Art & Inspiration Hot rod magazine 9/23

That reminds me. A few months ago I was listening to a podcast with Jeff Smith, former editor of HRM. He ended up somewhere with a group of former Car Craft editors, including (current editor of HRM) John McGann, who edited Car Craft at the time. The old guys were giving McGann a hard time because he was "the new guy who didn't know anything". Smith starting asking them, how many staff did you have? The answers were varied, 13, 12, 10, etc. He told them John is running the magazine with a staff of just himself. The atmosphere in the room instantly changed and he got a lot of respect from those guys.

It's hard work to run HRM to that level of quality with a staff of two. I choose to look at it as they have an amazingly capable person holding the reins, rather than it's surely on the decline.

 

Actually, I'm glad to hear that there are only two HRM staffers. That means that there are plenty of opportunities for free lance writers/photographers to get a shot at the big time.

 

Long live Hot Rod Mag!

I'm kinda surprised that paint scheme on the 34 is so well received here on the HAMB. I'll leave it at that.

 

Leave it is exactly what I think of it.

 

At the beginning of the year, there were only 3 print magazines in the stable; HOT ROD, MOTOR TREND and FOUR WHEELER. FOUR WHEELER was axed this spring, so Pete is probably right.

 

Car and Driver, owned by Hearst,is still out there. In 2019, it reached almost 20 million readers-4 times Hot Rod. There's literally NOTHING HAMB related,except I am a fool who will read anything about automobiles, even 6 figure ones I am not likely to buy.

 

Speaking of C&D....there's one person on staff now who is into some interesting old cars, and does stuff like this

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/columns/a44270064/elana-scherr-artificial-flavor/

(she used to work for Hot Rod, and later wrote Don Prudhomme's biography, etc)

 

Do you remember Chrysler Power magazine? IMHO, that was one of the best. Stopped publishing in 98 because of a family tragedy. I heard that they are publishing again but I’ve never seen it on the rack.

 

She did some great stuff at Hot Rod and with Roadkill magazine. I really enjoy her automotive journalism but unfortunately I don't really ever read car and driver so I don't see much of her stuff anymore.

 

yeah, it's pretty far off topic for the most part. Oh well.

 

That was a fun article though that you linked. I've been trying to find a stock model A for exactly that feeling.

 

I got a T a few years ago, it was really fun to go through all the mechanical things on it, and get it driving. But it's pretty difficult to use it as a car in the modern world. Which is why we hot rod them, I guess!

 

Every time I look at a photo of that car, my first thought is that they had a lot of tape and partially filled cans of paint leftover from other projects.

 

I really liked Hot Rod,and Car Craft,so had sub. in the late 50s an part of the early 60s. Most others,I just get at the news stand,,, I also though most mag.s had started to not do Art's on how too,except if it had something to do with selling something that was adds in the mag. Were in the 50 "How too" was a big part of most rod n custom mag's.
I dropped Hot Rod,when they put a dune buggy on the cover=I thought they lost what a hotrod mag was!!!!!
After that,once in a year,maybe would get one or not.
Back then,just thought auto mag.s would always be around.

 

I have had subscriptions to Hot Rod off and on. Even before that my room as a kid had pics cut out and posted on the walls. But like anything, to survive they all need to appeal to not just HAMB friendly cars and topics. While I think they drifted away from old hot rods for a while I think they have drifted back some. I have also had subs for Street Rodder (mostly pre-billet) and Four Wheeler as well. They have all interested me more or less as time went on and eventually the subs fell by the wayside. Now with the computer I can be more focused on what I look at and read and don't have a pile of mags piling up somewhere that I eventually throw out. I still have some copies and ones of Rodder's Journal too. Signs of the times and the ever evolving cycles as they are businesses.

 

I've had a subscription since I was 13. Really enjoyed this issue. It would be awful to see this stop being in print...ATCO dragway closes for good yesterday, then, I read this, what the hell is this world coming too?!

 

Thanks for the link! I enjoy reading about anyone who questions the intelligence of handing civilization over to artificial intelligence.

 

And now hotrod is going to quarterly. And car kulture deluxe, ol skool rodz are gone.