A couple weeks ago, our Cool Old Press Photo featured a Jeep Forward-Control pickup, and in the process of bench racing about it, I introduced forum members to the site, FCConnection.com. In surfing that site I found a page that brought back old memories: It’s a copy of a story that featured my very first magazine photo credit.
I can’t tell from the link, but I think the time was late 1988. Back then I was working in what was sort of a marketing position at Jacobs Electronics, an aftermarket ignition company. I’ve rarely admitted that, since Jacobs didn’t exactly enjoy a good reputation, but even so, Dr. Chris Jacobs taught me quite a bit and gave me a lot of opportunity even if I was just a long-haired street racer kid. (EthelKilledFred on our forums also worked there for a little while, as did Steve Grey, who is a friend of kso4.) One of my jobs at Jacobs was to ghost-write articles about the company’s products; these articles would then get “placed” in magazines, using ad bucks as leverage. I wasn’t proud of it, and didn’t mind that my name was not on the credit of the stories.
Nevertheless, the job gave me the opportunity to meet most of the magazine editors, and miraculously, I was able to separate my own character from that of the company. One particularly embarrassing scene went down during an editorial round table at Argus Publishing, back when it was a stand-alone company with an office on Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica. A “round table” is when an advertiser arranges to meet with a number of editors all at the same time to present what’s new at the company. I’ve survived many of these from the publishing side of the table, but this time I was with Jacobs as Dr. Chris described to the editors that his ignition products were so advanced and offered such advantages that huge increases in gas mileage were guaranteed. Cam Benty, then the editor of Popular Hot Rodding, asked why, if that was true, the OE manufacturers would not be using Jacobs’ technology on all their cars; Cam is a super nice guy and was not being too sarcastic. Jacobs responded that the gas companies were concerned that they would lose money if these ignitions were allowed to reach the OE level, and that they had paid off the Big Three not to use his technology. I wanted to crawl under the table. In subsequent years I’ve asked Cam if he remembered the story. Fortunately, he did not.
Perhaps it was the same kind of mind-slip that had Kevin Wilson take a liking to me and help me out. Kevin was then the editor of 4WD Action magazine (which is now called 4WD & Sport-Utility). He let me tag along on the photo shoot for the Baja Beast, the Jeep FC seen in the photo and also here at the copyright-violating link on FCConnection.com. I don’t recall which of the photos used were mine and which ones were Kevin’s, but he gave me a photo credit. My first ever. I’d go on to write my first credited story for Kevin later that year; it was first-person event coverage on the very first Toyota Land Cruiser Association Rubithon on the Rubicon trail.
I did several more freelance stories for Kevin Wilson at 4WD Action and some for Roland Osborne at Chrysler Power. When Kevin moved to Petersen Publishing and Sport Truck magazine, he was one of the insiders who helped me land the staff writer job at Hot Rod. The rest, as they say, is history.
