68Tom

Did anyone pick up the November issue of Muscle Car Review? There's some gooooood Oldsmobile in there.....

jslabotsky

You make it sound kind of dirty.

68Tom

haha. oh it is...!
http://ads.simautomotive.com/PERFORM...enMediaKit.pdf

wolfman98

a buddy of mine has a subscription and gets all those kind of magazines so i think i will be looking for that one next time i stop in.

citcapp

better then a girly mag anytime!

wolfman98

how about a new magazine with muscle cars and girls.

Diego

Yet both are read in the bathroom!

cutlassgal

Too Much Information, guys!!!! EEEEEEWWWWWWW!!!

wolfman98

So I often wonder about how many people actually have reading material in their bathrooms? It may be strange but I have none is that strange for a 50+ guy or what. How about you sandy , comon fess up

cutlassgal

We keep "Reader's Digest" in the one bathroom, and sometimes Larry puts one of those Newsweek magazines in there, and nothing to read in the other bathroom.
However, I am thinking of starting a Photographic Real Men and their 4-4-2 John Deere, Massey Ferguson Tractors magazine!!
"She thinks my tractors sexy.... it really turns her on.... LOL!!!!! Any one want to pose??? LOL!

agtw31

MR has already dissed the BOP crowd,when they refused to allow any in that big block shootout.instead they have 2 clones (fake COPO and a fake 6 pack Challenger)and a real Mach 1.
i think they were scared a Buick would come in and clean up.

this mag is going the way of Hot Rod and Car Craft,strictly Ford Chevy and Mopar.

they basically admitted it in an editorial a few issues before.they said Ford,Chevy,and Mopar were rememberred as more "performance oriented" makes,than BOP.

aliensatemybuick

It seems kinda silly to migrate to a brand like Olds or Buick and then lament that others don't see such cars as performance oriented. There used to be a magazine devoted to Buick Olds and Pontiac specifically; it doesn't exist any more (though there is a Pontiac mag still around). Can't say I can argue then with the business model of current mags devoted to performance cars, and I applaud HMM for featuring as many of the more "obscure" cars that they have so far, despite the fact that many of their readers couldn't care less.

wmachine

How true. And what kind of flack do we see coming to Hemmings now for making an *Oldsmobile* (heaven forbid) the "MuscleCar of the Year" for the second year in a row?

68Tom

Did the Olds win??

wmachine

Yes, Rich Brigidi's '66 L69 convertible from the Sept '09 issue. Will be in the Dec 2009 issue.

cutlassgal

Good for the Olds!

aliensatemybuick

That great to hear about Rich, he's a real nice guy and he AND his car deserve it. I thin he's selling some headers form his car (going back to stock manifolds) on craigslsiot oand EBay right now (or was just a few days back).

68Tom

Ah, that's awesome. Glad to hear that. I think that just goes to show what kind of quality cars Oldsmobiles are. People can see it and vote accodringly.

Irrespective of whether I owned an Olds or not, I would have voted for Rich's car. It was a great story behind it, and a great car as well. Congrats Rich!!

TK-65

Everyone thinks HMM is the best muscle car mag out there. They say they feature the "odd ball" cars. Well, in the 7 years they have been in print Ive yet to see a 65, 67, 68 or 69 442 featured. No resto profiles, no buyers guides, NOTHING. Thats not covering all cars in the hobby.

Buyers guides for the 70 Rallye and 70-72 W30s. THATS IT.

J-(Chicago)

Saves on toilet paper.

Diego

@TK . . . and their "Buyer's Guide" usually is filled with errors.

wmachine

Based on what I've seen with *all* of the car mags, there are some errors is just about all of what they publish. I don't know, maybe they're more accurate with the mainstream cars.

I think it helps to look objectivity at what they do: They report and publish. They don't claim to be experts even though there seems to be expectations in that regard. Most of what they publish about particular cars are just what the owners tell them to begin with.
Thus, in all fairness, how can we *expect* accuracy? In the Okls community, we are *still* trying to build accurate databases for our cars. So I don't understand where anyone can expect multi-make mags to be dead accurate.

Diego

Speaking of the Devil . . .

http://www.examiner.com/x-16064-NY-A...t-get-it-wrong

TK-65

I can forgive that. They are not experts on every car. However, not doing a buyers guide on a 65, 67, 68, or 69 442 is just wrong. Olds sold 25,000 65 442s. The only model to sell more is the 68-69, more models HMM hasnt featured.

