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Art & Inspiration Still have your first " hotrod" magazine?!

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by King ford, Jun 5, 2020.

  1. hotrodharry2
    Joined: Nov 19, 2008
    Posts: 794

    hotrodharry2
    Member
    from Michigan

    Still have my first one! Happened to be Car Craft, March 1966. Each year near the end of the school year we took class trips, usually a full day. We went to Mackinaw Island and instead of candy like all the kids were buying, I bought a Car Craft Magazine. Dick Scritchfield started building a '32 Ford Touring car that he had shipped to the US from Australia. Hooked on Hot Rods since!

    IMG_4683.JPG
     
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  2. The37Kid
    Joined: Apr 30, 2004
    Posts: 30,629

    The37Kid
    Member

    24578a.jpg July 1961 Hot Rod, it is in a file cabinet but easier to Google a photo than search for it. Bought it when I was 10 years old at Squashes news store, continued buying it until the 1970's. Got to see the cover car years later at a show in NYC.
     
    Last edited: Jun 6, 2020
  3. Elcohaulic
    Joined: Dec 27, 2017
    Posts: 2,212

    Elcohaulic

    Yes I still read them over and over and still get ideas! The tech back then was fabulous. Frankly, some of those mid and late 70s mags had some of the best tech..

    First Popular Hot Rodding.JPG Magazines toilet.JPG Magazines.JPG Sot lite magazines.JPG
     
    Last edited: Jun 6, 2020
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  4. rusty rocket
    Joined: Oct 30, 2011
    Posts: 5,053

    rusty rocket
    Member

    Mine was not a magazine but a coloring book that my folks got me probably in 1970/71. It was Don the snake Prudomme and Tom the mongoose Mcewen funny cars. I know it’s floating around somewhere in a rubber made tub in the attic.
     
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  5. Sure do... 1961 but I forget what month.
    I had a subscription after that first one and I still have every Hot Rod magazine I ever bought up through the 80s or 90s stashed away in a crate...if the mice don't get to them. I thought about trying to sell them all but I don't think they bring much to be worth the trouble anymore.
     
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  6. [​IMG]

    I see you keep your magazines in the proper reading room. HRP
     
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  7. vtx1800
    Joined: Oct 4, 2009
    Posts: 1,709

    vtx1800
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    I think the first ones I bought were in 58 or 59 but a friend gave me some earlier ones, I now have a pretty complete collection from 1956 through the last issue. I hope someone wants them when I croak.
    Just a side note, I've been trying to get rid of somethings and had a collection of Road Runner magazine (it's a nicely done motorcycle touring magazine) and in visiting with my neighbor, a hot rodder and Vietnam vet suggested giving them to the VA Hospital. Those old vets (I guess that is us:) like something other than old Better Homes and Gardens to read:) Maybe that's where the wife can take my Hot Rod magazines "later":)
     
  8. 48stude
    Joined: Jul 31, 2004
    Posts: 1,314

    48stude
    Member

    I was ten when I bought this. I still have it and I still love El Matador. Bill
    s-l640.jpg
     
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  9. CME1
    Joined: Aug 10, 2010
    Posts: 299

    CME1
    Member

    This was one of my first Hot Rod Mags April 1951. Got it from one of my older Hot Rod buddies. Image.jpg
     
  10. CA. 280
    Joined: Jan 8, 2010
    Posts: 269

    CA. 280
    Member

    Junior in High School. Bought it because my favorite RPU of all time
    Don Hentzel's was in it. Didn't know the mag existed till we were cleaning
    out my Mom's house when she passed. Thanks Mom. 100_1694.JPG 100_1694-1.jpg
     
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  11. Smokey.jpg I don't recall the actual first one, but my uncle had been giving me Popular Science, PM, and MI in the late 60's. I still have the one with cover story on Smokey Yunick going after 266 records at Bonneville. Started buying Hot Rod, Car Craft and Popular Hot Rodding around 1970 or so. Have most of them in storage boxes, and easily accessible for a trip down Memory Lane.
    Funny, some of the covers will trigger a memory to the purchase day, or work that generated from an article within.
    My boys will get them some day; the magazines aren't going any where.
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2020
  12. atch
    Joined: Sep 3, 2002
    Posts: 5,626

    atch
    Member

    Unfortunately when I was in the Navy mom threw away all of my magazines, baseball cards, and model cars. Too bad for me. Sure miss her though.
     
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  13. King ford
    Joined: Mar 18, 2013
    Posts: 1,477

    King ford
    Member
    from 08302

    Greetings Dean!...I gotta say I really like the style you had and used on your rod in the early 60s. Many were too radical in paint and " custom" body alterations in my opinion ....at least many of the ones that made the magazines!
     
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  14. X-cpe
    Joined: Mar 9, 2018
    Posts: 1,959

    X-cpe

    [​IMG]

    Had to steal your picture 37Kid. Also my first car magazine. Fifty cents left over from bus fare going to the dentist. Little hole in the wall cigar shop on the plaza in Oxnard. It hooked me. Still have it in a box in the basement with years and years of magazines. Have a framed copy hanging on my office wall.
     
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  15. BuckeyeBuicks
    Joined: Jan 4, 2010
    Posts: 2,705

    BuckeyeBuicks
    Member
    from ohio

    My wife reminded me that I was so stupid about keeping all my hot rod magazines that I even shipped the ones I bought while overseas in the Army home in a foot locker. These women don't forget things like that I guess.:rolleyes:
     
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  16. proartguy
    Joined: Apr 13, 2009
    Posts: 658

    proartguy
    Member
    from Sparks, NV

    My stepfather would throw out any hot rod magazines and I really have no idea why he was so against them. Popular Science or Popular Mechanics were ok, though.

