Old car magazines

[CG]

When I was younger if anyone offered me some car magazines I jumped on it. I used to have a huge collection, but have narrowed it down to 18 boxes. 50's through the very early 70's.

One of my buddies sons, late 20's, has my old 62 Ford Unibody and a 58 Ford wagon he's building. I said hey do you want my old car magazines? I'm going to scan the covers, keep a few and sell off the rest. But if you want them you can have them for free. He texted back … maybe a few?

I know it's different times and I don't blame him at all, but man when I was a kid … Gold Mine!

['63GENIII]

Every Christmas my mother would give me a year subscription to Hod Rod. This started when I was about 7 or 8 and continued for the next 20 some odd years.
Id read about Lil John's builds, Centerline Wheels were in and would spend hours planning my next build (if i ever got enough money) out of the PAW catalogs in the back.

I kept every one. Through every move, room mates, girlfriends and even getting married.

Id always pick up a random Car Craft or Super Chevy or two every so often, but I kept them all. It was a bunch of boxes. I thought Id give them to my son someday.

When we moved to Redwood City in June of '02, I put all of the boxes into the corner of our detached garage out back. Cool and dry - that is until New Years Day '03. Had torrential rain for several hours which flooded the garage with 12" of water. The two stacks of boxed magazines acted like a wick and they were all ruined.

Yes, those collections were gold mines.

[Rickysnickers]

Funny this came up. We just moved a couple of states away from our previous home. I have Hot Rod magazines dating back to 1987. I took them with us. I won't be getting rid of them anytime soon

[special-K]

I see in young people today a lack of desire or concern for anything that came before. Looking back is about discouraged. It's about "moving forward" and about "We are the shizzle". When we were young we idolized the "older guys" and certainly respected them. We wanted to be as cool as them. Especially when it came to cars. We wanted what they had and to do what they did to them. That's what the magazines were about. Now it's all about NOW and moving forward and who cares what the old guys used to do or still do. The internet and expanded TV programming deliver the world to them now more than that guy up the street with really cool old cars*

*All generalized observations. There are always exceptions, and I'm glad. I love to share my depth of knowledge

[CG]

I found it odd because he has a 62 Ford and a 58 Ford. The 58 is having a modern drivetrain upgrade, but a definite cool old classic from the outside. And Ive posted a lot of pics of the 62 on this board. He grew up with the 62 because it was his dads before it was mine.

But his dad and I, and a lot of you grew up with car magazines, so I guess its just in our blood.

There are a ton of little books and I even have a fair amount of Car Toons, Drag Toons etc. Once I get to scanning all of the covers I may just end up hugging the boxes of magazines … My precious, Ill never let you go … LOL!

[special-K]

I have thinned out on the mags that had survived all my moves and damage. But there are some I will never let go of and others I just haven't dealt with. I'll still buy an old one from time to time if it's something special. Bought one last March at an early swap meet. The guy, I know pretty well from the swaps, says "Just one?". I could have gotten a bargain but using great restraint to limit my collection. He bought a collection of 8,000 from someone!

I took all my old cycle mags to a motorcycle swap meet (not quite all, of course). I decided it was time they go. It was take the whole box for a bargain price. I got the early bird picker vendors flipping through wanting to cherry pick. Nope, buy them all and sell the rest. That's the deal. Hemming and hawing, then we make the deal. Walking around late in the show I stop by and he's all grins. Made his money, then some, and still had the ones he wanted. That is how I figured it would work out. I got what I wanted, all gone and some cash in my pocket.

[richards72chevy]

I just read on another forum that Peterson publishing is ceasing publishing of ten magazines.Car craft and street rodder is two of them.I think online forums and the internet in general is to blame.