Who has a collection of old magazines?

So, talking about magazines, who has a stash of old ones? When my parents moved, I got my dad's collection--mostly Road & Tracks and Sports Car Graphics from back in the day. Plus tuning guides, USGP race programs and the like.

So, yesterday was a writing day for Classic Motorsports. I wanted to see what the day's press said about the Maserati Ghibli since I'm doing a piece on them, so into the stacks I went. (TL;DR: R&T kinda ripped the car a new one.)

I have several boxes of old magazines up in the attic: European Car, Classic & Sportscar, probably some C&D. Got to be 20+ years old now. While I know it would be interesting to go back through some of them, I keep meaning to get rid of them - I never look at them (best intentions be damned) and they're taking up space.

Some of the material has appeared online, but far less than one might expect. It's a shame, since some magazines (Popular Mechanics, for one) seem to have digitized much of their back catalog.

I have collections of GRM (Auto-X) from January 1987 , Hot Rod Magazine from June 1967  and Classic Motorsports from January 2006. Other titles get rotated out regularly so I'm only keeping 12-24 months around.

R&T and C+D from about 1982 until Peter Egan retired. 

National Lampoon from the P.J O'rourke days, so the late 70"s-80's or so. 

I used to have a million National Geographics, but my kids didn't use them like I did, and its all online now.

First , a new business plan.....

Sell searchable DVDs  with scanned past issues , maybe in 10 year chunks , 

Would you buy Road and Track from the 1950s ?  or others ?

I would love to have the 1950s German Auto Motor + Sport and now with the Translation apps I could do more than just look at the pictures !

As for my own magazine collection ,  mostly 1950 until mid 70s , sports car  , Hot Rod and VW mags , plus a pile of the small Hot Rod  / Custom magazines......1000 -2000 magazines......

The problem with old magazines is unless you have them in binders , its hard to find one magazine  and there is also not a good index to find things.....

I have that R&T on the left side.  I was getting overwhelmed with mine and cut the articles out I was interested in rereading and put them into a binder and tossed the rest.  
 

I saved all I had under 1990.  One of my favorites is an Ed Cole ordered green BB Corvette that was a one page article in Autoweek.  

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Every Road and Track back to about 1955 but it started to get spotty in the late 70's. 

I’ve had over a thousand at once.  Some are worth keeping.  Most are not.  I’ve honestly never tossed a GRM.  4 Wheel Drive & Sport Utility (I believe it’s defunct) from mid ‘90’s to early 2000’s I’ve held onto.  R&T from the ‘00’s (big format) I cant bring myself to trash.  Automobile when DED was at the helm are worth keeping.  These and the R&T have the book type binding so they shelve nice.  A bunch of Automobili from when I worked in Italy.  All the large format British motorcycle magazines like Bike I’ve held onto also.  

I really quit buying magazines at the newsstand after the financial crisis when I noticed the print quality had suffered.  These big glossies looked like they’d been printed on newspaper there for awhile.  

I have the entire set of Stock Car Racing magazine starting with May '66. 

http://www.russthompsonracing.com/SCRMag.html    (not my site, but has all the cover photos)

When I moved I tossed anything from the boring 1980s - kept all my old Sports Cars Illustrated, but always felt it was a step backward when they changed to Car & Driver, although that was also pretty good until around 1970.  Kept all the pre 1970 Road & Track and gave away everything else including the Classic & Sports and Thoroughbred & Classics which always irritated me anyway with articles on vintage British cars written by editors who owned Porsches and hadn't a clue about the cars they were writing about.

Kept issues that really tickled me - R&T with anything by Dick O'Kane (O'Kane and the Chicken Bus for example) and I have his How to Repair Your Foreign Car: A Guide for the Beginner, Your Wife, and the Mechanically Inept on my shelves.   Henry Manney was also worth reading as was Karl Ludvigsen.

