Thread: Streetrodder mag

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I just got the latest Streetrodder mag & as usual was disappointed. When the magazine first came out it was very educational, showing how readers made their own parts & installed them along w/junk yard parts like IFS.I have always thought that the auto mfgs can make better parts than the streetrod shops, due to the talent of their engrs, cad/cam programs & saftey testing of their cars on their test tracks.
The mag had a comparison of two early 30's cars but, it sure was nothing like a comparison that R&T or Motor Trend does. It did not even speak of a lot of topics you usually want to see in a car comparison.
I have seen this mag IMHO go the route of showing mostly high buck aftermarket parts thus, further making it more difficult for this hobby to survive due to the price of building one w/all these aftermarket parts.
I know that it makes it easier than the old junk yard way for individuals & streetrpd shops who save time but,.........

Sure would like to hear your opinions.
Don

Well i cant speak on the magazine in question Don but i subscribe to a chevy performance magazine which i will end this year. It has become well........a waste to read anymore, if i read one more thing about new camaros im gonna flip out, While im partial to mopars, the mopar muscle magazine that my friend gets always seems to be well written, maybe we need to get some of them guys in the magazine i get. Junkyard hunting has become ridiculous around here, prices are goin through the roof at the junkyards i go to. Funny how you could pay 70 dollars for a WHOLE CAR and then charge 100 for a used part off that car. I just find it too hard to deal with these people anymore but i still love goin to them, never know what will come up.

Seems to be a trend, Don. I didn't bother to renew my subscription to Hot Rod, Car Craft, or Streetrodder for much the same reasons. I'm not sure what market it is they're after, but I don't like the "stand back and throw money at it" method of building all the mags have taken too. I have learned more innovative ideas right here in CHR since I joined then I have seen in any of the mags in the last few years. Is the do-it-yourself crowd becoming extinct, or what???

The yuppies have taken over Hot Rod, Car Craft, Street Rodder, Popular Hot Rodding, Chevy High Performance, etc...

The only mag I've found that still caters to the junkyard scrounger/ fabricator/ do-it-my-way crowd is Rod and Custom. They still have some high-buck articles, but the majority of the cars and tech stuff is still aimed at real hot rodders.

The good news is the trend toward "hard core" hot rods (rat rods) is pushing more people to do their cars "old school", which means scrounging and fabrication.

I have NO magazine subsciptions, and I buy them from the stand on a need-to-have basis. I scan the magazine for stuff that I like, and I buy it.

I agree with techinspector1, the only mag i've kept is Playboy, they never seem to not give you what you want. It seems to me that rod mags are going for that fantasy look, on the edge of silly, going for no brain kids just wanting something cool to read while they're on the toilet, right next to that idiotic Maxim.

Don; In reply, and reviewing the threads I did not see any of the Buckaroo Publications mentioned , ie. StreetRod Builder http://streetrodbuilder.com/ and New out ( again ) is Rodders Digest. both by Buckaroo. I agree on the observation by yourself as well as others on StreetRodder, If you haven't seen these two magazines their deffinately worth looking at. StreetRod Builder ( SRB ) in my opinion is the finest magazine out there , it has loads of color , indepth articles, good format , and very informative info. Rodders Digest was around for a long time and the they stopped publishing it, reason unkown to me. Gerry Berger was the Editor and did a great job, Gerry is the Executive Ediitor, and now they've brought back RD , the first issue is now on the NewsStands. This now a paid advertisement , just my two cents, now the good part it's $29.95 a year for 12 issues for SRB , high but a great mag. and Rd is the same price but it is supposed to be a bi-monthly Mag. Personally after looking at it on the news stand I for one was NOT impressed , but I'm really hoping it'll get to a point that it was as good or better that it was when it was around years ago. It was really loaded with how to's the way the mag's used to be years ago. Interchanging parts, salvaged parts, etc, and I guess doing it the way we used to when we didn't have a ton of money invested and the current Street rod Market place with high dollar parts. Any way Check out the Mag. and Please let us know your Opinion.

go to your local carquest auto parts store and
get (drive)magazine its the best out there and its
free.

Yeah I would have to agree with the consensus. I have not had the years to watch the hot rod culture, but have been fortunate enough to find large collections of older issues and gotta say they are far more enjoyable to read. Rod & Custom was doin good for a while when they started back up but have turned into every other add campaign mag the past few years. Though the low brough "rat rod" thing is getting more attention again with us younger guys and has cought the atttention of some of the mags. But the truth is the majority of the articles are nuthin more than adds themselves and it's good business. I have cancelled my scrips fer R&C and StreetRodder, only buy em once in a while when theres time at the grocer to make sure sumpin worth reading is in there. I got enough 60-90 scrips on the shelves at home to read one a day fer the next 3 years. Plus over here we got The Scrounger wich is just as good as goin to the junkyard, hehe.

I recently bought a copy of American Rodder by Buckaroo publications and although it's pretty pricey at $5.99 a copy it is a very well put together magazine with VERY FEW ads in it.

