builts. Guess it's just nature of the biz.

 

let me rephrase that so not to give the wrong impression. the car is a cool traditional little sedan with a nail head. however, i have 30 feature cars on my desk, and i kept bumping it. and i wanted to bump it again because i had a 36 chevy g***er that i wanted to run in that spot in this particular issue. obviously, if someone is unhappy with there feature for any reason we are going to do what it takes to rectify that problem.

 

"Like the rear suspention witch is a trialangled four bar with the top two bars run backwards and it's run off of toriton bars instead of springs."

I'd personally just like to see a pic of this.

 

I think the original poster came off a bit strong without first hearing back from anyone, unsure of the wait time involved before blowing off steam, but I'd think I'd want to get it from the horses's mouth frst, then relay the info.

Heck, a quick call to your buddies and the shop that did the work, explaining what you said vs what was printed, would have settled hings down between you and them...no reason to cal out the mag (IMO) until you at least were able to speak to them.

 

I was thrilled to see my car beating it down the road on the Ranch Run. Thanks for putting it in the mag. Which car? Doesn't matter to anyone but me.

 

wha-wha-wha-wha...

 

ALL magazine writers **** (read the sarcasm)- that's why I'm writing one more story and hanging up my jersey. Maybe I can get my next life endevor right (no sarcasm- just time to move on)

 

maybe your 15 minute cell phone conversation was boring so he felt he needed to jaz things up abit...you know help your story out a little..the car speaks for itself bu tthe way you told him about the cars build was cool enough for the magazine readers...i had a minitruck shot once for mintruck'n mag..the editor add his own words in the story...most people want to read how you and your buddys hammered down on the car or truck ..not how you paid to have this mod done by joe blow..my 2 cents ...not being a **** just offering my thoughts

 

I hope it's the Joe Mac story

 

My local grocery store just started carrying it. I just got my first copy last night, and I gotta say I like it! Great magazine! As for being upset they got some details wrong, who cares, at least you got your car in a magazine.

 

With most mags, I only look at the pictures anyways.

 

I've did a few feature cars for HRM back in the day and the first thing that happened was that the owner got a 3 page form to fill in the details and then the story was written from the spec sheet. Avoids situations like this.

JimA...do they still do that?

 

Writing a magazine article is journalism, and the basics are to get the facts straight, proof read, spell correctly.
I guess the question is, would the WRITER want to get this corrected quickly and factually, so far no one has heard from him. He obviously got the facts wrong, no matter what his boss says, this needs correcting.
Credibility is very important to a publicaton.
It seems the boss also couldn't resist taking a shot about the acceptability of the car for publication.
Publishing now includes 24/7 forums that can have immediate critiques and you need someone that is an expert at putting out fires, not fanning them.
Just for the record and my opinion, when the magazine comes on and defends itself by misspelling, and swearing, I get the idea that this is an amateur, not a professional endeavor.

 

I agree with your post: It doesn't take ******** rocket science to have a "build sheet" that captures or plays back the facts. Hell - both the mag and the owner are obviously on the Internet . . . easy to proof a pending article. The shoot obviously sat on a desk for sometime --- plenty of time to get it right.

Now - with my PR hat on: Almost any PR is good PR . . . even though it may not be exactly what you want, at least somebody noticed your car and wanted to print about it. Almost every writer I know takes literary license to "mold" a story into something that will sell to his/her audience. That is just the way it is. If writers let their subjects do all the writing and proof reading - it would be boring as hell to read anything. That is the chance you take when somebody writes about you or your stuff -- they're going to twist it a bit . . . price you pay for PR. And yes - they usually drop things from the story that you think are important -- to them, they're just not.

Lastly: I don't know why the publisher had to throw that **** about "not wanting to publish this car". Fact is -- you did -- and you p***ed up other cars in doing so. Tough **** . . . it doesn't do your mag any good with you bad mouthing a car you just got through putting in your spread. What the hell did you print it for . . . if it was so not worthy? Somebody figured it was good enough to sell print . . . so quit *****in about it. Put a process in place to review the facts . . . and get em' right in the first place. It is your problem to fix - not make it worse.

My 3 fricking cents . . .

 

Who Cares? The guys that busted their *** on that car care. Drew your car is bad ***. Scott you guys did a great job.-Brian

 

Bored&Stroked is right. I don't do magazines, I do car parts for the OEMs. If you've got a flat tire and need to jack up your car you care that I got the facts right. Even if 75% of the public doesn't even look at the jack or, in this case, read the words, you've got to have them right.

In a race to publish a magazine, the details may get lost but publishing incorrect facts can cause issues in the future. Blue Collar may see this as a slap in the face and decide they don't want to help the guy out in the future which punishes him. Blue Collar may understand (sounds like they do from above post) the situation and 'forgive' the car owner but they probably won't 'forget' the magazine. When your ad sales guy comes looking around for ad dollars from a chop like BC, he may get an ear full.

Oh, and a good customer tells 1. A pissed customer tells 10. On the internet that 10 becomes 10,000.

That said, I'm still going to go out looking for the magazine. At least they are trying to publish something other than a parts catalog with a few car pics and stories thrown in a la Primevil. Maybe they'll take this as an opportunity to improve. I'd like to see the g***er mentioned as well.

 

WHOOOOAAA! Before you turn this into a full-fledged ****storm and trash a fledgling pub on the HAMB (the audience that could seemingly make or break the pub) ask yourself a question, Drew...Do you want to see this pub go under?

They're printing this rag for us. Support it or lose it.

Sounds to me like the guy who wrote this article angled hard to get yer car into the pub. Sure, he jacked up a few facts. But did you offer to fact-read Brandon's the article for him before it got published? Did you offer help write the damn thing? Didya relay the details as clearly as you think you did? I'm guessin' no.
Did you embar*** the **** out of what I think is a pretty decent pub that a lot of people are busting their ***es to publish? I'm thinin' yes.

You got yer freakin car into a magazine, bro. Enjoy it.

I thought the article was well written and I enjoyed the entire new issue.
In fact, I'd just finished reading Rod & Kulture cover to cover and was thinking about e-mailing the editor to tell him I really dug it. Then I turned on my computer, logged on to HAMB and read this.

So I guess I'll just share my opinion, here. Nice rag, IMHO.

Zombie, I believe you owe Drew a correction with more credit to his Blue Collar boyz. Drew, I think you owe the author the bennie of the doubt. Brandon, I think you penned a fine article but you need to double check your ****.

One of the HAMBER suggested a "fact sheet" be supplied for the owners of feature cars to fill out. Dandy idea.

BTW, the only stake I have in Rod & Kulture is a subscription I signed up for a Paso. That, and I'd sure like to see it continue to pop up in my mailbox.

 

QFT, especially the last sentance. I reread that post and its hilarious that an editor for a magazine would have such bad punctuation and simple spelling mistakes. I havent seen this magazine before, but that is definately not the kind of response that I would expect to see for what seems to be a justified gripe.

 

HEY MAN I really like your car and I guess I'd never gotten to see it if not for Rod & Kulture.
Thanx to both of you.