Hot Rods Hot rod magazine

My grandfather was a faithful subscriber to hot rod magazine. I'm fairly certain that he kept every issue from 1 to when he passed. An old man he was friends with who I can't remember his name used to come by and drop off his issues for me to read every few months until he passed as well. My mother and I were discussing the 40 and brought this up as I had forgottenabout it. She still has all the magazines in their basement in boxes I thought they had been lost in moves and auctions. Does anybody here subscribe or been a subscriber for a long time? I'll try to get over there and get some pictures when I can. Just a neat story I'd forgotten





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For my 10th birthday Dad bought me the March 1959 Hot Rod issue. I still have it. A couple of years later my Boy Scout troop had a paper drive for a fund raiser. Somebody donated a box of old Hot Rods. I got my own subscription about 1963 and continue it today. I filled in issues I was missing and I'm complete back to 1949 with a few original '48's. Last year I cleared a wall in the garage and put up about 18' of shelves to display these and many other titles mostly '70 to current street rod mags. It's a disease......... Don't know what my wife & son will do with them.

 

That's awesome

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I subscribe faithfully since 1958. Sadly, I just let it go. It's not Hot Rod any more, it's Hot Muscle Car. Nothing in it for me now.

 

Right you are Dean, I stopped reading "Hot Rod" when they couldn't decide if they wanted to be Road and Track, Motor Trend, Car and Driver, 4x4, Car Craft or Hot Muscle Car Gazette. Hot Rods as we know them, they are not.

 

Although I have been a subscriber for many years, not as long as Dean I have told them I am done also.
They even offered it for such a low subscription rate that I had to think twice, but I said no thanks!
Just another waste of time, ink and paper!
I'll stick with the Rodder's Journal, Steve Coonan gets it!
KK

 

i miss rod & custom

 

For less than a buck an issue there’s something of interest for a car guy every month IMHO.
BTW I have some late 50’s to middle 60’s of HRM which are in well read condition if there’s a collector looking to fill in their collection. PM me if interested.

 

X2 on the Rod and Custom. I just let my subscription to Hot Rod and Street Rodder (what they replaced Rod and Custom with) lapse. Won't miss them.

 

- hope that basement is warm & dry & off the ground

on the open market to try & sell not worth much - true collectors already have most that they need - I have been selling stuff at swap meets for a long time, and even at 25 cents do not disappear. old special issues & books same results. they keep pushing online availability of viewing back issues. but, sure not the same as actually holding the magazine, or book

 

I often sign up for Hot Rod on a cut rate plan, then donate them to our Alternative High School and most recently to the nursing home where my mother is.


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I was never into HRM and more of a rod and custom guy. I usually don’t bother looking at them at swap meets as people think they are worth gold. I ran into a guy selling off complete years of 50’s HRM at a swap meet. We struck up a conversation. I mentioned I like to read the old magazines to see how it was done back in the day and try to pick them up when I find them reasonable. He tested my knowledge awhile and said he had learned most of what he knew about building hot rods from HRM. He was a continuous subscriber since 1953. Long story short he said it was more important to him that someone read the magazines then how much money he got for them. We struck up a deal on what he had at the swap and I took them home. He then invited me over to his house and gave me the complete collection for free. I’ve been reading ever since... there isn’t much that’s wasn’t covered in those magazines... I just wish I had an index of the articles. Anyone know of one?


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I ran into an former coworker the other day and he asked if I would be interested in his old car mags from rhe 50's up through rhe 80's. I'm going to check it out over the holidays. He was a rodder coming of age in the mid 50's and has some wonderful stories, as well as a cherry '34 three window I need to take a gander at, since has completed it.

 

Started my collection in '72 and quit when I started seeing imports in the mags somewhere in the '80s.....

 

I started my subscription to Hot Rod magazine in December 1956, it was a Christmas present to me. I am now 77 years old, and I still subscribe. When my subscription runs out next year, I will probably stop subscribing. The magazine has changed direction over the years, and as far as I am concerned, not for the better. I will go to Barnes and Nobel, peruse the latest issue, and if I think that there is a article that appeals to me, I will buy it then.

 

Something about holding the magazine in your hands and turning the pages of that just received new issue.
I miss that but not much out there these days for me.

 

I pick the Hot Rod Deluxe issue up when I see it. It has a lot of older stuff in it.

