You have lost some competition.

And I'm a bit sad. I got a note with my last magazine that Hemmings Sports and Exotic is done.

Yep. One of my favorite car magazines. Apparently, the advertising revenue just wasn't strong enough.

Me too, I liked their style.

I saw that too. Was just going to renew my subscription when I read that. As a regular GRM, CM & HS&E subscriber, had all aspects covered. Enjoy all 3 for exactly what they did best. Almost posted last night about CM possibly spreading out their coverage to fit what they have been doing and what HS&E was covering. But may not be a reasonable request.

My Dad was an avid reader; sorry to see it go.

Bimmer Magazine is done with the April 2017 issue too. Kaput. Fini.

Bimmer Magazine is done with the April 2017 issue too. Kaput. Fini.

Yeah - shame. There was a low ratio of signal (sports cars) to noise (sedans) but I'd buy the issues with sports car content.

Looks to be an issue for all print journalism these days - internet is killing them. And I prefer to hold a physical magazine in my hand rather than just looking at it on the web.

HS&E was one of the best car magazines out there.

Interesting. I read HS&E for a while, and it seemed to get "rare" mixed up with "exotic" more than I preferred. They had a pretty healthy user demographic for advertisers, though.

I remember they were doing a restoration of an MGB GT and were carefully documenting the position of the stickers underhood so they could be replaced in the factory location. This is on a British Leyland product, they should have been happy they were on the right way up in the first place!

I feel bad - I let my subscription go last fall. Probably my fault.

I wrote a column about all this. We are certainly aware that they are gone and are making some minor adjustments. I could go on all day about this, as I know a bit about this business. Bottom line, when they started (2 years after us with Classic Motorsports) they came out with a rate card twice what ours was and got a lot of resistance. As we call each of their advertisers, we are shocked at how many got the ads in HS&E as part of their buy with Big Hemmings. They also came in with a ridiculous $8 subscription price that whored up the market pretty bad for the rest of us. We were rock solid before this happened and this will only make things better for us. And I thought the impersonal letter they sent to subscribers offering them their American car magazine was very insulting.

Tim Suddard wrote: I thought the impersonal letter they sent to subscribers offering them their American car magazine was very insulting.

Further proof that classy cars don't make classy people...

I'll miss them a lot. They always had a considerable amount of vintage Japanese car coverage and that is my main interest.

And I agree about the crappy letter. I called and requested a refund instead of taking the offer of a different magazine.

I had just renewed my subscription as well, for a multi-year deal no less. Not a very happy bunny about that.

I think what annoyed me most about the impersonal letter is that "we can't give you what you paid for, so we'll send you something else that you probably don't care for and if you don't want that you actually have to take time out of your day to call us to get your money back" attitude. One would think there'd be a better way to handle this.

Fortunately my 10 year sub to CM still has a while to run .

I'll definitely miss them. I'm now only subscribed to CM to get my old sports car fix.

Some things I loved about HSEC:

-Driveable Dream

-The monthly restoration feature

-Satch Carlson

-Photography quality

Some things I hated about HSEC:

-the frequent Listicle issues

-the insulting letter of cancellation

BoxheadTim wrote: I think what annoyed me most about the impersonal letter is that "we can't give you what you paid for, so we'll send you something else that you probably don't care for and if you don't want that you actually have to take time out of your day to call us to get your money back" attitude. One would think there'd be a better way to handle this.

That's pretty much par for the course when shutting down a magazine. You sell the subscription list to someone else. Heck, GRM has absorbed a few of those, including the Forever MX-5. Given that this happened during the NC era, there were probably a lot of wine and cheese people pretty upset when they got their first issue of welding and weird looking mutant Challenge cars.

I was a charter subscriber and have enjoyed every issue from the beginning. (Don't remember the $8 subscription though. Apparently it didn't last very long). The magazine just pushed the right buttons for me and I liked the content and the writers, especially David Lachance, who was at all the New England events and was extremely friendly and personable ... and humble, I might add. So I'm obviously disappointed in its demise. But I don't care to receive the consolation magazine offered, so I'll be opting for a refund. At least there's still Octane to "fuel my passion."

wetpossum wrote: I'll definitely miss them. I'm now only subscribed to CM to get my old sports car fix. Some things I loved about HSEC: -Satch Carlson

He's a polarizing figure...personally, I don't care for him. He's the main reason I dropped my BMW CCA membership, after what he did to the Roundel magazine.

In reply to stuart in mn:

"Polarizing figure" is unfortunately a negative connotation to attribute to a contributing writer on the last page of each issue. His column had absolutely no connection to the success or failure of the publication. I didn't particularly like Satch Carlson either. Never did, going back to the eighties when I subscribed to Autoweek. But his column really had nothing to do with the demise of the magazine.

Wetpossum: I agree with what you posted.

It could have. If he turns enough people off, subscription numbers drop and the magazine struggles. How many people hung on to Road & Track just because of Peter Egan for years?

Keith, it wasn't Satch, or readership, or subscriptions that caused the demise. According to David Lachance in his farewell column, "the circulation has done nothing but rise ... 55K subscribers, with a renewal rate that's the envy of the industry." So I don't think Satch Carlson's columns turned off any readers. In fact, he really mellowed out in his latter years. I don't think I ever read a controversial column by him in Hemmings. I almost liked some of them. He wrote an amusing one about SU carbs recently.

My interpretation is it's all about the P&L (profit and loss to the non-business types). Hemmings couldn't sustain the magazine with advertising revenue (the lifeblood of all media organizations) without putting the entire corporation in jeopardy. Hard decision. Maybe right, maybe not. Time will tell. So that's an entirely different management dilemma than editorial content.

Keith Tanner wrote: It could have. If he turns enough people off, subscription numbers drop and the magazine struggles. How many people hung on to Road & Track just because of Peter Egan for years?

Not only did I hang on to R&T because of Peter Egan, but I dropped Automobile because of Jean Jennings and Jamie Kittman.

The mag cover price was too cheap at $4.99. They could add a buck and nobody would really care.

In reply to spitfirebill:

I've dumped magazines for similar reasons.