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Thread: Where are all the Marauders in Popular Hot Rodding Magazine?

  1. #1
    Jim M Guest

    Question Where are all the Marauders in Popular Hot Rodding Magazine?

    I know magazines take heat on a regular basis for their lack of content for non-Chevys, but I'd like to share with you guys the numbers for Hometown Hot Rodding letters I received for Popular Hot Rodding magazine. Johnny Hunkins is the new editor there and has asked me to write that column for him, as I did at GM High-Tech Performance magazine. Keep in mind, the numbers I am listing are of letters fowarded to me by Johnny. These were letters he received from readers who wanted to see their car in the magazine:

    38 Chevys
    3 Fords
    2 Willys
    2 Mopars
    1 Pontiac
    0 Mercurys

    I have to write up four cars for every issue and my ultimate goal is to make three of them non-Chevys. Obviously, I wouldn't be able to do that for more than two months before I ran out of cars, leaving the remaining 36 Chevys to run in the magazine.

    Reader's Rides sections of magazines are one of several ways magazine editors gauge interest for certain makes, which helps them choose future editorial material (features, tech, etc..) We think there are a lot of Mercury readers out there, but based on Hometown Hot Rodding letters, we know there are a lot of Chevy readers. I would like to invite all of you to mail a nice picture (no instant photos or low-res digital images) of your car to Popular Hot Rodding's Hometown Hot Rodding section. The address is:

    Popular Hot Rodding
    Attn: Hometown Hot Rodding
    720 Hundley Way
    Placentia, California 92870
    (e-mail submissions cannot be accepted)

    Please be sure to include some basic information on your car, as well as a good way to contact you (preferably a phone number) in case I have any questions. Also, if you are a member of this site, be sure to include that in your letter and I'll mention it in your write-up.

    I covered the Hot Rod Power Tour this year for several different magazines and tried to include Marauders in the story for Muscle Mustangs & Fast Fords magazine, but the pickings were very slim. I will also be covering the Bristol Bash later this year and would love to see some Marauders out there. Last year blue ovals were virtually nowhere to be found. You guys do drive your cars, don't you?

    Jim McIlvaine
    Contributing Editor, Popular Hot Rodding Magazine

  2. #2
    Come to Marauderville (Ennis) Jim...you can do a GREAT article on the "Supercharger Wars" for the Mercury Marauder. All of the current aftermarket suppliers will have cars there.

  3. #3
    Sweet! Thanks Jim! I personally don't think my stock 300A is quite worthy, but,... off the the top of my head ... Logan, Zack, SergtMac, Dennis R., among many others should be featured!

    Ya know, It has bummed me out that I haven't seen anything in any proforence mags about our MMs. even in Ford mags! WTF?

  4. #4
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    My Kenny Brown 1x was featured in the March, '03 issue of AutoWeek, and the April, '03 issue of Car and Driver. Maybe you can find copies in their archives?
    Last edited by SergntMac; 09-12-2003 at 02:42 AM.

  5. #5
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    Jim,

    I've been working to get Panther Platform magazine exposure for over two years now and I take your invite very seriously I wish there were more of them around!

    So far I've been able to pitch the idea to Jim C. from MM&FF in 2002 about Jeff's 12s Vortech Crown Vic he was invited to Fords at Englishtown and featured in that shootout issue. A few days ago crownvic.net invited me to the Luxobarge shootout and I in turn invited two more Marauder guys who along with my car will be featured in the January issue due out in November. So yea I'm very interested in taking advantage of your invite because its the coolest thing in the world to have y our car featured in the magazine for the world to see.


    Thank you for coming to this board and I'm sure you'll write about more Mercurys and Fords in the near future.

    --Russ

  6. #6
    Jim M Guest
    Petrograde, looking at that list I posted, a stock Marauder automatically qualifies because it's not a bowtie. I would estimate 25% of the cars on that list are stock or close to it and that's what Hometown Hot Roddin' is all about.

