Received this along with the latest issue, January 2025. The February 2025 will be their last issue. If you're a subscriber, they'll give you a subscription to Hemmings Motor News equal to the remaining length of your HCC subscription, or, if you're like me and already have an HMN subscription, they'll add to it. You can also just get a refund of the unused portion of your subscription.

Of course, that's only until HMN itself ceases publication. Not that that's happening anytime soon, but it would certainly be an earthquake for the old car hobby if it ever did.

I've been a Hemmings Classic Car subscriber for at least a decade, and I've always enjoyed, but I have noticed that it seems to have gotten a bit thinner over the last year or so.

This is happening to more and more print magazines as the cost of printing and postage have gone up while subscriptions have gone down. Many magazines convert to an online-only/pdf version, but HCC is apparently disappearing completely. The letter says it is being "consolidated" into HMN, but what does that mean? If some of the columns and columnists move over to HMN and that magazine expands its article section a bit, I could see it being called "consolidating." But my guess is that HMN will continue as it is with the columnists and typical number of stories it already has. The thing is already the size of a small city phone book back when there were phone books, I predict they won't expand it at all.

 

I am sad to see this. I thought that Hemmings mags and Old Car Weekly were doing well and filling a niches that the others had vacated... but I guess not. I have been getting all 3 of the Hemmings and Old Car Weekly. I still can't imagine taking my laptop to bed with me or the ******* as I still do with print mags. Too bad really....

 

Bummer.

The Amateur Radio Relay League did the same thing with their print periodicals On the Air and QST. It's too bad that print media is going to way of the Dodo bird.

 

Old Cars is still there. It's just not a weekly anymore. I subscribe to that as well.

 

I can't find Hemmings Muscle Machines on their website, either. I'd guess they are all "consolidating" into one.
I haven't seen a HMN in years, but their articles seemed to be the 'Reader's Digest of Hemmings': The feature vehicles had already run in other Hemmings publications and the articles were edited down for HMN.

 

X2, Well said.

 

I may be part of the problem. I used to buy most of their issues off the newsstand, never subscribed. Since their coverage started to skew largely restomod (which was probably 10-12 years ago) I've probably purchased a whopping total of four issues. I just can't stand to see the beloved cars of my youth butchered by some builder whose only agenda is to make a buck.

I'm sure there are others who feel the same way, but I'm also sure our numbers are not growing.

For better or worse, the world is moving on. We call it evolution.

 

I was a subscriber to Hemmings Classic cars, but when my subscription ran out last spring, and I never received any renewal notices, I assumed that they were done. I still get HMN, a bit thinner, but I still enjoy it.

 

I can search back issues and renew my subscription on the website. But that doesn't mean they haven't decided to stop publication.

This might not apply to Hemmings, but my experience with the end of car mags in the MT family is that they take my renewal money up to the day they announce their closure. Then they convert me to a digital subscription about some unrelated type of vehicle.

When the editor of Hot Rod said they couldn't afford to send him to Speed Week at Bonneville, I cancelled before they played their tune for me again.

 

I've been a subscriber to Muscle Machines and have every copy from its inception. Guess I'll have to start re-reading them. It was THE best car mag out there. I too bought subscriptions for gifts over the years. I will miss it.

I wasn't happy they were featuring more and more restomods in the last year or two.

Well, I guess I'll just have to go to MCACN in a couple weeks and get the real stuff! I just watched a yootoob vid on this car.

 

Printed magazines are dying off. My wife worked for a major printer for 37 years here in new york , and they have just recently shuttered the doors.Its a shame! peoples livelihood was in that business.we will see more and more of it im afraid

 

Weird..when I last talked to my buddy who works for Hemmings, he didn't say anything about it (though he did say the accounting dept made an error and gave them an extra zero in their budget that wasn't found until just before we talked) but then again he is an online guy. Not sure how much he did makes (made it to?) print.

 

I'd also speculate the clock is ticking on their presence in Bennington, VT. I would not be surprised if they pulled up stakes and headed south. That would be sad, that town is hurting as it is. If Hemmings were to go, Bennington would be just another route 7 drive through town.

 

I had no idea they were out of Bennington. My daughter started school there this year and I had never even heard of Bennington before.

 

I had the exact same experience. My subscription ran out a few months ago, and I didn't recall receiving any renewal notices. I went ahead and renewed it at their website a couple of months ago. There was no mention that I saw that HCC's days were numbered, but the fact that they weren't sending out renewal notices says that they have known for some time that HCC was about to end. Perhaps, while they weren't sending out renewal notices for expired subscriptions, they were quietly not bothering to let people who were starting new subscriptions know of the impending demise of HCC, figuring they could transfer these people over to HMN and thereby get a few more subscribers to that publication. Seems a bit nefarious to me.

 

You'd be surprised what depths people will sink to in order to keep a business alive. Remember John DeLorean?

