Whats up with Musclecar Enthusiast magazine, geez!

[bkhpah]

I just revieved me new "special collectors edition!" MCE in the mail yesterday. Whats special? There is count em', one feature car a 69 Cyclone thats it, one car. I support all the major car magazines, but this is a joke. There are 14 pages of the pure stock drags with one small picture of starting line matchups per page. No offence, but thats mailing it in. Also a tech article on the new Richmond 5 speed, that I won't be putting into any factory musclecar anytime ever. I buy these magazines for the old musclecar's, not resto mod. If I want to see that I look at Hot Rod etc. Why has this magazine taken such a turn? Man just one feature car, wow..BKH http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

[68l30]

I could not have said it better...The mag has become smaller and smaller.....Other than the monthly columns there was nothing to read.I thought it was strange the Zazarine Nova artical was in MCR when he has a column in MCE...I understand the freelance concept but jeeze how wbout some content in MCE..I'm still prety bitter about the break up of the old MCR..Has the internet killed all the monthly publications? It's a good thing I have 40 years of mags to reread.... http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Steve

[HEMIBEE]

I think you are spot on, tons of ads also, they did put a nice picture of my judge in the first page of the pure stock drags section so I won't bash them to hard, its still a great magazine and look forward to it every month instead of the bymonthly mcr. Rich

[ANDY M]

Rich, MCR has been monthly for about a year. Brian asked the key question, what so special about this "special collectors edition"? Maybe it's their last issue. http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
One feature car for this magazine is unacceptable. http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/no.gif

[Salvatore]

Seems like most of the magazines....Super Chevy, Chevy High Perf., Musclecar magazine etc. start out where I want to be and by the second or third year get into Pro Touring, Pure Stock drag racing and resto rods. I guess the restorer and numbers guys are not where they want to be anymore or as much. http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dunno.gif

[markjohnson]

Got mine in the mailbox yesterday and I gotta agree, terrible magazine.

[Chevy454]

[ QUOTE ]
Super Chevy, Chevy High Perf., Musclecar magazine etc. start out where I want to be and by the second or third year get into Pro Touring, Pure Stock drag racing and resto rods. I guess the restorer and numbers guys are not where they want to be anymore or as much.

[/ QUOTE ]
Hey now! Those 2 crowds are the same crowd...except for that whole "racing" thing... http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[CanadianPoncho]

I used to like "Guide to Musclecars"-esp those full page color shots they used to have. I remember when they did a "Revival" of a 70 GSX in the 80's. In a time when Buicks recieved little print, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven!
Todd

[ORIGLS6]

[ QUOTE ]
I buy these magazines for the old musclecar's, not resto mod. If I want to see that I look at Hot Rod etc. Why has this magazine taken such a turn? Man just one feature car, wow..

[/ QUOTE ]

Geez, that figures. I just renewed for two years. http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

[442w30]

I believe the reason why you see a deficit of articles is because they devoted many pages to the Pure Stock race. This is one event that the magazine supports, and I am glad they do.

[gtomike1966]

I got mine yesterday and was also disappointed. I subscribe to about 5 car magazines and I have to say that Hemmings Muscle Machines is by far the best Musclecar magazine on the market.
It always has alot of pages, top quality photographs, great articles and usually shows alot of unusual or rare cars.
I would highly recommend it and im in no way affiliated with the magazine, im just passing along my thoughts.

[Salvatore]

I believe you guys have enough info and people to start your own Magazine about Pure Stock Racing. I think the sport is big enough to maybe support a bi-monthly magazine. http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/3gears.gif

[HEMIBEE]

It may be a perect time for Tom Shaw to step up and offer some more T-shirts and 2 year subscriptions to a magazine that doesn't exist!!! LOL!!!! I was unaware MCR was monthly now but I will suscribe to it now that I know, Rich

[TDW]

[ QUOTE ]
It may be a perect time for Tom Shaw to step up and offer some more T-shirts and 2 year subscriptions to a magazine that doesn't exist!!! LOL!!!! I was unaware MCR was monthly now but I will suscribe to it now that I know, Rich

[/ QUOTE ]

If I remember correctly, I sent the sub money and didn't even get the T-shirt!!

[Chevy454]

Be darn glad to only be out sub money fellas, some unfortunate few weren't so lucky...