    Like I said before, if the magazines don't see your cars at the big events, they may not think there is much interest in them. Todd, my travel calendar is pretty much set for this year and that probably holds true for most other magazines. I will be in Dallas on another assignment in November though. Your event does sound interesting though and I'm sure a letter sent well in advance to Jim Campisano at MM&FF could make a difference.

  7. #7
    Originally posted by Jim M
    I will be in Dallas on another assignment in November though.
    We've got a lot of Marauders in the DFW area, perhaps a photo op for Popular Hot Rodding?

  8. #8
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    Our little event in Dallas is part of Fun Ford Weekend.
    If MM&FF doesn't give us any ink,then that says it all.


    I would say if the home office is only sending you 46 cars to write on then those are the only cars the editor deems worthy.Or nobody reads PHR anymore.

    The main stream mags have all been the same for years.
    Popular Hot Chevy.
    ChevyCraft
    Hot Chevy
    nothing changes.
    The niche mags are our only hope,but when SuperFord merged with 5.0 Mustangs most of our hope for good ink died.
    If the highly modded cars from this list don't get in MMFF then we won't ever get any ink in the mags.MHO

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    Smile

    Originally posted by cyclone03

    The niche mags are our only hope,but when SuperFord merged with 5.0 Mustangs most of our hope for good ink died.
    If the highly modded cars from this list don't get in MMFF then we won't ever get any ink in the mags.MHO
    Hey, you have to pick up the January 2004 Issue of MM&FF!!!

    Its due to come out in November and it WILL have at least 2 MARAUDERS in there! Both of them are on this board and both are great guys!

    Now I don't know about 5.0 Mustang and Super Fords but I do know they're headquartered in Florida and I also know we have a great deal of Florida Marauders including some of the faster ones tuned by Dennis. So its all up to you guys to get the things rolling.

    --Russ

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    Pick it up!I comes in my Mail box!

  11. #11
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    Even better!

    I cannot wait to read about my and my friend's cars in it:


    the OREO team, haha

    here's a preview: http://www.jerseyvics.com/pantherclub/mm&ff-etown/

    --Russ

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    On the Sunday of FFW Ennis, once things die down a bit, I plan on taking a number of cars aside and doing some real photography of them for the owners and magazine submissions.

    Jim M, if you find yourself in Dallas as expected, send me an email at logan@mercurymarauder.net and I can make arrangements for a number of cool Marauders to be on hand, mine included as well.

  13. #13
    count me in!

  14. #14
    Jim M Guest
    I know I won't have time on my next trip to Dallas, as I'm doing work for another magazine on some very tight time constraints and I'm doing it on my son's birthday, so I need to get home ASAP. The Power Tour will start up in DFW next year and if it ends in the right part of the country, I'll probably end up covering it for two or three magazines and I'll be down there again.

    cyclone03, you can throw out all the conspiracy theories you want, but the fact is, Chevys are the most popular vehicles out there for hobbyists and the editorial content of magazines reflects that. I can't speak for the other magazines, but if PHR was content with the status quo, I wouldn't even bother soliciting mail for Hometown Hot Roddin' on non-Chevy sites and based on the few non-Chevy letters I received, I can assure you they would not be the cream of the crop if Hunkins was being selective. I had to go out of my way on the Power Tour to find variety and I really had to go out of my way at Bristol last year to find Fords. I spent all afternoon at the autocross there, waiting for one Ford to pass by my lens.

    If anything, the magazine editors are getting tired of seeing so much redundancy. Ask the Pro-Touring Camaro guys what they think of Freiburger's comments in the current issue of Hot Rod about too many people building up Camaros. Read Johnny Hunkins editorial in the current issue of PHR. Ask anyone who went on the Power Tour if they didn't feel like they were in the middle of a Chevy lovefest. The editors can't control who goes to these events and the sales numbers speak for themselves, which is why certain cars end up on the cover more than others. You can grumble about the content or you can do something to change it.

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    Ain't that the truth...

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