In reply to trigun7469 :
And not very easy to read
In reply to trigun7469 :
And not very easy to read
It is hard to believe they have held on so long. I haven't read a magazine in decades. Gone through email lists, forums, websites, now Youtube, what is next? Youtube needs a replacement. Me thinks maybe video hosting for cars or racing, not everything like it is now with subscription subsets.
Streetwiseguy said:Car Craft is the only one I ever really cared about, until Frieberger turned it into a "How to buy cheap crap, and keep it looking like crap, and blow it up with a cheap turbo." Kinda the Roadkill idea. I do not approve.
I will miss print. GRM, CM, Hot Rod, National Geographic still show up at my house, and I will likely keep them coming until they, or I, die.
Ironically, Freiburger's Junkyard Craft is what really got me into cars. Hotrod was and always was high end stuff. Neat, but so far from my reality, it might as well have been Pluto.
CarCraft taught me that perfect, monochrome paint, grey tweed interior, and 15" Boyds wheels (remember, this was the 90s) weren't nessesary to have fun with cars.
In reply to NickD :
They should start a service where they print out their best material on glossy paper and mail it to you. They could do this, say, every month.
Appleseed said:Streetwiseguy said:Car Craft is the only one I ever really cared about, until Frieberger turned it into a "How to buy cheap crap, and keep it looking like crap, and blow it up with a cheap turbo." Kinda the Roadkill idea. I do not approve.
I will miss print. GRM, CM, Hot Rod, National Geographic still show up at my house, and I will likely keep them coming until they, or I, die.
Ironically, Freiburger's Junkyard Craft is what really got me into cars. Hotrod was and always was high end stuff. Neat, but so far from my reality, it might as well have been Pluto.
CarCraft taught me that perfect, monochrome paint, grey tweed interior, and 15" Boyds wheels (remember, this was the 90s) weren't nessesary to have fun with cars.
Before Freiburger, there was an editor named Matt King. That guy was my hero! He introduced me to the cordless Sawzall, which he called "The Tool". He even had a shirt made for it that he would wear when he would do junkyard photo shoots. He said it was the only tool you would ever need to do 90% of the stuff they did, and in some respects, he wasn't wrong!
Freiburger sort of oversaw that era of Car Craft, eventually taking the reigns himself again after King left. I still say that was the real heyday of that magazine. Junkyard builds, unconventional stuff that had no business going fast, and DIY tech articles were what made that era great.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
That was when I had a subscription to Car Craft. It was a damned good publication.
I'll miss those magazines. One of my favorite weekend things to do is stop by the bookstore, peruse the magazine stand, buy a few, then go out for lunch and read them.
A lot of people rag on Freiburger for his junkyard build stuff, but I think many of those titles would have died a long time ago without him. He's kind of the sole link to the old school management and editorial operation of those magazines (back when it was Petersen Publishing, with people like Gray Baskerville writing the stories) and he really appreciates the heritage. If nothing else, he spearheaded the preservation of their vast photo archive - it all would have been tossed out years ago without him.
nutherjrfan said:What eventually happens to the titles? Does corporate get to hold onto them forever?
For example Sport Compact Car. Could someone just apply for the trademark and start using it?
Or does Super Street online just get to sit on it for eternity?
They will be keeping online presences for most of the titles, so they won't be totally dead.
I like magazines because it puts content in front of me that I wouldn't search the internet for.....because I didn't know I existed.
Hard to search for things that you didn't know existed lol
Sad. sad day
In other news-the Editor of Jalopnik resigned today, citing interference from the private equity owners that bought it after Gawker folded.
It's not just print that is having a tough time, it's anybody trying to build a business on automotive content. Much respect to GRM for what they do.
In reply to ShawnG :
Talk to Pete Stout about it, he'll get it fixed.
I like print magazines. GRM is the only one I'm subscribed to currently so I suppose that's the only place where I voted with my money. But it's generally an easiser to read format than my phone screen or a desktop even. I just like it more.
I'm also 24 by the way, that's apparently of note since we brought up old people and print mags.
This makes about the forth mag I've lost in the last year or so either in print form or all together. I get digital subscriptions of about ten magazines and print copies of MT and GRM.
In reply to NickD :
0-60 was fantastic!
BoostedBrandon said:In reply to NickD :
0-60 was fantastic!
I never realized that 0-60 was the creation of Brian Scott and Ron Zaras, who then went and formed Hoonigans, until fairly recently
Still subscribed to CM, GRM and TRJ. CC was my only other subscription and it was a ten minute read/reread and shelve experience
Tom1200 said:I confess that the only US publication I read is CM.
People keep referencing that and I read it as "Car Model" from the 60's but I know it's not....
I think a lot of magazines were ill-equipped to deal with today's "optimization culture" and weren't scientifically rigorous enough for modern minds. It was a bunch of "just do its" and "EZ bolt-ons" and "now let's see if we can't blow it up". I think that's one reason GRM and CM made it -- they cater properly to the modern mindset.
I had a Super Chevy sub when i was 6. This is sad.
I am at the Moon-eyes show now and probably NO photos of this show will now end up in a USA print magazine , sad....
But they will be on the Web somewhere this afternoon .
European and Japanese magazines are still out there. at least for now
Supper bummed by this.
A friend of mine has a really nice publication called Peloton (yes the f'ing exercise bike stole the name from him). It is a high-end bike lifestyle mag.
I really wish the best for him in this new market. I still love magazines and is my favorite way of winding down before I go to sleep.
Just try and pry my grassroots from my cold dead hands.
In reply to CrustyRedXpress :
Wow, that is interesting. Jalopnik has gotten pretty ad happy in the past few years. Rare that they have good content anymore.
Sad to see Automobile go, although I didn't subscribe so I shouldn't be surprised.
What can we do to make sure GRM stays around? I love this forum and the mag.
In reply to CyberEric :
The ad-financing model for websites isn't working very well anymore. Most of the ad revenue gets siphoned off by the likes of Google and Facebook, then (if you're using an adtech firm) the middlemen take their cut and the digital sharecropper, err, content producer who used to get peanuts now gets peanut shells. The model works slightly better when you're big enough to be able to sell advertising space directly (like most magazines do/used to do), but either way the ad revenue overall is trending down.
That's why every website these days seems to either plaster "invitations" to give them their email address (so they can upsell you other stuff later on), has patreon links or you can't see the content for the ads.
The rule of thumb used to be that if you got about 10k visitors a month on your website, it might be worth slapping advertising on it even to just help out with the hosting cost. I haven't seen the latest numbers yet but I wouldn't be surprised if it's "100k or don't bother" by now.
Wow, very sad. I liked Automobile and Super Street. David E. Davis Jr. started Automobile magazine which was the reason I have the very first issue of that magazine and subscribed to it for years. Things are changing at a rapid rate and it doesn't always feel good. There is nothing quite like a nice new glossy covered high quality magazine. I just renewed my GRM and CM subscriptions.
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