Jalopnik
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fast as a shark
Fifty Years of Kerouac's "On The Road"
Fourteen years before the United States mandated exit numbers on Dwight Eisenhower's brainchild of a road system, a Lowell, Mass native of French-Canadian extraction named Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac published a novel that would change countless lives; a mash note to an already-dead America living under the weight of what Igor Kurchatov and J. Robert Oppenheimer had wrought. More »
1:30 PM on Thu Sep 13 2007
By Davey G. Johnson
999 views, 18 commentsLatest by Wouldpkr: Im with Nicknick on this one, i hated it and recently was thinking the exact same thing, i should try more »
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Robert E. Petersen Dead at 80
After a short battle with cancer Robert E. Petersen has passed away. If not for Petersen and his crazy idea for a magazine full of gow jobs called Hot Rod we wouldn't have beans for jobs.
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Question(s) of the Day: Who Will Buy Primedia's Car Titles; Which Will be Cut?
Ho, snap. Just a day after content giant, Primedia announced it was buying car-niche competitor VerticalScope Inc.'s Modified, Modified Luxury and Exotics titles, the company announced it's looking to sell off its remaining enthusiast titles. Primedia has been on a cash-raising binge, of late, for example, shedding its crafts pubs late last year for around $132 million and its hunting, fishing and outdoor titles to private equity firm InterMedia Partners for $170 million in cash. The publisher of such Jalopnik reads like Automobile, Motor Trend, Hot Rod, Corvette Fever and Arabian Horse World (what?) says it's retained investment banking firms Goldman Sachs and Lehman to find a suitablemedia juggernautcompany to snap up the list. According to Crain's, the company's stock price spiked today on the news. It's another big move in an effort to pay down a boatload of debt from big buys like that of emap usa (formerly Petersen Publishing) from EMAP in 2000 for just over a half billion. The question now is, who will buy the catalog, and how many of the titles will be cut? Consider those the question(s) of the day. Go.
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Primedia Swallows Modified Magazines
Back when SEMA held its International Auto Salon show at the Los Angeles Convention Center, the Modified Magazine parties at the nearby Hotel Figueroa were the stuff of legends. Editors wearing white fur coats and smoking cigars with a model on each arm kind of stuff. These guys were serious about performance, but kept a peering eye open into what made people screw around with otherwise perfectly OK cars in the first place. It therefore comes as great shock that Modified as we knew it is no more. Media empire Primedia has acquired Toronto based VerticalScope Inc., publisher of Modified, Modified Luxury and Exotics, and Modified Mustangs Magazines. The press release supplies the usual vague corporo-speak for the reasons behind the buyout. As we have already seen Primedia gobble up competing titles only to eliminate them shortly thereafter, we fear this cannot be good news. More » -
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Exercises in Pluggage: New Issue of Gearhead Out Now
Bumbeck and myself can both count Gearhead as a cornerstone in our auto-writing careers. Mike's contributed to it for years, and I edited a few issues, a task that nearly drove me straight to the booby hatch and ultimately led me to Jalopnik's door. Also of note, Gearhead founder Mike LaVella bestowed the nickname "Johnny Uptown" upon Wert. So if you want to do yourself a favor, check out the longest-running (if rather sporadically issued) punk rock car mag in history. The new issue's out now and features all manner of rad stuff, from the Burbank Choppers car club to the New York Dolls. Get with the program, fools. More » -
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Crank it or Spank It? The Winding Road 'Vette Debate Rages On
Over at Dubspeed, spy photog and minion of Priddy Chris Doane weighs in on his side of the Winding Road faux-Blue Devil prank. Kasey Kagawa follows Doane's piece up with a counterpunch of his own, stating that stunts like this are precisely what American autojournalism needs to shake it out of its own self-absorbed torpor. Thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Darts of pleasure? Valiants of lust? Comment away. More » -
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Sound of a New World Being Born? 0-60 In 184 Days
The kids over at Harris Publications, undaunted by the demise of periodicals such as Custom Rodder, are launching a new book focusing on the world of sporting motorcars. Their teaser site's up now, and they dropped the preview issue at SEMA. Although it has no El Caminos to speak of, there is a certain white Starion in there. And with that kind of vision and premium paper stock, we might be compelled to say the mag, which drops inMarchMay, has SUPER POTENTIAL! More » -
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Now Sweet Peet is Fighting With Karl Brauer
A couple of days ago, His Magnificent Sweetness took Karl Brauer of Edmunds to task over the site's "Most Wanted" vehicles list only including two slabs of Detroit iron. Peter's rationale? "[I]s it any wonder that the new go-to guy for auto-biz quotage for that beacon of anti-Detroit objectivity, The New York Times, happens to be none other than Karl Brauer, editor in chief of Edmunds.com?" And while I have heard people talk smack about Karl and his industry connections, I've gotta give the win to Karl's response in this matter. Click through for Brauer's smackdown of Peter and a bit of analysis. More » -
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Sweet Peet D. On Motor Trend's Car of the Year, Again
We write many items in the space of a week. We know what burnout is like. We know how easy it is to fall back on time-tested gems like "notgonnahappen.com" and "the answer to the question that absolutely nobody is asking." Or alternately crap about Detroit that nobody but Detroiters would care about, like the Ham Center. (Which, to be fair, is actually in Warren.) And well, we feel like the Autoextremist has fallen into retread mode: once again, he's bashing Motor Trend's Car/Truck/SUV/Skateboard/Unicycle of the Year award. That said, his deconstruction is good, and we're very much opposed to the sorts of synergies the Sweeter Peter is on about here. More » -
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Popular Hot Rodding Puts Another Chink in Primedia's Styrofoam Chinese Wall
Back when Cameron Evans helmed Popular Hot Rodding, the mag had a real spark to it and some pretty solid momentum going. Once he bailed, it rapidly slid downhill. So somewhat unexpectedly, Johnny Hunkins recently exposed the enthusiast-media game for what it is (basically parts payola) with an evocative quote:"We go to Year One's super fling every year. During the month or two leading up to it, we're pretending hardship in our publisher's office, begging for airfare back East. The conversation usually goes something like this: 'We're dangerously low on car features, plus we can talk to a bunch of our advertisers at the same time.' (Publishers love to hear this stuff from editors.)"
Brief analysis after the jump. More »
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