Marlan Davis :(

https://www.motortrend.com/features/remembering-marlan-davis/

berk cancer

 Bummer.

I'm pretty sure that guy knew everything.

I saw that. It really sucks. With Freiburger having left the Hot Rod staff, and Marlan now deceased, along with Elana Scherr being shuffled off somewhere, I think I'm going to let my Hot Rod Mag subscription lapse after being subscribed for 15 years.

In reply to NickD :

It's funny,  I let my hot rod sub lapse when Freiburger came on board.  Boy did I misjudge that one.  

Marlan had been at HRM forever,  I don't think anyone else had a longer time there.

Sad to hear that. Automotive media has lost a legend.

Marlan may not have known everything about cars, but if he didn't know something, he knew exactly who to ask.

In reply to MadScientistMatt :

Or he made a way to test it to figure it out himself.

NickD said:

I saw that. It really sucks. With Freiburger having left the Hot Rod staff, and Marlan now deceased, along with Elana Scherr being shuffled off somewhere, I think I'm going to let my Hot Rod Mag subscription lapse after being subscribed for 15 years.

I quit when they ran the same article two months in a row and had a cover blurb/car that wasn't in the issue. I figured with QC like that the content was useless.

RIP Marlan

Javelin said:

NickD said:

I saw that. It really sucks. With Freiburger having left the Hot Rod staff, and Marlan now deceased, along with Elana Scherr being shuffled off somewhere, I think I'm going to let my Hot Rod Mag subscription lapse after being subscribed for 15 years.

I quit when they ran the same article two months in a row and had a cover blurb/car that wasn't in the issue. I figured with QC like that the content was useless.

RIP Marlan

Yeah, when that Evan Perkins guy took over, it really went downhill. Now John McGann, formerly of Car Craft, is in charge, and the staff is a lot of ex-PHR, ex-Car Craft people, and while I like John McGann and Johnny Hunkins and some of the others, it just seems like there is a lack of depth to pretty much any of the stories. And every month the tech articles are just another LS test of some flavor or an EFI install. I get that that those two things are very popular right now, but when I read an article on "LS3 Head Tests with an EFI intake" and go "Didn't they just test this?" and look through last month's and, oh, last month they tested LS3 heads with a carb intake, and the month before was LS7 head testing, and the month before was cathedral head testing, they all kind of blur together and I stop paying attention.

Been a subscriber since high school, 1979. Other mags, too - R&T, C&D, Car Craft, PHR, MT, 4 Wheeler, etc, off and on. Used to be good, interesting, useful, informative content in them - a BIG chunk of my automotive/mechanical/electrical knowledge came from reading, and re-reading, tech articles from authors like Marlan- and amusing stories, people you got to know and enjoy. Now, some are gone, most are sad, hollow shells of what they were, thinner every issue (but with more ads, and higher prices). I used to really look forward to getting new issues in the mailbox and trying not to read through the whole thing right away.

Now, it's just...not really worth it.   

The content of HRM has declined, but they do still have some things of interest.  What bugs me is their graphic design...way too many of the photos are nearly microscopic in size, and they're infatuated with putting small white text on a black background which is next to impossible to read.

Something else of note - a month or two ago was Dave Freiburger's last appearance in the magazine.  The last couple years he had only been contributing a last page editorial, but now he's divorced altogether from the print magazine and is only involved in the video media for the Motor Trend company (Roadkill, etc.)