[427TJ]

I can't speak to this particular magazine but car magazine staffs are under INTENSE pressure to put every issue together as CHEAPLY as possible. I think Frieburger even wrote about it a few years ago in his Hot Rod column. Numerous different magazines have been sucked-up into large corporate publishing conglomerates and their only concern is making a buck as cheaply as possible. If a magazine sucks it's probably because their budget sucks. If it's filled-up with ads and only a few car features well that's just business. The die-hard staffers with real pride in what they do, like Frieburger and Magnante and Pat Ganahl (and guys like the late Gray Baskerville), bust their asses for us for not much pay. No million-dollar bonuses for these guys.

[budnate]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It may be a perect time for Tom Shaw to step up and offer some more T-shirts and 2 year subscriptions to a magazine that doesn't exist!!! LOL!!!! I was unaware MCR was monthly now but I will suscribe to it now that I know, Rich

[/ QUOTE ]

If I remember correctly, I sent the sub money and didn't even get the T-shirt!!

[/ QUOTE ]

yea what they said, got my dough to, fricken bozo.

[VintageMusclecar]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't speak to this particular magazine but car magazine staffs are under INTENSE pressure to put every issue together as CHEAPLY as possible. I think Frieburger even wrote about it a few years ago in his Hot Rod column. Numerous different magazines have been sucked-up into large corporate publishing conglomerates and their only concern is making a buck as cheaply as possible. If a magazine sucks it's probably because their budget sucks. If it's filled-up with ads and only a few car features well that's just business. The die-hard staffers with real pride in what they do, like Frieburger and Magnante and Pat Ganahl (and guys like the late Gray Baskerville), bust their asses for us for not much pay. No million-dollar bonuses for these guys.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bill is very much on point.

To preface, this is not directed at any specific publication, but more an overall generalization. That being said...

I have a very good friend who's been in the magazine business for many, many years, even serving as editor for one of the largest-circulation publications at one time (not going to mention names for obvious reasons), and they've shared with me many of the "ins and outs" of how the magazine business works today, esp. since so many have been bought up and placed under one corporate roof. What it boils down to is the advertisers, not the readers. The magazines don't make their money off of subscription fees, nor from newsstand earnings (despite the hefty price tag). Their primary source of income is the advertisers, which brings along with it a fair share of "issues."

Ever wonder why we never read about (just for example) an intake manifold, cam, or cylinder head comparison between several different brands like we used to? It's because brand "X" spends big bucks with the magazine advertising their latest and greatest gizmos, and even if brand "Y" or brand "Z" offer a superior product, the fact that brand "Y" and brand "Z" don't advertise with the magazines (or if they do, it's not on the level of brand "X") means the magazines aren't about to let the cat out of the bag that brand "X" might not be the best out there, lest brand "X" get a knot in their shorts, take their football and go home, taking along with them their advertising dollars. And since the filthy green stuff is what makes the world go `round...well, you can figure out the rest. The "tech" is primarily geared as a printed "info-mercial" for the readers, and the car features are more or less there for filler now. Most of the event coverages are also geared towards bringing in revenue and little else.

That's it, in a nutshell.

[novarichie]

yes, your right on the money,magazines hotrod,carcraft,they are the two worse,the best one still is rod and custom

[Nova Jed]

I agree with SC69SAM. Why not start another publication that actually talks about MuscleCars. There are enough awsome people and awsome cars to make the sales go up at some of the reunion shows or Vettefest. Give the public a taste of what they will see and then get them to come and check it out in the real. A picture is worth a thousand words, but an adventure is worth that much more. I know just from seeing the pics. of the race cars and the factory race cars, I want to come out to see the shows! Too much of today relies on the coin, as VintageMusclecar stated. If the younger crowd, such as myself, (ehem), doesn't get interested in the muscle, what is going to happen? Oh, the horror of reading about store bought turbos and wing kits and such when I'm 40-50 yrs of age and have to go to a museum to see "real" awsome rides. I might have to start laminating my 15+/- yrs of magazines so that they last another 30-40 yrs.

Magazine Title: The Supercar Resgistry
Features: People of the SYC.
Members rides, technical info, resto. tech.
Just to give a few ideas.
You get the picture!

[retengw31]

Me, too, Diego, but I have to agree that it takes more to keep one of these going. That's the quickest I've ever gone through a MCE cover to cover.

