Hot Rods Street rodder magazine is crap.....

Plop! Plop! Laptop.

 

I have never heard of anyone having to fish a laptop out of the toilet. Phones, on the other hand...

 

Street Rodder is crap. My subscription lapses in October and lapse it will. They should rename it "Street Cruisers and Late Model Customs." The last four issues have had a late '50's or early '60's street cruiser on the cover...sad. The H.A.M.B. has information by hot rodders for hot rodders. Bye-bye SR, MT(replaced R&C) and HR too!

 

I am almost 70 years old and when I was a teenager everybody wanted a hot rod. I was lucky enough that my first car was a Deuce three window, but many people didn't have the "car of their dreams". Along came the '80s and '90 and guy's realized that the "kid's are gone" and the "mortgage is paid" so they built hot rods. Well, the hot rod surge of that era has come and gone and sad to say, many of the people are gone also. During that time several people I knew were building hot rods, today I know of no one building a car. Street Rodder Magazine was huge in that era but that was then and this is now. Street Rodder is trying to stay alive in any manner they can think of, so they are attempting to make as many people happy as possible. Combine, that with having to compete with electronic media is tough. I would love to have a magazine that had only cars south of 1948 and hot rods as we know them, but sadly, I think those days are over.

 

Miss Rod& Custom, Streetrodder sucks. Saw it at the supermarket and the car on the cover was so ugly I had to look twice to see if it was really Streetrodder ! They don't even publish letters to the editor anymore. Wonder why . CRAP

 

I quit reading Street Rodder decades ago, when I realized that the articles in their magazine were basically just stealth advertising for the products their advertisers were selling. All the articles read the same way: Joe Blow built this cool rod and installed X suspension and Y steering column and Z wheels, and A, B, C components and doo-dads, and all the stuff is available from our advertisers. The "tech" articles were likewise all about installing their advertisers' parts. No thanks.

American car magazines in general all read that way, and I stopped subscribing to any of them. The one subscription I kept through many decades is Practical Classics, a British mag dedicated to keeping old cars on the road and using them as daily drivers. It was full of articles about turning wrenches in the real world, and finding alternative parts that could be modified to work, when there are no replacement parts available for your particular car on the market.

That kind of creativity is what we so often engage in in the real world of rods and customs that get driven. Oddly, reading that magazine has developed some really odd taste in cars in my brain. Now I sit here in Colorado, building a rod/custom from a London taxi cab, using mostly jaguar parts to improve the mechanical systems. Oddly enough, even the Chevy 350 and TH400 I'm using came from a Jaguar donor.

 

It was an issue of Street Rodder that started my obsession. I subscribed for about a decade and ended up with a hefty stack of mags, most of which got read multiple times. I bailed out when I got tired of same-y builds with no imagination...shortly thereafter I discovered traditional-style rods and customs, and then the HAMB. After a while I picked up some mags occasionally at the newsstand...my faves are Hot Rod Deluxe and recently Rod & Kulture, and when I can find it (rarely) The Rodder's Journal.
Last year I grabbed a Street Rodder mag to read over the holidays, and was disappointed to find that a bunch of the features were things I'd already seen (in greater detail and focus) on the internet. AND...and this is the killer...a couple of the articles featured low-rez pixellated images. A printing mistake, I hope. Either way, it's a huge pet peeve of mine and it cemented the realization that I'm not interested in that particular mag any more. Sad, but that's how it goes. I LOVE flipping through actual print media. But I'll only pay for stuff that truly floats my boat.

 

I am waiting for the big 3 part article on building the Gremlin for the street.

 

If you don't like it, no one is forcing you to read or buy it, seems kinda simple???

If you like old stuff, you can ALWAYS spend less money, search through the hamb classifieds and buy vintage mags and read them. Plus help a hamber have money to build his/her car.

 

OH Boy - Yet another thread about Sucky Car Magazines. Jesus, if you don't like it don't read it. Move on.

 

Oh Boy another whiney post bitching about sucky car magazine threads. If you don't like it don't read the thread and don't waste your (our) time by posting.
Move along Skippy

 

Oh Boy another whiny post about someone bitching about a suck ass thread. If you don't like my comment, don't waste our time making inane comments about it. Your turn Sparky

 

Fun isn't it ?

 

Ah, that 1st remark is lame. The OP is stating what & why he is no longer going to be purchasing this magazine. Kinda simple? Yes, comprehend what the OP's intent is. Street Rodder bit it when the 'sea of red cars dripping in billet was all the rage.