I have Hot Rod mostly complete back to about 1958, with some issues going back to 1952.  Every issue of Hot Rod Deluxe.  Rodder's Journal from issue #10 to present.  Cycle World complete back to the late 1970s.  BMW CCA Roundel club magazine complete from volume 1, issue 1 up until about four years ago (the first issues of that one were basically a newsletter, printed out on a mimeograph machine and stapled together by hand).  A bookshelf full of Popular Science from the late 1940s through the early 1960s.  Various other piles of car and motorcycle magazines that aren't actively collected.

One thing I've tried to do is collect magazines that had test articles for all the cars and bikes I own, and in some cases used to own.

In reply to David S. Wallens :

I have many 70's and 80's Road & Track magazines from my dad. But best of all are all the manufacturer catalogs that he collected. As a matter of fact, I am pretty sure I sent you the one from the Innocenti like the one you had. He would write letters to every manufacturer and request them. I have a letter signed by Colin Chapman replying to my dad. 

I still have a ton of older Car Craft and musclecar-related mags from the 70's-early 2000's. Sprinkled in there are a few Motor Trend/Road & Track "modern car" mags, some "sports car" mags, and some are real gems, too. I also have a few older Hot Rod mags from the 50's/60's. It's always fun to delve into the archives when looking for writing inspiration and content!

I also have this sweet 1980 car buyer's guide that is amazing in every way.

It's full of automotive what-ifs and concepts that never happened. I mean, who wouldn't want a Chevy K5 Blazer HALF TRACK?

Still waiting for this to happen. C'mon Mopar!

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Well, sure they ripped the Ghibli, but what did they have to say about the 2-liter Pinto?

I forget exactly how long I've been getting GRM, but if I've ever thrown one out, it was by accident.  I've got boxes of them, back to about 2001?

stuart in mn said:

I have Hot Rod mostly complete back to about 1958, with some issues going back to 1952.  Every issue of Hot Rod Deluxe.  Rodder's Journal from issue #10 to present.  Cycle World complete back to the late 1970s.  BMW CCA Roundel club magazine complete from volume 1, issue 1 up until about four years ago (the first issues of that one were basically a newsletter, printed out on a mimeograph machine and stapled together by hand).  A bookshelf full of Popular Science from the late 1940s through the early 1960s.  Various other piles of car and motorcycle magazines that aren't actively collected.

One thing I've tried to do is collect magazines that had test articles for all the cars and bikes I own, and in some cases used to own.

Hot Rod had its moments.  Ro Mcgonegal was great if a bit before my time —hey that’s the joy in an attic full of musty old back issues.  I hated the Gray Baskerville stuff where they gave very little real detail about what they covered.  It seemed to reach a zenith for me in the late ‘90’s and early ‘00’s.  Ro was back, Steve Magnate was running the show, and I would devour each issue like a well cooked steak and glass of my favorite red wine.

Off thread but all about old magazines.  
 

This was before the internet. I had to work one Saturday and a few of my buddies (18-19 years old) were grabbed to help one of the guys moms move her new boyfriend to a new apartment.
 

The dude had a big box of girlie magazines that my buddy "accidentally" left in his K5 Blazer and the next day the dude realized it was missing and called all the parents.  My buddy got busted and everyone was pissed off at the thievery.   
 

I was glad I had to work that day and missed all this garbage.  

A 401 CJ said:

stuart in mn said:

I have Hot Rod mostly complete back to about 1958, with some issues going back to 1952.  Every issue of Hot Rod Deluxe.  Rodder's Journal from issue #10 to present.  Cycle World complete back to the late 1970s.  BMW CCA Roundel club magazine complete from volume 1, issue 1 up until about four years ago (the first issues of that one were basically a newsletter, printed out on a mimeograph machine and stapled together by hand).  A bookshelf full of Popular Science from the late 1940s through the early 1960s.  Various other piles of car and motorcycle magazines that aren't actively collected.

One thing I've tried to do is collect magazines that had test articles for all the cars and bikes I own, and in some cases used to own.

