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So anyone else notice Hot Rod getting thinner and thinner?

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  • #16
    I still buy it, I normally flip though it, might find one article worth reading. I keep paying for it because I don't want it to go away. I subscribed to Sick the Mag. I am going to take it and a stack of HR with me on vacation. I spend most of my free time reading forms and watching YouTube.

    I should look into GRM.
    http://www.bangshift.com/forum/forum...-consolidation
    1.54, 7.31 @ 94.14, 11.43 @ 118.95

    PB 60' 1.49
    ​​​​​​

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    • #17
      Got my copy yesterday. It is pretty thin but the Bonneville coverage looks decent (I haven't read it yet).

      Dan

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      • #18
        Back when Freiburger used to post here, in the CarJunkieTV days, he responded to this same question. It's advertiser money drying up. You have to have it to pay people to write stories and publish. Print is a dead medium. I watched Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords go from what used to be a 200 page book every month to just another Facebook presence. I personally don't care for the unstructured free for all that is Facebook, but the accountants love it. I've heard it said before - When the product is free, YOU are the product.
        Flying south, with a flock of bird dogs.

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        • #19
          And therein is the problem. When a lot of us started reading HR, R&C, Car Craft etc, most of the people who worked for Peterson or his competition, were gearheads, surfers, sportsmen of some sort, and the writing staff was more important than the front office staff. Now the front office staff think that they are the all important people running the show. Management is way too top heavy. Reminds me of 1 of the 4 reasons I left a research firm in Columbus in 1990. Corporate management had lost sight of the fact that the research staff were the organization, not the people counting the pennies and nickels.

          Rant over...

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          • #20
            Bean Counters, Efficiency Consultants, TOO, will PUT YOU OUT OF BUSINESS !!
            They Can Not See, the purpose of your product, the changes to keep your product "Fresh" in the market, or if the market is moving on to "Bigger Better Faster" and your product has to be fazed out and you need a NEW one to replace it!!
            They First Cut R&D, as in their wisdom, these jobs Do Not Produce Anything,
            or simple English, they on paper don't produce dollars.......

            my 2 bits

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            • #21
              Bean Counters.... PUT YOU OUT OF BUSINESS !!
              I've said the same thing for decades. Bean counters are good at counting the beans - but don't put them in charge and let them make decisions because they see the whole world as beans, and that's just not true. There are so many components of business that can't be quantified like a bean. Customer goodwill, brand name recognition, even simple market flux - cannot be quantified (counted). Bean counters should remain in the accounting department - don't let them out!

              And I know what I'm talking about. My best and oldest friend is a bean counter for a local electrical service provider, and he agrees with me. He can read a spread sheet like nobodies business, and talk taxes with the IRS for days. But his business sense sucks - and he knows enough to steer clear of making big decisions for the company when asked.

              Act your age, not your shoe size. - Prince

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              • #22
                Originally posted by Beagle View Post
                Back when Freiburger used to post here, in the CarJunkieTV days, he responded to this same question. It's advertiser money drying up. You have to have it to pay people to write stories and publish. Print is a dead medium. I watched Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords go from what used to be a 200 page book every month to just another Facebook presence. I personally don't care for the unstructured free for all that is Facebook, but the accountants love it. I've heard it said before - When the product is free, YOU are the product.
                I'll say it again. HRM is failing, not print media. Grassroots Motorsports is thriving. Northwest Overland (I subscribe) does 4 coffee-table worthy issues per year and it's $100 a year. No, cheaping out print is dead. Newspapers are dead. But enthusiast - true enthusiast (not magazines that commission an EV vehicle from one of their historic fleet) are thriving. Their tired line that advertisers are drying up is right up there with "SEMA is dead" because they missed a year. It isn't. But people don't buy junk or phoned in articles.

                In all of the dying ones - and this was my comment to DF then - get people who'd thrive in some microcosm and put then in charge of nationally read media. They brought in Mopar as sponsor? really? look what happened after that alliance. Now look at who is writing for HRM, all but one are Mopar fanchildren. Guess what - people are interested in what's happening in the deviant world but when you pick the 3rd rate stepchild as your posterboy.... eventually the other subscribers will find GRM. Get this, GRM has everything from Cadillacs to BMWs... with tech articles... how weird is that?

