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

My first Hot Rod related publication...I was 11 years old living in Palatine Illinois. Didn't have go karts or mini bikes. Plastic builds had to suffice. This magazine was a "wish book" that summer for a kid with no money. Being an Army brat a lot of stuff didnt survive the many moves....I found this one decades later on that well known auction website . Amazing to look at it now and see how cheap the kits seem to be...but that's the inflationary spiral for ya.

 

A year later I was living in Northern Virginia because dad was transferred to the Pentagon. Mom knew my bro and I were into the hot rod and custom car craze so she talked dad into taking " the boys " to a car show....at the DC Armory. Was quite an event...saw all the cars on the program cover and then some. Met AMT's Bud " the Kat" Anderson at the slot car racing exhibit. Kinda cool to see the people and cars I had only been reading about .

 

I am sure I do. Probably a 1958 issue. I kept all the magazines from that point till the mid 1970's. Several of the publications were half page size beck when I started buying them at the grocery store. I kept catalogs and ads as well. They are boxed and I have not gone through them in years.

 

Still have it. June 1983. Sophomore in high school. Crazy about ‘57 Chevies. More interested in them than the hotrods on the cover at the time. How things change. Still like tri-five Chevies, owned a couple. Much more into hotrods now.

 

Sad story, while on a fishing trip a couple decades ago, my wife(new to me then)decided she was going to clean house.
Not only my collection but my fathers collection(which contained numerous little books) made its way to the dumpster
This was not a mistake, this was a calculated move as there were several big boxes full & there is no way she could lift even one of the boxes.
I have no words that can express my anger & disappointment even to this day.
Still a hot topic in my household.

 

For me it's CarToons mags I have the first 24 I bought at 14yrs old.

 

My first magazines were Chopper magazines, by Ed Roth. Still have most of them. First car magazines were Hot VW's, but they're long gone. But, there were the CarToons, and.... still have them...

 

I don't.... Mine all got the cars cut out and hung in my room. I had them hanging from the ceiling. Looked like my ceiling had fur made of cars because I would tape the top and let them hang. This was before 1st grade because it was at our house in Redondo before moving.

 

And you're still married to her? She must be a pretty nice keeper otherwise. My wife has a habit of giving away furniture. Last winter her mother broke her leg and my wife decided the bed in the guest room would be more comfortable. No problem. Two weeks ago the big screen tv in the same room disappeared. Don't know were it went. I suspect her brother broke his. But she has never messed with my car parts or magazines. She's a keeper too.

 

Yeah, I was wondering about BLUSHU's marriage, too. My magazines have followed me since I was a kid, but other than threats to throw them all away, and 100% of all the women who've ever been in my life hating that I even owned them ( actually true... WTF? I don't give a shit what they own ), all mine survive. They have been in a locked room for over 30 years, though.

 

Hello,

We used to have all of the Hot Rod Magazines from the time my dad used to take the two brothers to the neighborhood liquor store to get his newspapers and some groceries. He shopped and we ran over to the long magazine racks. It was a reader’s wonderful display of every magazine made at the time. (Including “those” that were down low in the back row.) The first Hot Rod Magazine came out in 1948, but we did not start going with our dad until 1953.

We bought a 1953 Hot Rod Magazine/ Rod/Custom Issues. Within a week or two, they were worn out, torn, corners bent and a spill or two on the cover. Both of us read those from cover to cover and we were extremely happy. Our dad also bought his Sports Illustrated in 1954 and since he was an avid fisherman, Field and Stream from 1953 to the time he got sick. Our mom even got in the picture with her Look and Life Magazines from 1949 and beyond. Reading lessons in school? It was day and night reading those magazines from cover to cover. So, they helped us learn to read, as well as comic books.

Those Hot Rod and Rod/Custom Magazines lasted until somewhere around 1967 when our mom went on a crazy clean up streak and did her mom chores. She did ask me if I would help and get rid of those boxes of magazines. She did not want anything in the house or garage that reminded her of the Willys accident and my brother’s burns/recovery. So, one day they were in the den, and the next, they were gone. (not my doing) From that time onward, the only magazine we still have is a March 1944 Life Magazine with me on a full page spread photo being held by a nurse.

