Popular Hot Rodding is one of those names that most of us have seen on the magazine racks since we were just knee high to a highboy. The problem with some of those old rodding mags is that they didn’t keep up with the times and went the way of the dinosaur. Rodding in it’s earliest form was all about innovation and staying ahead of the next guy, so it makes sense that the Primedia folks are working hard to keep the PHR site ahead of the curve.
The newest feature on Popularhotrodding.com is a beta version of a Readers Ride section. This isn’t just any old reader’s ride section though. It’s a full featured social networking type of page where readers can create a full page of text and images of their baby for free. Readers can interact with one another through comments, blogs, forums and by ranking other readers rides. The front page of the RR section is a cool collection of images of Reader’s Rides. When a reader hovers their mouse over an image, a small bubble appears with basic details about the car and previous rankings.
Even though it’s in beta, there are some pretty cool rides already, even a 1970 AMX that is a daily driver in Holland. Be sure to visit and set up your own free page!
This has been a paid review.
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Back in the early 70’s one of my best kept automotive secrets being able to call Peterson Publications in Los Angeles and ask them just about anything I wanted to know. If for example I wanted to know something about a Ford performance product or how it worked they would simply transfer me to the editor of one of their Ford performance magazines and I would speak to that particular editor and so on with other manufactures. After hearing what I needed they would usually remember an article in a particular edition and they would then send it to me via snail mail. Keep in mind back then there was no Internet so for them to go thru all this for me was amazing and better yet they gave the impression that they loved doing it.
One of the people I would sometimes speak to was none other than Robert Petersen himself, the owner of Peterson Publications. He always treated me as if he had known me for 50 years. Long before he sold to Primedia Inc. he had a lot of popular car magazines, including Hot Rod Motor Trend, Car Craft, Rod & Custom, Motorcyclist, Circle Track, Off Road, and many more as well as Guns & Ammo, Photographic, Snowboarder and Skin Diving, and even magazines for teenagers, including Sassy, Teen and Tiger Beat. Before he died Margie his wife and him built the famous Petersen Automotive Museum where the public can enjoy not only large car collections but still can access loads of automotive information.
Another very good friend of mine is C. Van Tune who you may remember from his very successful TV series ESPN’S “DRIVE” and author of “50 Years of Motor Trend” and he worked for Robert Peterson as editor-in-chief of Motor Trend. He used to travel extensively with Bob and Margie around the world on various auto related projects. The day Robert Peterson died Van wrote me telling me what a loss to the auto world it was but also how much he was going to miss what he considered one of the finest automotive gentleman the world had ever known. He also mentioned that not just some but all successful automotive magazines (including Primedia) followed the example Robert Peterson set forth.
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