                It's even kind of funny to watch that play out. Tony is a drifter, we expect Nissan, BMW, etc.... of course, he buys a Mopar after MTOD and builds a drift car out of it.... it's still unfinished but Tony is back to building a BMW, Porsche, and Nissan.... nothing changed except the children parroted what their bosses told them to say.... and now they can say something back - they aren't saying Mopar.
                Last edited by SuperBuickGuy; November 10, 2021, 04:04 PM.
                Doing it all wrong since 1966

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                • #23
                  and more to the point, electric isn't the future. It won't be. Ever. There's not enough natural resources to do what is being asked - further, no one can build a 3/4 ton or large truck that makes sense when compared to diesel.... it's a phase, unfortunately by the time HRM realizes it, they'll be completely dead.
                  Doing it all wrong since 1966

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                  • #24
                    What would Robert Petersen have done? The man who knew a writer's place, a photographer's place, and a bean-counter's place as well and tended to appropriately place the appropriate people in each? He had dune buggys and off-road racing, boats and even motorcycles (the Up on Two Wheels column) in Hot Rod back when it was becoming what everybody had to have in their shop or classroom (before there became a special mag for every narrow subject). I think he would certainly have electric cars here and there. Maybe not in a '57 Chevy (!). but may I repeat I'd like one in a first-gen Celica? Keep it light, 300+ hp, grocery-getter? Nobody would need to feel irritated by that and it could be one or two pages of quick and inexpensively-produced overview like the old Baskerville's Gallery and not be the disaster like when Harleys were suddenly given full-on 6-8 page features. The majority of content would still reflect tradition.

                    As for Hot Rod now, if pro photography and pro-built cars could sustain a magazine, PHR would still be around. We need fun do-able ideas, crazy stuff, amateurishly done here-and-there is OK. Let the regular guy feel like he could someday see his project in print and on the website (I can't over-emphasize that as all the hard-core magazine readers I've known held the sentiment) and if people are building projects then companies will sell parts and ad dollars will happen, wouldn't they?

                    Just a thought. I know for sure the stories with the pro-builds are way overdone and I do not care to read three+ more each month. Probably not a lot of what pro-builders buy comes from ads in Hot Rod so why keep giving them all the space?
                    Last edited by Loren; November 11, 2021, 05:30 AM.
                    ...

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                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Loren View Post
                      What would Robert Petersen have done? The man who knew a writer's place, a photographer's place, and a bean-counter's place as well and tended to appropriately place the appropriate people in each? He had dune buggys and off-road racing, boats and even motorcycles (the Up on Two Wheels column) in Hot Rod back when it was becoming what everybody had to have in their shop or classroom (before there became a special mag for every narrow subject). I think he would certainly have electric cars here and there. Maybe not in a '57 Chevy (!). but may I repeat I'd like one in a first-gen Celica? Keep it light, 300+ hp, grocery-getter? Nobody would need to feel irritated by that and it could be one or two pages of quick and inexpensively-produced overview like the old Baskerville's Gallery and not be the disaster like when Harleys were suddenly given full-on 6-8 page features. The majority of content would still reflect tradition.

                      As for Hot Rod now, if pro photography and pro-built cars could sustain a magazine, PHR would still be around. We need fun do-able ideas, crazy stuff, amateurishly done here-and-there is OK. Let the regular guy feel like he could someday see his project in print and on the website (I can't over-emphasize that as all the hard-core magazine readers I've known held the sentiment) and if people are building projects then companies will sell parts and ad dollars will happen, wouldn't they?