Jnaki

For those that still have the Hot Rod Magazines and small Rod/Custom Mags, more power to you. I read those so much that they were almost not readable for anyone else. Value? None in our book. They were for reading, not storing, back then. Now, they are in someone’s magazine collection somewhere. (Or in magazine heaven.)

My collection of hot rod/custom car/motorcycle magazines with my photograph/stories in them were donated to the local high school auto shop when they were still around. As sad as it sounds, I still read magazines when we went to bookstores’ (prior to the locked in place directive) giant magazine racks. It is not as much fun anymore with all of the newish builds and massive amount of automotive magazines.

 

Before my Army time I was only in to Triumph and Harley
choppers.After -79 I started to look at cars. This is my first car magazine,it is still on my table.Colorod was a great Swedish magazine.

 

October 1981 Hot Rodding magazine. My unkle just retired from the navy & was visiting form Alaska. He took me & my brother to the PDQ, & let us get whatever we wanted. Pop, chips, candy, & a hot rodding magazine. It started a collection of car mags for me that is easily in the thousands

 

Sure, Feb '61 Hot Rod, still have it; pretty well worn now; but it was the March issue with Marty Holmann's "T" that cranked up my interest in hot rods.

 

My first was Hot Rod, Sept 57, still have it and many more.

 

williebill, felt the same as you when my Dad threw out my baseball card collection I had when I was a kid. No telling how much they were worth.

 

Hey G,

I feel your loss. My mom said that what I don't use has to be thrown out. So, along with several boxes of magazines, I still am a little irritated that my 50's baseball card collection was thrown out as useless. She was a neat and tidy person and had to keep our room clean. She would go on these rages and move everything to the garage, then to the backyard rumpus room, until we made it into a working hot rod garage. Even then, our early magazines disappeared one day.

It was the same for the baseball collection, since they were in a grocery bag neatly folded in a cardboard box. She hated silverfish and cardboard is a vacation home to those little slinky characters. Cardboard boxes full of comics, magazines, baseball cards, all went to the fun zone in the sky.

Jnaki

We used to line up our hand picked baseball team using our cards. I always had to have Moose Skowron of the Yankees and some rookie named Mantle on my team. Despite the name, Pee Wee Reese (5'10") was also at shortstop on my team. Then we set up the whole team vs team game and rolled the dice. Those cards were from bubble gum packages we always bought at our neighborhood grocery store. Bubble gum while playing real baseball was like chewing tobacco for us little kids.

We liked the bubble gum, but my mom thought those cards were useless. So, one day they were gone, too. Useless? Not only did those cards keep us out of our mom's hair all day, when we ran out of regular playing cards for our motorcycle exhaust sounds on our bicycle spokes. We used the baseball cards as an alternative. Not quite as loud, but still made a motorcycle rapping sound on acceleration. Maybe that is why they were thrown out...

 

I don't have the 1st one that I bought but I have a different issue of the same magazine
I have been collecting as well as buying and selling car magazines for a while. mostly 50s, 60s, and early to mid 70s stuff. I am afflicted to the disease that is old magazines

 

I don't have the first "hot rod" magazine but do have my first receipt for "hot rod" parts. 35 dollars paid for two 15X7 chrome reverse wheels from Dick Levy's Speed Shop, Portsmouth, NH

 

Car Craft 1961. Hot Rod magazines were not easy to come by then but my Mother put it on her monthly order at the magazine shop.

 

I do and always will have , because there is an article about my Dad and his mini ten wheeler

 

I still have mine , August 1969 , with the Howard cams Rattler front engine dragster on the cover .

 

February 1964 Popular Hot Rodding at 11 yrs old. Still have it and many more...

 

Hell no! I do a purge every year. The onliest exception to that rule is my collection of Rodders Digest. Steve Hendrickson and I became friends along with Lance and Diane Sorchik so they mean a lot to me. I also have a good sized collection of TRJ but don't have the first 30 or so. Not gonna put the energy out to find/buy them either.
I believe I only need about 3 Rodder's digest to make a complete collection.

 

Yessir, plus about 5o yrs. more.

 

May 1952 Hop Up with this tub on the cover.