Abe

Mebe I'll put a Buckaroo subscrip on my Christmas list!

Don, you must be feeling better from your medical set backs earlier this year. You've been coming up with several good "conversation" starters lately. It's times like this that a live chat room could be fun cause there's so many points to be made.

I'm going to have to go against the predomiant flow here, probably because I look at this kind of stuff through a marketing/sales eye. For all that some of you don't seem to like the rod rags, there's a reason that they are as thick as they are, and there are as many of them as there are. There's demand for it!!! If you no longer find them appealing, it could be that you're not the target audience. But there are a bunch of other people out there that do buy this stuff. The advertisers are spending their money to buy all those ads you decry...........and they're not doing it just to see their name in print. They're selling hardware!! And make no mistake about it, it's the advertising dollar that keeps a magazine in production............not the money from rack sales or subscriptions. One qualifier, the numbers of subscriptions and rack sales do matter, but mainly to justify AD SALES.

That being said, I don't enjoy everything in every magazine every month either. A lot of stuff I just gloss over because it doesn't interest me. Dave Brisco and I had a chuckle/discussion a while back about each month it seemed that the Street Rodder top ten had to have a Coast to Coast "39 Convertible" in it. I've seen some that are very well done cars, but they just don't do a thing for me. Now a real '39 Ford convertible..............that's another thing. But I'm not arrogant enough to think the whole hobby should revolve around my choices, and certainly a nationally distributed magazine isn't going to survive on producing to my tastes alone. And I guess that's the point. If you were tasked with producing any one of those magazines, you'd have to make some hard choices as to content. As a responsible marketer you'd take a look at what your potential customer base is and shoot for that. If you want to grow your enterprise, you find out what else is out there that is similar to your core subject and include that with the hope/belief that you can draw in additional audience. Along the way you may do some cross pollenization and introduce new devotees to your original subject. Those that choose the options wisely survive, those that don't, perish. Richard brought up the Hot Rod Mechanix example. That was probably the last publication that catered to the scrounger rodder near exclusively. Tex Smith, albeit a talented writer, and a long time veteran of the auto magazine industry with a boat load of contacts and experience, FAILED. In the mid-90's someone tried to revive the magazine, lasted about 3 months.................and FAILED. That's the free enterprise system. Nobody forces you to buy the magazine, and nobody gives a magazine undue support.

Which is my next point. Let's say that the predominant view expressed here prevails, and is a harbinger of where a significant part of the marketplace is going with it's attitudes. Let's say too many people get tired of Street Rodder's editorial philosophy, tired of all the ads, and stop buying the magazine. As their readership drops, their ability to sell ads declines. That means their revenues drop, and, over time, they become less viable. Somewhere along the way they make choices. They either find out why readership, and subsequent revenues, drop and make changes, or they FAIL!! Like many industries, the publishing business is consolidating. Street Rodder, Rod & Custom, Hot Rod, Popular Hotrodding, Car Craft, and a bunch of the muscle car magazines are all part of Primedia now. A few years back they were competitors, now they're "family". That reduces competition and probably inhibits the flexibility of the editorial direction. In the short term it's probably helped in the advertising sales end, as one rep can sell space in several rags during one sales call. Probably the sellers will, someday, take a look at that and say "Why am I buying so much space from one provider?" As long as it pays off, they'll continue to buy. When they can identify that it stops contributing to the sale of their product, they'll stop buying space. Street Rod Builder, along with Super Rod, American Rodder, and Rodder's Digest, sprang from just that sort of reaction. John Diana, the buckaroo of Buckaroo Publishing, was a former big wig at Petersen Publishing. When Primedia scooped up Petersen, Diana didn't like what he saw and split. It's the American Dream. He too is a gifted writer, and well connected in the publishing business. Unlike Tex Smith though, Diana is also a good business man. Personally I think he's gone a little overboard with four titles. Someone mentioned that American Rodder didn't have much advertising in it. This is probably a sign of over saturation. If it doesn't change, AR will FAIL!!! That's how Buckaroo ended up with it, Pisano wasn't making money on it or Rodder's Digest. By the way, the last remnants of Hotrod Mechanix ended up at American Rodder. See a pattern? But then, I think the range of magazines at Primedia will compress too. There's too much overlap between SR and R&C, as well as Hot Rod, Car Craft, and Popular Hotrodding, not to mention the competition from Buckaroo. We'll probably lose R&C again, along with AR and RD. The street machine guys can likely kiss Popular Hotrodding or Car Craft goodbye.

