Art & Inspiration What's up with Hot Rod Magazine lately?

It has a front engine dragster on the cover...and a whole bunch more inside. And a few other neat things.

The future is looking up

 

They're paying tribute to the early days of drag racing when it was all about who was faster and quicker than the other guy. I read on the website that they felt it was time those who were there got their just reward.







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I can honestly say I haven't picked up an issue in over 10 years...maybe it's time I do.

 

I haven't read Hot Rod since Baskerville,i'll check it out.

 

You got to love the under dog article.

 

Also, last months issue (March 2017) had a REALLY nice article on "The Iconic '32 Ford". I'm not a big Deuce fan, but it was a very good read. Oh...BTW, 2 years subscription for $20 and a hat. Not a bad deal at all.

 

bet it is because they got such a great response for running coverage of a really Cool Chevy II - it certainly is not Hot Rod Deluxe, etc. - but, it keeps me interested - yes, there are super deals now and then for subscriptions, which I took advantage of

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the editors of Hot Rod and some other magazines lurked here.

 

I agree! The last few issues have been getting back to their roots. I am not really interested in articles about the latest Hellcat or Coyote or any of them critters!

 

I'm among those that completely lost interest decades ago. Might be time to check them out again.

 

They have a new editor - Evan Perkins.
He's young, but a great guy who gets it!
Not like the last few who thought everything should be junk yard crap and how to build shitty cars.

 

I enjoyed the article on the streamliner dragsters but that's a little O/T around here because it goes into 1991, and the turbonioque Mustang but thats been covered here already. I also found the article on how the '33-'36 Willys 77 was rare but became so popular in the Gasser classes.

 

Hot rod has been pretty damn good ever since Frieburger took it over. It isn't all flatheads and 32 Fords, but it is definitely worth checking out. Expand your horizons a bit, you will love it I swear. Also, they share a website with Motor Trend that has an ass load of great video. Most of it is low buck backyard type stuff.

Check it out.

https://www.motortrendondemand.com/channel/originals/42024872/

-Abone.

 

Frieburger is someone I could hang out with.

 

I guess that just goes to show how two folks look at the same thing and see very different pictures - I think Frieburger was the one who drove it into the ground and his protege Kennedy just followed that path. I don't care about crappy junkyard stuff and cutting up a Corvette until there is nothing left and thinking that is Car Building. Different Strokes for Different Folks I do like the path that Evan is carving.

 

I still subscribe to HR and to me it sure has had it's ups and downs for more than a few years. Recently, at times I think I'm reading Motor Trend with the late model stuff they seem to dwell on and hopefully Evan will put a stop to that. Even worse for me are the articles they post on their website, I don't care to read about something online 3 months before it is in print. Print that I pay for! Publishers piss and moan about the www killing them, but TEN in particular does a good job of shooting itself in the foot. And Evan, if you do lurk here why put an article on the website before it hits the street?

 

I think that Dave was trying to cater to a new market to some degree and eventually that spun off into RoadKill with both a print magazine and lots of video as well. I think that it helped drive Hot Rod sales upward (whether we liked it or not). A lot of the vintage drag race content that we are seeing now is driven by Thom Taylor's input and he is the sort of guy that you can find sitting in the bleachers at Bakersfield watching the action. It may be a while before we see another issue with some much relevant (to us) content but some positive comments directed in the magazine's direction would not hurt. I met Evan at IRP during last year's Drag Week activities and he is definitely receptive to reader input so go for it and let him know what you like, be it hot rods, traditional style drag cars etc.

Roo

 

Well,that would be first good thing,after I dropped it in 1965 for VW buggy on the cover an it turn too all adds,even the techs were to sell something. Its sucked for a very long time

 

IMHO if you are a car guy and you can't find something you didn't know or an article of interest in Hot Rod when you're paying a $1 an issue you just might be narrowing your interest in the performance auto hobby a little too much.
It's like picking up that copy of Motor Trend or Car and Driver in a waiting room, you come away a little smarter after thumbing through the pages.
My guilty pleasure is Hemmings Classic Cars,off the beaten path but the info is historic and more than interesting along with the photographs.