 

Boys, boys.... please, settle down, LOL. That's what this here Internet is all about; everyone gets to have their say.
I dropped SRM years ago, R&C wasted to much precious space to rehash simple and/or self-serving tech articles. Hot Rod is just plain strange these days with $7000 transmissions in crappy cars doing burnouts 'til something breaks - WTF? I like TRJ, but my subscription ran out and I haven't re-upped yet - the articles about metalflaked stock mid-'60s cars kinda put me off.
I was a big fan of HRDeLuxe until Dave Wallace left the helm - no one since "gets it" like Dave.
Now don't anybody puke, but lately the only print magazine that I read that doesn't irritate me is Hemming's Classic Car. I always learn something and the stories about the manufacturers that have come and gone, and their contributions, are always interesting.
So here I sit, reading the best all around hot rod stuff available.

 

I think your right! From now on I'm bringing my coffee from home. Ron...

 

Yeah it's awful, I did a three year renewal on my Rod and Custom about 4 months before the last issue.
If I had only know.

 

1998- Which also happens to be the year I first logged on to the HAMB

Been gone for a while... glad to see the same old things are being discussed here on my favorite messageboard!
I'm glad Street Rodder exists. Just like I am glad HRM, Car Craft and others exist. I am equally glad that other magazines about lowriders, 4x4's, fart-can Hondas and others are around. There are folks out there that feel we should ALL be driving electric cars... and others that feel NOBODY should modify a car. I don't let magazines define what I like, I like what I like and I borrow from all of these resources to develop my own sense of reality.
That said... the internet puts ALL magazines to shame. It's like comparing a modern cell phone to a couple of tin cans and a string. Quite honestly, I think the only reason they are still around is that there is still a percentage of people who aren't on the internet and/or still do not have cell phones.
ANYWAY...
TRJ, it's in a class of its own. Kinda like when you are on a tour of Alcatraz or Washing DC... and you see a coffee table book at the gift shop. You'e sucked in by the rare photos and interesting topic... Yea, kinda like that.
Sam

 

The HAMB gets it right. And you all know it 'cause you're here.
This topic is better served on the BAMH... (Bitch About Magazines Here)

 

I really don't see why anyone would care of a magazine is good or not. They are just magazines, now if a car had a problem that would be something to think about.

 

No magazines here - not for the last 4 years. Just a waste of time and paper.
Duck tails and marcels only look good on older guys who groomed themselves that way when they were younger back in the '50s and early '60s. Provided they still have anything left to comb!

 

I Love SR Magazine!!! Us losers like to read sometimes!!! Pete

 

TRJ lifetimer, Hop Up and Fuel when I can get them. Hot Rod is tolerable because it is $0.66 and issue, delivered. Lowrider is a guilty pleasure but much less guilt since they took out the chicks, that was a sad day.

 

One of the things that turned me off Hot Rod & Custom related magazines is meeting magazine men land listening to their stories.
Both in real life and on the HAMB.

Its like finding out the spinach dip at your favorite restaurant is more than 20% rodents and roaches...

 

Maybe there should be a manual or thread for how to that. I always thought it was easy to not buy shit I don't like. Guess not.

 

Seems to me that the last true do it yourself was Tex Smith/Hot Rod Mechanics which I believe was taken over by Street Rodder

 

What's a cel. phone?
I think I'm gonna make a killing when I box up all my car mags and ship them to Cuba.
Bet those guys will dig em.

 

Am I the only one that thinks cock handler magazine is crap? I got my new issue today,another turd on the cover, their holding another single on the cover....I should just throw it in the highway,It is supposed to be about different kinds of cockerels?Now everything from a walnut rooster to a buttercup is a cock?....sorry for the rant.... What's worse I have a 3 year subscription to this marginal soon to be cockless magazine.....I miss "my big cock(erel)" magazine...

 

^^^ how do you follow that ? Haha !

.. how about with this ? Yep, page 18 man ! This month's issue advertising that awesome little piece of scrap that Vern Tardel dreamed up for infernal flathead timing. Oh, and page 84 is nice.




Missing 49 to 51 Hot Rod Magazines, but 52 thru 67 is alive and well here, have a 'scrip to SR too, almost two decades worth. I like the other posted titles mentioned, I just can't collect/buy any more paper hordes. How do you read, and touch them all ?

There is nothing better to read then this site. Took too long to find for me. Almost the last dummy in the room ......