 

Everything is a scam these days. When you can't trust Hemmings, who can you trust? Maybe it's just the current attitude. You know, grab as much money unethically or otherwise and run. Hopefully those days are over. For at least the next four years.

I will miss the magazine though.

 

What is the main type of business in Bennington? Art galleries and boutiques?

 

Hemmings is their main source of jobs and income. My guess.

 

It's amazing how many of these mags feed off each other and are owned by the same conglomerate. I know the OCA's editor is a pro, and she edits multiple magazines.

I edit Thunder & Lightning, the H/OCA's mag, and the reason I mention it is we send in copies to Old Cars Weekly, who has an award they call the Golden Quill that they give out to pretty much any decent car mag each year that sends them issues. This, however, allows them to reprint/redo any article or topic they see in any little car club magazine for use in their bigger, national magazine. The H/OCA had the first article on the '70 H/O prototype last year, and the Old Cars Weekly editor hit me up for pictures and contact info for the owner and then ran their own article a few months later.

The money thing is hitting everyone. We're changing postage methods and distribution methods even on my little level.

 

Probably a lot longer than that.

 

Ever since the highway 279 bypass was built, alot of traffic through downtown Bennington just dried up. The town stopped having their annual September car show years ago which brought a ton of exposure to the town. THE place to be during that weekend was to book the Bennington Motor Inn (located directly across the street from the Hemmings gas station & headquarters) so you could watch all the old cars go back and forth from the hotel decks & balconies. Once the Hemmings family sold the biz, the writing was on the wall. Gone was the show, the annual picnic at their farm, etc. Heck, the Hemmings store and museum is now closed, both did not survive COVID, they never reopened.

If Hemmings does move out of the Bennington location, that is truly a major loss for the town and the area as they are one of the largest employers. It's very sad and also painful to see all this happening. My wife and I spent a great deal of happy years up there in our travels to that area in Vermont when we lived in northern CT, and I still sorely miss them. In fact, take a look at my Avatar. Behind the black/silver 79 Cutlass you can see the 2 acres Joan & I bought in 2013 and that's a (great view of) Mount Anthony in the background. We bought the land with the idea we would someday build a home & move there, or at least have a 2nd home there. But that was a long time ago in Bennington's heyday. So much has adversely changed that we sold that land, and we've since moved south instead.

 

Just read this and was amazed. Like the others have said, I received no notice. My subscription to Muscle Machines runs to Aug of 2025. I guess I will request a refund for the issues I won't get after March 2025.

 

I will request that, too. I hope your implicit assumption is correct.

 

LMAO! Good luck w/ a refund! These days you're lucky if they don't charge you extra and then terminate all correspondence. Everything is a scam.

I am still getting emails containing the header for Musclecars. I got one today in fact. No mention of ceasing to publish. I wonder why?

 

First post has a letter from Hemmings and a number or email address to request a refund, doesn’t look like a scam to me.

 

I hope the OP tells us whether or not they receive a refund. THAT is the issue after all. Not what I think.

 

I received my issue a couple of days ago with the notice in it. I subscribe to Hemmings Motor News so I guess they will just extend my subscription. I really like this magazine and hate to see it go. The first thing I always read is Jim Richardson's column inside the back cover. He gives some interesting perspectives.

 

I'm not requesting a refund. I'm letting them extend my already-existing HMN subscription, which is one of the options. But I have no doubt they would have refunded my money instead if I had asked. Hemmings is not exactly a fly-by-night operation.

 

X2

 

I have been a subscriber since the inception of Muscle Machines. I know Hemmings is NOT a fly-by-night op. I have the Dec issue in hand. I received zero info as to their intentions. I hope they publish forever.

 

Over the last few years they've made a big push into video content, and based on what I've seen so far, my days as a Hemings customer are coming to an end.

 

How so?

 

For several years I've enjoyed Hemmings magazines and have subscribed to Muscle Car and Classic Car, and bought a few calendars. With shows like 'F#%K Your LS' their video content now seems aimed a younger age group. That's not the type of content that I'd waste my time with, so I'm moving on.

 

Don't know ... I'm kind of all over "F#%K your LS" as I'm not a big restomod guy. I guess the sentiment could be expressed with a little more diplomacy, though.

 

It seems civility has been lost on the newest generation. That's your fault btw for not teaching them right.

 

We've only had dogs and they've been mostly very well-behaved.

 

What you don't know won't hurt you. woof

 

Speaking of the devil, guess what was in my mailbox today. The February 2025 issue. We're only one-third of the way through December. Apparently they wanted to get it out and get things over with sooner rather than later.

I've only had a chance to flip through it quickly, but I don't see any mention by any of the columnists or anything that it's the final issue. Heck, they're still inviting us to submit letters to the editor.

Should I set this issue aside, preserving it carefully for posterity?

 

Why don't you do what I do and stack 'em up on top of the toilet tank?