[bkhpah]

If you are going to devote the major meat of the MCE to the Pure Stock Drags, why not do a better job, by featuring the cars from the race, background on owners and cars, etc. The same old same old starting line pic's we have all seen before really don't do the event justice. And if you were not there, give me a reason to even care. Line after line of match-up's doesn't get it done at all. I cannot still get over one feature car! If I didn't subscribe, I would have NEVER bought this issue. Don't get me wrong, I love the Musclecars mags in general and our restorations and related articles have been featured in many magazines and we do appreciate it. I hope this doesn't signal a glimps of the future. If it does, ouch..BKH

[Xplantdad]

I agree wholeheartedly with Brian...it's way cooler to read about the people that own the cars...and the stories behind them (sort of like our Members Rides here). If you are going to cover an event...then do it right...top to bottom....not the typical "Here's the best paint award car" and "Here's the best engine award car". Devote more than 3 pages...and 40 pictures to an event. I know that you could have 10 pages easily from an event like the Supercar Reunion...some feature cars and the stories behind them...some racing shots and stories about the racers...some car show shots...and some people shots (auction, etc). Just don't do it halfway http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/no.gif

That being said...Eric is right about the almighty dollar. When I worked at a major newspaper in SoCal...it was common knowledge that it cost 10 cents more per paper to make them than they sold for...so a 50 cent paper cost 60 cents to make! (Ink, paper, labor, electricity, transportation costs, etc.).

What made the newspaper the money was all of the advertising...and they bowed mightily to the heavy hitters.

On New Years Eve 2002...they had printed 750,000 papers only to have the "legal" department notice an "error" (read "bad press") http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif in a news story that dealt with one of the major advertisers of the papers. Result? They reprinted all 750,000 papers...shredded the other ones...and paid all of the employees working that night (me included) triple time to get the "correct" papers out... http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif


And so it goes...

[169indy]

'Now maybe if UNICEF got in the Muscle car mag Business.....'
http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/naughty.gif

I used to be a member of a Club called USCC pre internet and the mags were nice, and we all know how that ends,,,

Hemmings! http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggthumpup.gif

[Chris396]

The internet is killing car magazines. Look at great sites like this one. Why buy a car magazine when you can get the same info and pictures online? You can talk to other owners who can share their real world experiences working on their cars. You get answers to your questions the same day or week you ask them instead of a month or longer. You can get unbiased brand comparisons. It's the end of an era.

That said, I subscribe to all the Hemmings car magazines and they are excellent.

[tirebird]

[ QUOTE ]
The internet is killing car magazines. Look at great sites like this one. Why buy a car magazine when you can get the same info and pictures online? You can talk to other owners who can share their real world experiences working on their cars. You get answers to your questions the same day or week you ask them instead of a month or longer. You can get unbiased brand comparisons. It's the end of an era.

That said, I subscribe to all the Hemmings car magazines and they are excellent.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. The magazine publishers are trying to make money off the internet by giving away content for free and charging advertisers for our eyeballs. But, to cut costs for their print publications, they are re-gurgitating content from one magazine into several magazines. Hemmings is bucking that trend and has several of the most well written and original publications out there. I subscribe to three, along with HotRod and Sports Car Market. By diluting content, other publishers are driving readers and, consequently, ad dollars away.

[442w30]

[ QUOTE ]
Me, too, Diego, but I have to agree that it takes more to keep one of these going. That's the quickest I've ever gone through a MCE cover to cover.

[/ QUOTE ]

I *do* agree with you - even I had to flip through the magazine again to see if there was a feature I had missed. But I'd be willing to bet the lack of features was due to the amount of pages given to the race. I do think the editor screwed up in focusing on the match-ups too much without much photos. It would be nice to have them have an extension of the article on-line for those of us who want to see more photos. But if there's a problem with the magazine, I think we ought to give them a few issues and see what direction they are headed.

I also don't understand people's love for Hemmings. I think they have had some glaring errors with many articles.

[HEMIBEE]

With the pure stock race growing year after year I am sure they want to give owners another reason to come to the show, the average guy would love to have his name or car or both in a magazine, even if its not a feature spread, it means a lot to some folks, I think they should take more advantage of so many nice rare multi make cars in one spot, "collectors edition" not so sure what they mean by that, unless they are talking about a birdcage liner? LOL