    The first one I recall is the May 1960 R&C, as my dad had a '59 Ford that I thought it was not very cool and here was a sectioned one on the cover. Now I have almost all the R&Cs and a lot more in my magazine horde.
    May 1960.jpg
     
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  17. Saxxon
    Joined: Dec 14, 2008
    Posts: 1,831

    Saxxon
    Member

    Yes...
    This issue had a feature on my Scout. Never thought as an 11 yo I would own it 35 years later

    [​IMG]
     
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  18. December 1974.
    I didn't understand Gray Baskerville's slang when describing Barry Lobeck's flamed '40 Ford coupe or Lil John's T sedan, but realized they were cool and someday I too, would build a hot rod.

    Mom threw out my magazines after I left for the Navy in 1980, but I got a copy at a swap meet a few years later.
    s-l400.jpg
     
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  19. Bills 50
    Joined: Jul 24, 2005
    Posts: 337

    Bills 50
    Member
    from Roanoke Va

    Smiles,
    I do indeed!
    Dec '66 Hot Rod

    Bill
     
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  20. Modelafish
    Joined: Mar 6, 2018
    Posts: 20

    Modelafish

    April 63 Popular Hot Rodding. Probably about the time I got my first car (a 58 Edsel). I still have the 500 that I bought since that time. I'm in the process of scanning them so they can be included in the website for the Automotive History Preservation Society ( ahpsoc.org ) We are digitizing all sorts of printed documentation on the history of the automobile, including hot rodding, that is made available to view and download free of charge on the site. If any of you that have the old magazines, and access to a scanner, you could really help out by scanning what you have so we can add it. We really need more stuff from the 50's.
     

    Attached Files:

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  21. hfh
    Joined: Oct 22, 2012
    Posts: 476

    hfh
    Member
    from Western MA

    This is my first issue of Hot Rod. April, 1953. But I didn’t buy it, I found it on a Boy Scout paper drive. I searched and searched but couldn’t find another issue in a barn full of paper. The first one that I bought was May, 1957. After that I didn’t miss an issue for many years. 4A032252-B0F0-47BA-8637-DF39D477BA8F.jpeg
     
  22. dana barlow
    Joined: May 30, 2006
    Posts: 5,115

    dana barlow
    Member
    from Miami Fla.
    1. Y-blocks

    Don't even remember the first mag.,but I did keep my first hot rod [28"A" bobtailed roadster] I got running in 1959 and drove to high school in 60 to 62. I still have the "A",but lost my first custom to a thief in late 64,that was a full custom Henry J. It was in Car Craft mag. Jan. of 1963.
    Yes ,I still have the mag.
    CarCraft J 1963.jpg
     
    Last edited: Jun 15, 2020
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  23. Gman0046
    Joined: Jul 24, 2005
    Posts: 6,256

    Gman0046
    Member

    Don't have the first hot rod magazine I bought but still have about a dozen 1960-1961 hot rod magazines. When I'm gone I'm sure they will be thrown in the trash.
     
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  24. '34 Terraplane
    Joined: Jul 11, 2011
    Posts: 373

    '34 Terraplane
    Member
    from Western PA

    Yep, still have my first ('way back when....they were all known as a "hot rod books").....
    My 1st hot rod book ever.....jpg
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2020
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  25. Frank Carey
    Joined: Oct 15, 2009
    Posts: 574

    Frank Carey
    Member

    December 1953. From a candy store on Main St. I was 16 years old at the time. Started my subscription the following year. First car was a 34 sedan in 1956.
     
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  26. krylon32
    Joined: Jan 29, 2006
    Posts: 9,397

    krylon32
    ALLIANCE MEMBER
    from Nebraska
    1. Central Nebraska H.A.M.B.

    Got it. Nov. 1957 R&C little pages. My dad bought it for me when I was 12 years old and laying in the hospital with pneumonia. Issue featured 32 Fords. Started a fire that still burns today.
     
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  27. redo32
    Joined: Jul 16, 2008
    Posts: 2,137

    redo32
    Member

    I already shared pictures of my collection, but I had to share that after my first issue in 1959 (I subscribed a couple of years later when I got my paper route) and I too found a box of earlier (mostly 50's) Hot Rod and a few small books in an old chicken coupe that my Boy Scout troop used for their paper drive. I remember climbing over the bundles of paper and stacking up the loose ones and tying them with twine, then loading them in pickups and taking to the recycler. Over the decades I filled in the years back through 1949 and half of 1948 when they started getting expensive. I've got most of the full size Rod & Custom, Street Rodder, Rod Action, StreetScene ( lifetime member), Hot Rod Mechanix, American Rodder, Portland Or's own Street Rod and NW Street Rod. A few early Motor Trend and Speed Mechanics, not to mention some left over Playboy and many Easyriders. And of course a complete collection of Rodders Journal (also lifetime). OK I give up there are a dozen other titles that I can't remember and just a few issues of each.
     
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  28. WOODEYE
    Joined: Feb 21, 2010
    Posts: 375

    WOODEYE
    Member

    I do not still have my first Hot Rod magazine. I still have a crap load of magazines much to the Wife's concern. The first on was in 1958 and a full fendered 32 Roadster in RED. I don't recall the month
     
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  29. Elcohaulic
    Joined: Dec 27, 2017
    Posts: 2,212

    Elcohaulic

    Those articles by Smokey were priceless!!! I got so many tips from them. Ever see how he adjusted rear brakes? First he removed the self adjusters, removed both drums and noted the rpm at idle in first, then put each drum on by it self and adjusted the brake while the wheel was spinning to get it perfect, then removed it and did the other side. Then s=checked side to side bias.. I always do rear brakes like this. wow what a difference..
     
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  30. Yup, and I even have all of my dads old magazines.
     
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