 

Very well put......

 

Haven't read it in years. I stopped reading it when there was more motorcycle coverage than the Street Rod Nationals. Hot Rod Magazine is a combination of Road and Track, Motor Trend, Car and Driver, Muscle Car Magazine and Four Wheel Drive. Perhaps someone finally figured out what a Hot Rod is.

 

...I'm with Squirrel & i.rant......I'm in the buck an issue gang....Just got my new mag today. Some issues better than others, all are better than metal shavings in the eye..

 

jimmy crack corn...

 

This is true - But think about this. From a performance parts manufacturer point of view, why would they want to support a magazine that says, for instance, "You don't need a Newfangled Electronic Ignition system, when a crusty old one out of the junkyard will do fine". Now that may be true if you are building a junkyard motor that doesn't make any power anyway, but many readers are trying to build to a higher level with a more quality driven ideal. Same for stories about engine builds "We got this 5.3 LS motor from craigslist with 200,000 miles on it and we're gonna stick some Ebay Turbos on it and see how long til it blows up". I don't know about others, but if I am going to go to the trouble of swapping a new motor into my ride, I'd at least like to freshen it up and put quality parts on it as versus suspect junk from the internet. Are there low buck guys that are going to do that anyway? Of course there are, but that should not be the main focus of a magazine about our hobby. And while Roadkill may have a huge internet following, I can guaranty you a large percentage don't even know which end of the screwdriver to hold - they just want to watch a short video of carnage or lame road trips before they move on to Jackass. More of their project cars fail then end up as great cars that any of us would like to own. JMO

 

That was the demise of the entire American car magazine industry for me. For far too long, entire magazines, articles and all, were dedicated to selling parts. Feature articles started to read like a shopping list for various parts advertised in the magazines, tech articles were all about installing the parts sold by advertisers, and then, of course, a majority of the pages were just advertising. For a couple decades, I quit reading American car magazines at all.

Sadly, that practice backfired on the advertisers, at least for me. I can't tell you how many heavily-advertised products I will never buy, because I became so offended by their domination of the magazines, that I assume they must be inferior products if they need that kind of paid promotion.

 

I don' care but when my massa gits back, he aint gonna like this corn all over George.

 

I like it because it covers a wide range of cars with high hp motors. That's what makes it a hot rod, right? Gary

 

Having been a writer for the car books and owned an ad/marketing agency specializing in the high performance aftermarket, the attitude of many here don't have a clue as how the magazines and the industry work together. To put it in perspective, HRM publisher Ray Brock had the STP logo airbrushed off the Petty car when it was on the HRM cover because Andy Granatelli wouldn't buy ads in Hot Rod! Some years have been better than others for content, but they most be doing something right as HRM has been around for 68 years.

 

It's interesting reading folks thoughts....

My car ended up on the cover right when Kennedy was leaving, and Perkins was moving in. I asked Brandan about how my car made it, and he said it was the staffers who did that, or something to that effect. I'm happy with how that worked out!

I expect they'll keep doing some late model stuff, they always have (look back to the 50s and early 60s, the hot new Detroit iron was always a big thing in the magazine, even when it was only a 164 hp 265). It's nice to see the old stuff mixed in with it.

Roadkill is a whole other world....some of you saw my Edsel adventure in Roadkill Magazine. I went to their drag race get together in Tucson a few weeks ago, and of course my car was the fastest by far in the Fans vs Roadkill race. A few neat local traditional rods were there, but the spectrum of stuff was just amazing. Right now, the Roadkill team is on a LeMons Rally in the snow

 

In the mid 70's, I inherited a tall stack of HotRod from about 68-72. I think the best part of those mags was Stroker McGurk's articles/column.