...I've loved magazines since I was in grade school, still do, still have a lot of subscriptions, they are cheaper than just buying 2-3 mags at random thru the year;,,,some are great, some not so much, but usually there's somethin to learn in each issue.
I remember ROAD TEST MAGAZINE. Hasn't been around for almost 45 years. I thought RT was an outstanding car magazine.
Haven't bought a magazine in probably 15 or more years. Every once an a while I might look at a mag on a shelf in a store (car mags are getting hard to find around here) to see if I'm missing anything. Usually I'm not. Between actually working on my stuff, and reading the HAMB and a couple other web sites I visit, I wouldn't have time to read the long advertising bits pretending to be "How To" articles. Most of the "Event Coverage" isn't much better then the "How To" articles. Gene
That’s interesting because the old magazines I have were typically 1 or 2 page articles with very vague descriptions. I know this is from a Hot Rod Yearbook but was typical of the monthly issues also.
Maybe it depends on the store, but my local Barnes and Noble has a pretty large section of automotive (and motorcycle) magazine titles.
My dad started with Hot Rod day 1. He kept getting it until I got my first sub in 1971. I kept getting it until about 2005 when the content just didn't do anything for me. I have gotten other magazines in the past, Like High Performance Pontiac, Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords, Automobile Quarterly, White Triangle News (when I belonged to the Hudson Essex Terraplane club) and some others here and there. The content just went all new computer controlled crap and totally lost my interest. Now most of them are gone or just don't print what I want to read. I do get Hemmings Collector Car and Hemmings Muscle Magazine but the Muscle Magazine was a total mistake and its going away. Too much new-resto moded shit that I fucking hate with every fiber in my fat assed soul...
I have a subscription to Street Rodder now after many years of no subscriptions. I’d buy a copy on the news stand a few times a year but with a subscription they only cost about $1.50 each. I can get enough value in an issue to justify that. Then I pass it on to my neighbor who shares his subscription of Classic Car published by Hemmings with me. In regards to circulation numbers, I was in publishing for many years. There are many ways to “cook the books” to look better for advertiser dollars.
nothing like a budget build with a 10 , 00 dollar limit on the engine another 10 on chassis and paint
I stopped subscribing to Hot Rod quite a while ago, but they just keep coming. Every time one shows up in my mailbox I wonder if it will be the last. So far, no joy! This month really does have some neat stuff in it. It is the exception though...
Hello, We used to go to the neighborhood liquor store with our dad to get his newspaper copies (3…LA Times, LA Herald Examiner, and the LB Press Telegram) The reason was that this store had the longest display of magazines of all kinds. From photos, to models…car models, to family and then to the large hot rod/custom car section. My dad did not like, folded into thirds, any delivered newspapers. He told us it was hard to read with creases going up and down instead of a half way fold. That lasted until we realized we could subscribe to those magazines and have them delivered. One thing we did not like were the old-style address labels that were mass produced and attached right across the front cover photo. No amount of moisture and steam got those labels off cleanly for a nice color cover photo. That was the first step in not liking subscriptions. But, as our lifestyle changed, the magazines did not hold much interest, so despite the lure of a better subscription deal given to us by the publishers, we stopped subscribing. It was more fun to go with our dad to the liquor store for the mega-magazine selections and reading while our dad shopped for his stuff. The tech articles were getting into stuff we no longer liked or were of any interest, so it was like looking at an encyclopedia page(s) for unwanted stuff. The more articles that came out, the more nails it produced in stopping the subscriptions. Finally, the subscriptions stopped while we finished high school and college. We did buy some magazines that spurred our hot rod/drag racing interests. But, for the most part, it was fast fading away with unwanted/unread articles…and to reverse the old saying: "We read the magazines for the articles..." It goes, "We bought it for the photos." Jnaki Over the years of being involved in drag racing, taking photos of hot rods/motorcycles, subscriptions were not needed. But, somehow the stacks of old magazines started to pile up in the office closets. One day, they were all given away to the local high school auto shop, when those auto shops were still around. Along with other guys/girls here on the HAMB, Barnes and Noble is the best place to see the myriad of hot rod, custom car, trucks and motorcycle magazines of any store around. But, they are also having a rough go, competing with the websites and digital showcases. What used to be a fabulous book store, is now ½ toys… and a coffee store… nothing wrong with that… But the books and magazine spaces seem a little deserted these days. So goes another big name book seller, starting down the tubes… The Nook vs the Ipad or Kindle? No contest and it is a tough market. But for 10 years, it was a great place to help get our granddaughter reading and enjoying the myriad of books in the children's section. Prior to that, it was reading in the stacks of those early book stores in almost every community shopping areas and of course, the library for our toddler son. Reading aloud is the best way to help children develop word mastery and grammatical understanding, which form the basis for learning how to read. Subscriptions at our house are for my wife. My subscriptions stopped 40 years ago. So, no more piles of magazines ready for the donations or "give-aways" at neighborhood garage sales. Magazines are a good ploy to attract neighbors to look at your garage sale items, if they are offered free magazines and books, as well as a few tools, too.
This is one of the problems.... Cover says Bonneville but the photo is a rat from the casino show parking lot driving on the salt. . . .put a race car there
Well, you have your publications like Rodders Journal that are considered coffee table magazines and then there are the other magazines like hot rod and others, occasionally they publish a monthly that checks all the right boxes and it's nice to have something to read while sitting on the Porcelain Throne, besides if you happen to notice someone forgot to replace the depleted supply of charmin and all that is left is a cardboard tube on the roll, wiping your arse with a couple of pages from a magazine is far more efficient that using your lap top! HRP
I canceled all my subscriptions years ago when they became trade magazines. Well, I do have one left, but it comes with the membership to NSRA. Nothing but advertising. I do like printed magazines, but I don't have room to store them anymore and I find most of what I need on the HAMB or just searching the web. I did keep my first editions of Hot Rod up to 1955 though.
Advertising revenues are based on paid circulation or whatever they call it. So, they will keep a certain number of subscriptions going out, even when cancelled. Keeps the circulation numbers "sticky" on the way down.
Less than 1/2 what it was 21 years ago. January 1998 ( cover said biggest issue ever) report showed 842,000 paid, 238,780 returned from news agents and 1,087,007 printed.
At the chance of getting my ass kicked here, which i probably could use, i was a fan of rod & custom. I remember when hot rod was good, always doing something cool to project X, but like somebody else said, seems to be nothing but modifications to late model cars these days...
I'm hoping the next episode of RK will be better than the one that just came out... (and I have reason to hope so)
Most of what passes for "journalism" nowadays wouldn't pass a grade school writing assignment. Print may not be dead yet, but it seems like it has no soul.
Check out Canadian Hot Rods magazine. Light on advertising and always great articles and a good mix of cars. You boys down south can learn a thing or two from us hearty northerners! Ha ha just kidding don’t pull out the knives! Here’s just a few cover pics! Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
The Jalopy Journal