Hot Rod had its moments.  Ro Mcgonegal was great if a bit before my time —hey that’s the joy in an attic full of musty old back issues.  I hated the Gray Baskerville stuff where they gave very little real detail about what they covered.  It seemed to reach a zenith for me in the late ‘90’s and early ‘00’s.  Ro was back, Steve Magnate was running the show, and I would devour each issue like a well cooked steak and glass of my favorite red wine.

Just shows how different people have diffferent opinions.    I thought Ro was one of the worst HR editors ever (next to John Dianna) and liked Gray's stories very much.

Pat Ganahl occasionally posts over on the HAMB board, he hasn't gone into detail but it's apparent he's pretty upset about the current state of magazines from the old Petersen empire.

Much to my wife's dismay I have a rather large collection of magazines.  I'm starting to think that she may be right about getting rid of them but I can't bring myself to do it yet.

I think I still have all of these magazines:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B_RHUGrO4ZoTTnh3alY1VERqWUE?usp=sharing

I really loved Mad Magazine, back in the day. And CARtoons.

Currently want to find 2/89 R&T, 7/89 MT and 10/89 R&T.  I want to read what they have to say about the 944 S2.  I'm looking at one next week.

stuart in mn said:

A 401 CJ said:

stuart in mn said:

I have Hot Rod mostly complete back to about 1958, with some issues going back to 1952.  Every issue of Hot Rod Deluxe.  Rodder's Journal from issue #10 to present.  Cycle World complete back to the late 1970s.  BMW CCA Roundel club magazine complete from volume 1, issue 1 up until about four years ago (the first issues of that one were basically a newsletter, printed out on a mimeograph machine and stapled together by hand).  A bookshelf full of Popular Science from the late 1940s through the early 1960s.  Various other piles of car and motorcycle magazines that aren't actively collected.

One thing I've tried to do is collect magazines that had test articles for all the cars and bikes I own, and in some cases used to own.

Hot Rod had its moments.  Ro Mcgonegal was great if a bit before my time —hey that’s the joy in an attic full of musty old back issues.  I hated the Gray Baskerville stuff where they gave very little real detail about what they covered.  It seemed to reach a zenith for me in the late ‘90’s and early ‘00’s.  Ro was back, Steve Magnate was running the show, and I would devour each issue like a well cooked steak and glass of my favorite red wine.

Just shows how different people have diffferent opinions.    I thought Ro was one of the worst HR editors ever (next to John Dianna) and liked Gray's stories very much.

Pat Ganahl occasionally posts over on the HAMB board, he hasn't gone into detail but it's apparent he's pretty upset about the current state of magazines from the old Petersen empire.

But Ro taught me about English at a time when I was quite impressionable.  Around grade eight.  Here’s an example:  “...the Cobra Jet will be the utter delight of every Ford lover and the bane of all the rest...” what is “bane”?  I HAD to know.  I looked all these words up that Ro used.  The result was, when I did my essay on the SAT (or whatever entrance exam we had to take), I got to skip freshman English.

I was given a collection of Road & Track that, IIRC, from the 50s to the 70s maybe 80s. My intent is to go through and scan some articles and pics then sell them. I also have a lot of Circle Track from a subscription I got for the tech articles which I thought were very good. Also Sports Car from when I was in SCCA. Then there are some like Street Rodder etc that I picked up for the old car articles.

My little collection. Every GRM from 2002-present, every C&D from 1985 (when my subscription started) to 1999, end of the Rad era, as well as a smattering of 60s, 70s, and early 80s editions. Decent amount of R&Ts from the 70s-90s, and a few other miscellaneous things. The holder thingys are cheap cardboard from Ikea, the labels I made in Word, and the shelf I custom built.

Am I the only one who collects late 40s to mid 70s Mechanix Illustrated issues for the Tom McCahill test reports?

I've got more than a few 80+ year old Flying magazines, because...well, flying.