The Fall of Auto Magazines
A bittersweet final issue of Automobile highlights the ways car culture is changing.
A weekly newsletter by Ryan K. ZumMallen | @zoomy575m
Happy Race Day, especially to the two heroes who threw a mid-street dance party next to their flashing neon Nissan to Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight.” Yes, there’s a drum solo.
I’ve had some pretty incredible opportunities lately. Holiday sales are racing, and if you want to pick up a last minute copy of Slow Car Fast you can do it here.
I’m also proud to announce that copies are now available in Autobooks-Aerobooks, an automotive themed bookstore in Burbank that has been a fantastic partner. We’re looking forward to having some fun together in 2020 so stay tuned.
Perhaps biggest of all is that Automobile magazine featured Slow Car Fast in its 2020 holiday gift guide. This is an unbelievable honor. I’m so grateful to the editors who thought to include me. As someone who fell in love with cars through the stunning photography and tales in that mag, this is a moment I’ll carry with me a long time.
Which makes it hard to come to terms with this news: TEN Publishing, which owns 22 automotive publications, is ending the print edition of all but three magazines. Automobile gets the axe. So does Super Street, Diesel Power, Truck Trend and literally a dozen others.
Obviously it’s sad to see any magazine go. But these are particularly hard, because they were instrumental in building the social fabric that is car culture for literal decades. In some cases, they had tremendous impact on entire communities.
The website L.A. Taco wrote an insightful post about what the end of Lowrider means to the Chicana/o communities.
I’m still sussing out what it means to work in media in 2020 and beyond. The TEN news hits hard, and if recent history is any indication, things will get harder.
It’s part of why I’m passionate about building direct models for journalists and authors to get their work out. I think we’ll need to build individual audiences more and more in the future. The importance of institutions cannot be overstated. But this is the media landscape we’ve been given and we’ll have to make the most of it.
In the meantime, I’m thinking of those affected by cuts and pledging to appreciate the outlets I love, while supporting more creators directly in 2020. Thank you Automobile. Thank you Super Street, Lowrider, Truck Trend and all the others. Ink stains forever.
Culture
I’m calling this “Ho ho ho.”
The open world racing game Forza Horizon is launching a “Battle Royale” mode for up to 72 players at a time. It looks like Fast & The Furious meets Hunger Games. I’m in.
Toyota is building a drool-worthy Yaris GR from its Gazoo Racing performance arm. It’ll never come to the U.S. but at least someone is doing it! This will be a future import classic for sure.
I’m a sucker for long stories about road trips. Here’s a good one that takes a 1,000-mile route around Lake Michigan for some reason.
Too real.
How dedicated are racing gamers today? The 2019 Forza Motorsport runner-up made 25 unique, meticulous liveries for all of his team’s cars.
The hilarious auto satire site Sniff Petrol is back with another blog from automotive influencer Olly Higuys. It includes the phrase “Might need to change my DOSE.”
I’ll just leave this here:
Video Reel
Have you ever seen a slammed E30 Alpina with a full-length transparent glass roof and windshield? Now you have.
Dammit. I’m this guy. I’m sorry honey.
Any vehicle is an off-road vehicle if you believe in yourself. Case in point, this ’88 Toyota Tercel.
Former IndyCar racer Paul Tracy left his waiter a $1,500 tip at Denny’s.
The struggle of owning a ‘90s-era JDM car:
Race Results
Hailie Deegan, the 18-year old racing prodigy who had been in line to take a seat with Toyota in NASCAR one day, has instead been signed by Ford Motorsport. This is huge news. Deegan is regarded as a surefire future winner and a lot of eyes will be on her in the semi-pro ARCA Menards Series next season.
It needs to be mentioned: NASCAR “fans” did not take it well.
Fox Sports will broadcast the entire Bathurst 12 Hours in Australia live and without commercials. The Supercars series is coming off a fantastic season and to me this speaks to the growing popularity of a really fun sport.
I could stare at this overview of the next-gen Formula E car for hours.
R.I.P. Bill Simpson, a hugely important figure in motorsports and especially safety. His equipment saved countless lives. Now that’s a legacy to leave behind.
Ask A Millennial! Tony Scott, 24
Photo by @limp_bizkit155
There are a lot of great, whip-smart, hilarious car people on Twitter. But in my opinion Tony Scott is the best follow at the moment. Their feed is a collection of car culture critiques, beautiful photography and celebrations of the weird and wonderful. They also off-handedly coined a phrase that, in my opinion, defines a generation. I’m thrilled to chat with Tony today. Here is an edited version of our conversation:
I'm excited for EVs to become mainstream. It's going to be a branch of modding that will bring in new crowds of people. I also love the Radwood era resurgence and the fact that people can appreciate the mundane. I have a huge soft spot for "boring" cars that were commercial misses.
Online and real-life car culture collide in both good and bad ways. I’ve met tons of enthusiasts online that I've had the chance to meet in person, and I have genuinely enjoyed the chance to meet other niche enthusiasts that I probably otherwise wouldn't have crossed paths with. I also dislike how intensely trends pick up. A lot of enthusiasts feel that their take on modification and car culture is the correct one, and they build echo chambers to reinforce that. There's an awful lot of beef between track and stance people, etc. The internet has made it worse as it has for all contexts of life where there are disagreements.
My perfect day is cruising rural roads without traffic with a few friends, just enjoying the scenery and some twisties. I've always been a Japanese scene enthusiast so the more it feels like I'm attacking a touge in the ‘90s, the more at home I feel. I love the ‘80s era of cars so if I'm in some shitty old Japanese coupe with analog gauges and a manual, I'm probably in heaven. I own a MK3 Supra and a third-gen Prelude, and I would be happy with either of those, even though the driving experiences in them are almost diametrically opposed.
[Note: The following portion is not edited. I felt it was important to give Tony space to address this.]
This is very context dependent for me. I have a great group of friends I've met through cars both irl and online, and my gender identity/orientation is just a fact about me that they know, on the same level of "I'm tall" or "I like 7MGTEs." That said, if I leave that group of friends, I don't feel welcome frequently. Every time I roll up to the local classic car meet they are judging me and my partner before we get out of our cars, as we're both pretty visibly queer. We are generally not welcome. We're not unsafe being there but there's also just a general lack of inclusion for anyone who isn't Like Them: a cishet, usually white, guy. This isn't a special experience to me, either, because a lot of my cis women and POC friends end up feeling the same way frequently at these older skewed events. I think it's less a "car culture" experience and more of a general culture one - we have a huge split between generational mindsets of acceptance. and it's especially apparent in any traditionally male-dominated hobby, like cars. This obviously isn't universal and I have a lot of awesome OG older car friends who I respect immensely (and some younger people I know that are not polite about us at all), but I think the overall trends are undeniable. I think in general things are improving but maybe not at the rate that would encourage a queer person interested in cars to actually come out for a meet, and I can't blame anyone for that, and that's part of what I want to try and help change by being a visibly queer car enthusiast. I want to show people that there is a place for anyone in the car scene, regardless of identity.
Auction Block
A very rare ’98 Bentley Turbo sold on Bring A Trailer for a touch over $21k. I feel like these are going to explode in desirability soon.
And Finally…
What’s the best car prank you’ve ever seen? Baseball legend Joe Carter pretending to auction off his teammate’s customized Explorer live during a game is my new top choice.
Drive hard and be safe.
Want your event included? Shoot me a note with subject line “Race Day” at ryan@carrarabooks.com.
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