These are actually from before my time. When I was a kid my dad used to keep a box up in the loft full of old copies of Hot Rod Magazine. When my folks sold up and went their separate ways I didn't have space to take the magazines so I skimmed through them and scanned all the best bits. The smokes adverts are absolute classics, I almost feel like taking up smoking: Sex sells, of course. You want some big jiggly boobies to go with those chrome sidepipes sir? You can't really picture them advertising blank CD's in car mags these days can you: I'll have a go at getting the articles online but it's difficult to get them readable at a size that will fit on the screen.
i was just thumbing through some over the weekend, my favorites are for the 20 dollar cal custom finned valave covers or the 650 dollar duece in the classifieds in the back (remember those?)
For many years, Pete refused to take cigarette and alcohol advertising as a matter of principle. Once congress banned tobacco advertising magazine, radio and TV, the car books changed their policies over night. They jacked up the ad rates and restructured the rate cards to show a special "speed equipment manufacturer/mail order" discount so that the hot rod equipment companies were only screwed a little bit!
"They had real boobies in the 70's..." he says, as he looks wistfully off into the distance and slowly rubs his chin....
I got a magazine somewheres with an ad for American Racing Wheels stating "Big Willie and the Brotherhood of street racers use them, shouldn't you?" With a pic of big willie and his "crew".....
The Jalopy Journal
