Hot Rod declares bankruptcy today

Publisher of Motor Trend, Hot Rod, Automobile Files for Bankruptcy Source Interlink Cos., the publisher of Motor Trend, Hot Rod and Street Chopper magazines controlled by billionaire Ron Burkle’s Yucaipa Cos., sought bankruptcy protection as it moves to become a private company.

The company, which also distributes newspapers and other publications, listed debt of $1.9 billion and assets of $2.4 billion as of April 24 in Chapter 11 documents filed yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware.

Source Interlink publishes 75 magazines, mostly about cars and motorcycles, putting it at the nexus of two struggling industries. Iconic

The only Source Interlink publishcation I regularly read was the old kitcar mag - which they purchased from Primedia about a year ago and then promptly killed off (kit car builder is the only one left). I stopped reading hot rod when I was in my 20s and stopped reading Motor trend in my 30s.

So how does that work that they can have more assets than debt and they still can file for bankruptcy?

Hot Rod and Car Craft have been pretty good the last few years, since Dave Freiburger revamped them. He left the company for a while bust just went back to HR, his articles started appearing in the latest issue.

wait... they owned both Motor Trend and Automobile??? Its the same friggen magazine!

not quite. they are alot more different than Car and Driver and Road & Track...those are EXACTLY the same...

Margie, I see this as opportunity. Pick up the last issue of these mags, start cold calling the advertisers who aren't already onboard. You know, "Do you want to advertise in a bankrupt mag that may or may not have the next issue or do you want GRM, where we can run a business?"

Dr. Hess wrote: Margie, I see this as opportunity. Pick up the last issue of these mags, start cold calling the advertisers who aren't already onboard. You know, "Do you want to advertise in a bankrupt mag that may or may not have the next issue or do you want GRM, where we can run a business?"

Yeah, just what we need are all those stupid ads for photo radar blockers and teddy bears and pajamas and pheromones.

I can haz teddy bears wearing pajamas soaked with pheromones and holding a radar blocker?

If GRM bought Car Craft I would write drag racing articles for free...

Don't forget California Car Covers and Dusters

And Crutchfield,Weather Tech floor mats and sheepskin seat covers.

berkeley. Hot rod's the only car magazine besides GRM that I actually like

I doubt Hot Rod is going anywhere. Isn't it one of the most widely distributed magazines in the world? I thought i heard that once...

I agree that Dave Furburger writes a mean article.

I go to my local library and stack up on all the car magazines and read all of them in an evening.

Hot Rod bashed the Datsun 510 about a year ago so that made me mad.

Whenever I see a copy of HotRod, I am amazed that it is(was?) still being printed. I keep thinking I'll buy a copy and see what they are up to, but it's been so long since I've owned ANYTHING with a V8...what's the point?

M/T and Automobile is/are owned by the same folks? That goes a long way to lowering my respect for Automobile. Are C&D and R&T STILL owned by the sameublisher? At one point (in the '90s) they were bought by the same publisher...but I thought they separated again, years ago?

The times they are a changin' or more rightly have changed. All the old iconic names going away. Sad really.

I like street Rodder better.. but yes, all the mags that Primedia raped are now dying

Nobody reads - the article notes the bankruptcy is part of the plan of the billionaire owner to take the company private. The mags aren't going anywhere.

maroon92 wrote: not quite. they are alot more different than Car and Driver and Road & Track...those are EXACTLY the same...

R&T has Peter Egan.

TR3only wrote: Whenever I see a copy of HotRod, I am amazed that it is(was?) still being printed. I keep thinking I'll buy a copy and see what they are up to, but it's been so long since I've owned ANYTHING with a V8...what's the point? M/T and Automobile is/are owned by the same folks? That goes a long way to lowering my respect for Automobile. Are C&D and R&T STILL owned by the sameublisher? At one point (in the '90s) they were bought by the same publisher...but I thought they separated again, years ago?

Huh, haven't read Hot Rod lately have you. Last issue had a I6 Turbo Supra engine in a 1st Gen Camaro and a 32 Ford with a Turbo Volvo motor (5 Cyl?). Not to mention the Maxton article which featured the winning car which was an Evo5.

Car Craft is cool too. Their project cars are an AMC 360 powered Rambler with a tunnel ram, a 6-cyl 67 Mustang Coupe with a ton of suspension mods built Shelby Trans Am racer style, and they do sweet junkyard buildups of unloved engines.

C&D and R&T are absolutely berkeleying identical. Same cover shots, same articles, same cars, same writers. I swear even the page layouts / ad placements are identical.

Hot Rod is the only other car magazine I get aside from Mopar Action and GRM. I've really enjoyed their balance over the last few years between drag racing and street performers and classic rods. Neat stuff. They've been pestering me for months to renew my subscription.

Maybe one more year instead of three, just in case...

mad_machine wrote: ...all the mags that Primedia raped...

exactly.

My two cents:

Primedia annihilated Petersen Publishing and McMullen Publisihing.

I'm one of those "strange" car guys that likes a little bit ofeverything.

I used to subscribe to: GRM, Excellence, Hot VWs, Hot Rod, Car Craft, Road & Track, Sports Car Market, 4 Wheel & Off Road, European Car and Automobile.

Now I subscribe to GRM, Excellence, Hot VWs, Classic Motorsports, Hemmings Sports & Exotic and SCM

My favorites were/are:

GRM - always

Excellence - always

European Car - they used to be a LOT more grassroots. I read them from 1992 until about 1999 and in that time you could count on, in pretty much every issue, a BMW (usually a 2002 or an E30), a Porsche (911 or a 924) and a VW (mostly A1 and A2 cars) and some really good technical articles. Primedia then turned them into a waste of paper by redirecting them into a magazine about six-figure "tuner exotics." Way to alienate your audience.

Road and Track - Just because they have Peter Egan, I'll never let the subscription lapse...until he retires or joins Classic Motorsports!

Also Rans:

Hot VWs - I have an air cooled VW. The magazine actually sucks but I buy it (and subscribe) because I don't want to see them go out of business.

Automobile: David E Davis Jr. Without him, what good is Automobile?

Hot Rod/Car Craft - only when Freiburger was in charge. I have no interest in 67 Mustangs built on $1.2M budgets...that don't even run properly!

4Wheel and Off Road - I had a Jeep and they had Freiburger

I subscribed to European car back with they were VW greats, then turned into VW & Porsche, then VW&Porsche etc.. and finally European cars. In all ways their changes mimiced my tastes in cars.. from air cooled vws to porsches to other euros...

I really missed seeing cars that other people actually built featured.

My old A2 G60 GTI was one of the last "regular" people cars that European Car featured. After that, unless you were a tuner that advertised in them, no chance of getting featured.

BTW, my car was featured Jan 1997, so it's been a long time...

Yeah, I bought European Car off the rack for almost a decade, missing only the occasional issue. Back then, it was like Sport Compact Car (before there was a SCC). and it was great to read the articles about obscure Fiat or VW derivatives....like the small Morettis. And yeah, another case of "let's improve something that's already close to perfect". After the switch to exclusively high dollar cars I stopped even looking at the copy I would find stuck on a newsrack.