 

My Dad used to take me to a used book store in downtown San Diego in the early 70s , I always hunted down Hot Rod Mags.. I learned a large portion of what I know today about vintage hot rodding because of that. I'm still a junkie ...when I go to the Bakersfield HRR theres always a guy selling vintage Rod mags 5 for $20 . I usually hit him 3 times by the end of the meet And I agree Hot Rod is not what it used to be, But if they catered to us would the youngsters buy it? BTW the 59 Lark I just built was due to the one in the march 1960 issue where a guy takes a new one and stuffs a Hemi in it.

 

6am at a swap meet one year a guy next to me was unloading his truck and pulled 4 of those big totes out of his truck.
Every time he set one down he would breathe heavy,eyeball the tote and kick it. 30-40 mags in each one.
When he was done I offered him a beer which he gladly accepted. I was eyeballing the mags,all 50's-60's.
All styles of magazines from Hot Rod to the lesser known short run ones.He wanted $2.00 each.
He sold a few and we chatted the day away.Ended the swap and he was eyeballing those tubs again.
Told him it suuuuure looked like heavy lifting. Offered him 2 beers....3 if he helped loading them in my truck.
Best 4 beers I ever gave away.

 

My stash... It's grown since the picture was taken but the magazine rack is from AA.

 

I have the first five years of Hot Rod in my collection.

 

My grandmother bought me a subscription for my birthday or Christmas when I was 12 and that was 59 years ago. She bought it for me until she passed away in 1975 and I had to start buying it for myself. I slacked off in the last year or so and now pick up issues at Fred Meyers on my weekly magazine rack run. I still have most every issue but think that most of them have been damage by water or mice where they are stored. I had always had the plan to set up my own car stuff library when I got a decent shop built and that has never materialized. I'd agree with several of the others in that the old issues are first hand info on how things were done back when.

 

I still read hot rod magazine now and then. It Is disappointing to see the imports but I understand they have to try and appeal to the guys my age and younger ro continue making sales. I have built an import they are cheap and fun to drive! My work car is an 07 cobalt with the ss motor swapped in and boy can it scream! But there is no replacement for displacement! I hope they continue to cover the real hot rods to keep getting the younger guys interested in the real American made cars! Thanks for sharing everyone.

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I'm fine with HOTROD, as said before, there is always something interesting for the low price you can get the mag. On the other hand. Street Rodder just gets worse and worse. Unless you want to roughly find out how to install advertiser's stuff on a car you couldn't want to own. Sad. Overall, CarCraft gives you the most informative information-comparisons of products and prices to do the job.

 

I used to subscribe to a bunch of mags back in the early 80`s & up until mid 90`s. They got to be too much alike. Say this month in HR is manifold shoot out, wait a month or too and it would be in CC. Then it got to be every mag was doing a sbc 350 rebuild, then LS1 and so on.

Got to the point they were just churning the same basic info between themselves.

If you didn't own a late model camaro or import wasn't much there. So I gave up on 6 or 7 different subscriptions and really haven't missed it. I find more pertinent information I'm looking for on line.

 

I started buying HRM in the early 50s,but gave up on it in 65 when it had a cover with a VW dune buggy,that was not my idea of any form of hot rod an the inside had been less an less DIYS an more,buy this in the tech. That was the last HRM,I did keep Car Craft going tell the 80s.

 

One of the things I'm enjoying, is to have lived long enough to have a "HAMB" come into being and experiencing more hot rod camaraderie in one day, that I would have in 6-months back when I was a kid (late-50's) because ot the access to psots, "how to" posts and debates we've had. I've learned that a lot of stuff I did back then was right and it makes me proud that I actually figured some stuff out correctly. But most importantly, it showed many, misconceptions and just plain wrong, conclusions I had come to and believed in for a lot of years. I've learned an awful lot from you guys & gals on HAMB and for that, I'm eternally greatful ! Who says, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" !

Merry Christmas, everyone.

 

I recently picked up a very cheap subscription to Hot Rod and while it is certainly not like the one we all remember, it is still an enthusiast magazine. As usual, I just sift through the stuff I'm not interested in and get to what I like. What I find especially difficult is the font size that they're using apparently to save cost by reducing the number of pages. I can hardly read it! Geez, get a clue Hot Rod. Many of your devout readers are well over 60!

- EM