And of course we have this evoling dynamic called the internet. Even though most publishers have a web site of some kind, I don't think they've yet figured out how to utilize it. There are a few sites that are e-zines only. They have limited appeal, but the people who run them seem content with that. As time goes by, I would guess that some smart folks will figure out how to market a web based info source to hot rodders and will take some significant cuts from the traditional print based guys. Then again, maybe not. We'll see. Part of the problem is evident here at CHR. People come, people go. Some stay on and contribute, others don't. Some of us may think that hot rods are just "older" cars, meaning before, say 1960, but then, depending on age, there are folks here who think mid '70's are really old. Some like the banter that goes on, others are offended by some of the flipant responses But the web provides a free forum, and only a little "policeing" goes on. I'd like to see us be more focused on "serious" discussion when the subject warrants (leave the jabs and jokes to the lounge), but nobody made me dictator, so the flow will go. And none of us has a marketing need here because we have no financial commitment.

So what does it mean when a magazine no longer winds your watch. It means that your expectations are unmet. Whether it's your expectations that are out of whack, or the magazine is going down the wrong path doesn't really matter to you. You're free to make your choice. Personally, I don't expect a magazine to appeal 100% to my tastes. I read it to glean what interests me. I find them usefull to keep me apprised of what kind of hardware is available. I've gone on before about my view of we hobbyists being narrowminded about our perspective of what the hobby should look like, so I won't rewind it here. If the hobby is leaving you behind, that's the way it is. We all have choices to make. Once you've made yours, live with it. Just don't fall into the trap of unduly criticizing those that don't share your vision.

As for me I have stopped subscribing to all of the Car mags simply because of the wide range of mags available... I spend time at the racks flipping through the pages and I buy whatever mags appeal to me at the time... I love to read each and every page of the mags I buy including the ads... The ads are chock full of the innovative new products, many of which I would consider incorporating into my cars... I also enjoy reading and looking at the high-profile cars featured in the mags, I consider them works of art and hope to someday reach the same level of craftsmanship of the some of well known builders...

I don't have a problem with lo-tech builds or salvage yard scrounging, but I get to see lots of those types of rods at the local shows and rod runs... Even at the larger NSRA and Goodguys events the overwhelming majority of the cars in attendance are low/medimum budget rides... I buy the magazines to learn about where the hobby is headed and occasional stories on where the hobby has been...

Just my 2¢...

Dave Brisco

This is all good banter. I have subscriptions to both Street Rodder and Street Rod Builder, and one thing that got me buying the mags in the first place IS the ads. When I picked up my first Street Rodder, I quickly figured out that all parts were available to build an entire car -- literally. These magazines are now research tools for me, and I'm extremely interested in the new products and innovations that different companies offer. This info would be alot harder to procure if it wasn't for these magazine ads.

As for cost: yup, the new parts are expensive. That fact will make it longer for me to build my first car, and will limit the number of cars I will own in my lifetime. However, most specialty cars of any make or year will drain your pocketbook, so I feel that any way you slice it, you are going to spend bucks to get what you want. Given the option of "no car" vs. "expensive toy", I guess I'll bite it and choose the expensive toy, even if it takes me quite a while to save money for it. The armchair hobbyist is great for dreaming, but I'll be much happier with something tangible, running or not.

Lastly, as for junkyard parts and those who religiously scrounge for those parts, I think that's great and I admire you for your ability. Even I think it's a blast to hunt the bone yards, but alot of those cars go there because they're wore out, and I don't care to put too many wore out parts on my car. Mind you, I realize the value of these yards for finding obsolete parts and parts that don't wear out (such as trim), but for me, mechanical stuff I perfer new (mostly from a safety standpoint). I guess what I'm trying to say is I value junkyards to a point, but I also need safe reliable parts designed by folks who advertise in these magazines so I can build a car without having to extensively retrofit pieces/parts to get them to work. Alot of these "new" parts are already designed for the vintage street rods we so love and desire. If I had to completely engineer everything in a ground- up retrofit, then I think my interest in street rods would fade pretty fast. I'm not kidding myself that putting together a car is a piece of cake with these newfangled pieces offered by the Hot Rod Witch Doctors, but after seeing what's out there (by seeing these ads), I am confident enough in my abilities that I can truely build most of my own car.

I just hope that all our car magazines have access to this forum, read what's here, and make appropriate changes to their magazines to keep us -- ALL of us -- happy. What a travesty when we lose even one publication!

Yeah i wish the people who had any say in making these magazines would read this forum too, i think more and more people would reply to this if they knew it counted. Maybe some of the magazines would appeal to their readers more knowing what they thought, im sure this isnt the only place that people have these opinions like this. Maybe when the people at the chevy magazines make something that is actually appealing, then i will subscribe again, til then theres a great web page at clubhotrod.com that i will continue to learn more at then the magazines, thats why i got hooked at this page to begin with, not only that, its FREE!!!!!

Nice discussion - one point not picked up on is where do the people trying to get into streetrodding get info on how to build a streetrod within their budget. I got a lot of my info, when younger, from the auto mags. Today you pick up a mag & at the age of 20 - 30 you probably do not have the money to build a rod you see being built in the mags.
Will this lead to the decline of the hobby?

I'm looking at this lack of junk yard hot rod parts articles not from my eyes or a lot of us, who can afford to buy the parts in the articles but, from the eyes of the younger generation trying to raise a family & build a streetrod.
Don