A friend of mine has had 2 features published in RPM Magazine, a 6 page color article about our BS SuperShifter group in the April 2014 issue, and a similar size story about a local racers 8 second 67 Fairlane street car, with a SB Ford and Lenco, and his low 7 second Probe Comp Eliminator/fast bracket Probe, with a SB Ford and Liberty 5 speed. I`m not sure how Dan approached the magazine about submitting the stories, or if he got paid for them, but to me, they were both pretty well done. On the other hand, when we took my buddys "Pro Street" 67 Fairlane 500XL to the Sacramento CA "Street Machine Nationals West",in the early 80s, while we were in the entrance line up, There was a tap on the window, and an older guy in a Hot Rod Magazine shirt said, "Hi, I`m Gray Baskerville, and I would like to do a feature story on this car". Gray and another photographer had Rick drive his Fairlane to a large open field, and they spend a couple of hours shooting photos while Rick filled out a multipage story questionaire. His Fairlane was featured in a 2 page all color spread in the August 1984 issue of Hot Rod. (it was also featured in Auto Buff Magazine,(who remembers that mag?), and had a photo in Car Craft. I always envisioned working at a car magazine had to be the ultimate job in the 60s and 70s, drag testing all the new muscle cars, building cool project cars, going to all the great car shows and races, AND getting paid for it all!! I guess that I thought that they had weekly meetings with a group of 10 or 20 hardcore car nuts , about different builds, races, and trends, no idea if it ever was that cool in real life. Back in those days, there were a bunch of magazine writers many of us idolized, guys like Terry Cook, Leonard Emanualson, Rick Vogelian, Norman Mayerson, CJ Baker, Lee Kelly, Steve Collison, Neil Britt, etc. I guess the car mag biz was much different in the "good old days." At one time, I used to subscribe to 6 or 7 car magazines every month, now a days, I thumb thru them at the magazine stand, and rarely buy more than 5 or 6 issues a year. Between the high cost, and topics of little interest to me, the vast majority go back on the shelf. I must not be alone, as I have noticed the car mag selection has been drastically reduced in recent years, which is sad, but I don`t feel like shelling out 8 bucks to read about 80000 HP junkyard turbo LS1 swaps, "Pro Touring" older musclecars, the lastest Ring Bros pussyfying of a classic Mustang, or another WestTech story where they test 80 HP carb spacers, 30 HP rocker arms, or 200 HP camshafts. I am sure there are still some legitimate stories of interest, but the BS outnumbers those, and most of the pages are nothing but ads and fluff. Kinda sad.