                      Just a thought. I know for sure the stories with the pro-builds are way overdone and I do not care to read three+ more each month. Probably not a lot of what pro-builders buy comes from ads in Hot Rod so why keep giving them all the space?
                      My suggestion remains - be the place of knowledge. From history to what people are doing in their shops and garages. Cover all aspects and types of car without fandom. Problem is that takes investment and they aren't doing it. They hire kids to report, don't get out much, print throw-away level fliers (I get better catalogs), and are more and more insular (which I really understand given the level of fandom out there).... but the net result is a publication divorced from the readers. None of the above is intrinsically bad, however, it's gotten to the point where I can blow through it (with reading glasses, of course) and get absolutely nothing out of it. Which is why it's dead to me, I won't subscribe again because GRM and others are so much better.
                      Doing it all wrong since 1966

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                      • #26
                        GRM is (very active) membership driven content while HRM seems to be in the same spot as when Ro led it years ago, when they kicked Baskerville out of the archives.... and I dropped my sub then too, for that among many other reasons that Loren eloquently pointed out. You're still not going to go to print without advertisers and there's fewer and fewer of them spending money on print when they can get Google to target their advertising dollars. Facing the part where your age group (same as mine) is not the target demographic is kind of tough. A lot of guys in that group buy pre-built trophy junk from (insert expensive builder name here). Maybe that's what HRM wants to be focused on?

                        As far as electric goes, I'd expect to see more electric conversions than flathead Merc or Stanley steamer builds these days. The kids are enamored with 9 second Teslas, and wanting to emulate that on a shoe string budget is a time honored practice. Electric gives me something new to learn - something besides another damn SBC/SBF/LS build. Maybe that explains the Mopar love right now, I can't be the only one bored to tears with the same old thing every time.

                        /edit - It does make me sad too see HRM's direction. I like what Loren suggests but suspect it will fall on deaf ears there. Discovery could likely care less, they're all about viral video and pay per view services. Discovery, for that matter, has changed much since inception. So much so that I lost interest in their offerings, but like I said, they aren't terribly concerned with my age group's opinions.
                        Last edited by Beagle; November 11, 2021, 08:13 AM.
                        Flying south, with a flock of bird dogs.

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                        • #27
                          but you won't get advertisers unless you have supporters. HRM has no rudder, they can't decide who they are. If you were an advertiser, what demographic do they reach? and just a quick question, how much do the Kindigs, Fooses, and Trapaniers spend on advertising? HRM shows 2 types of cars, Mopars and show cars... if you don't like either, then hopefully there's tech - which I cannot remember the last time any of those added to my knowledge. When was the last time they showed a garage built car? Their tech is informercials and their pictures are of unobtainium.... again, they've been dead and I wouldn't have a subscription other then they owe me for magazines they shuttered. Who knows, maybe they can be the source of all things electric. Or perhaps they could be bought by the NHRA and become their voice again... don't know, don't care.

                          It would be cool if someone started a PHR or CC type mag again, but I won't be holding my breath.

                          Doing it all wrong since 1966

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                          • #28
                            I want stuff I can learn from and apply in my projects. Kinda hard to do when everything is show and flash.

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                            • #29
                              Well, I was in my dentist's office last week and see that Covid-19 must be enough of a not-problem now that they have put their waiting room magazines back out, and there was a Hot Rod that I don't have (I didn't know they had a subscription, also I didn't have time to pick it up in any event) so I guess my own sub must have finally run out. It's not like the old days when they just kept sending you magazines, and invoices, until you re-subscribe. I wonder if that means they're going to drop it.

                              -----------------

                              I myself looked into Grassroots Motorsports' website a while back, it had some pretty interesting stuff including a guy putting a Caterpillar engine in his motorhome. I thought I'd join and maybe take the mag later when I'd seen more but they were evidently not taking in new "members" at that time so that was that.

                              An irony is, I seem to be actually spending more money on cars than I have in a long time so in theory people should be shoving ads in front of me (it's a complicated theory). Of course the internet is, deftly placing come-ons for purchase of items I've already just bought, and the Summit catalog comes faithfully with it's one show-car feature each three months. Which is enough I think.
                              Last edited by Loren; November 16, 2021, 08:59 AM.
                              ...

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                              • #30
                                Originally posted by Loren View Post
                                I wonder if that means they're going to drop it.

                                -----------------

                                I myself looked into Grassroots Motorsports' website a while back, it had some pretty interesting stuff including a guy putting a Caterpillar engine in his motorhome. I thought I'd join and maybe take the mag later when I'd seen more but they were evidently not taking in new "members" at that time so that was that.
                                DF jumped ship, so maybe?

                                My next project is likely going to be a cummins in an older motorhome.... something I can tow trailers, haul dogs, and get away for a day or three.
                                Doing it all wrong since 1966

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