HMM did a buyers guide on the 68 Yenko, like thats a car anyone car find let alone buy.

Diego

When an article is characterized as a "Buyer's Guide" I think they should be vigilant in getting the facts right. If they can't, what use is a guide that gets it wrong for the masses?

agtw31

funny you mentioned that,if you are talking about Musclecar Review,i consider Hemmings an outright joke when it comes to info.

as a matter of fact,this MR prides itself on what they know.in their editorials,they sing the praises of the people on their own staff,and their huge experience with all musclecars

as for what they publish about cars,they don't just go by what the owners of the cars tell them,they actually perpetuate their lies,without confirming one iota of the owner's story..
that as far as i am concerned,is irresponsible journalism

one car in particular they featured recently ive known about for over 25 years,and it's not even close to what the owner said it originally was.it is such a blatant clone,yet they failed to even verify legitimacy by just leaning over a fender and looking at a data tag,unless he bought a new one.

i actually started laughing when i saw the pic of the car in the mag,and read the owner's outright lies

this magazine disrespected every BOP owner when it said right in the mag that BOP cars were not rememberred as "performance" oriented cars,which is why they were not included in the big block shootout.

TK-65

Remeber the 67 "Hurst" 442 they ran a few years ago? The car the owner said was shipped to Hurst in 67 for prototype 68 parts. What a crock that article was.

wmachine

That's probably the best example of bad choices I can think of. That should have set off the BS alarm with someone with the most casual Olds knowledge.

wolfman98

it seems to be a case of the story being more important than the fact at times. perhaps due to publication deadlines or not very good factchecking. perhaps if enough attention is brought to their attention about the lack of the later then they may step up their own investigation. we can only hope.

wmachine

We need to take an objective look at it. I don't know how anybody can expect a magazine to *totally* check out the facts of an article. That is just totally unrealistic. One look at our Olds community will tell you that with an Olds, it is a virtually impossible task anyway.
But on the other hand, *some* due diligence is needed. So I think that some checking needs to be done. And I'll bet it is. And I'll also bet that it is pretty uneven too, for a number of reasons. All correct facts just isn't going to happen, never has, never will.

But when you feature Hurst Olds (the '67 mentioned) that is unknown in the Hurst Olds community and it doesn't even have a Hurst shifter (column shift auto), even a Chevy guy can spot something wrong.

So yes, they should check things out, but that only goes so far.

TK-65

Remember his family had two other ones also.

The extent of the "hurst" package was those "Hurst Equipped" badges on the trunk and fenders. That shouldve been a red flag right there.

OLD SKL 69

November 2009 issue of HMN has a few pages dedicated as a 442 buyers guide. Not being an expert on 442's, I am not sure if there are any errors in it but it was just nice to see an Olds in the front cover.

stevengerard

I like the magazine and I do like how they have some odd *****, maybe no 64s, 67s pr 68, but I do like that they feature some of the cars from the 70s and 80s that I wouldn't even have bothered to puke on back then and now as I am getting older really appreciate them. I for one would never buy that small dodge shelby they featured but I thought it was cool. And yes they have errors but it must be difficult to produce a monthly mag and check all details all the time. I for one like reading the subscribers replies but I don't like when people bash the publisher for their mistakes, as others have said look how much we are still learning ourselves on just one make of automobile

aliensatemybuick

That there is what is called humility, an admirable trait that sadly is getting rarer and rarer these days in the car hobby.

wolfman98

I guess they just need to use phrases like " to the best of our knowledge"

agtw31

they bash them for their mistakes because they paid for the magazine.

that means with the price you pay for the magazine you expect some due diligence,and integrity in the story.

that stupid fake 67 Hurst 442 was an outright joke and fraud,and MR should have learned from it,but still,they let their buddies put their clones in the mag.

jslabotsky

If I can expand on what agtw31 said... Not to put too fine a point on it, but there's a difference between making petty mistakes and what we're talking about here. I can forgive an error with regard to production figures or some other esoteric statistic meant to promote a car's rarity.

What I can't forgive is not catching (or turning a blind eye to) fraud that could easily be verified with a quick Google search or a couple of phone calls. Even if you really, really think the owner is being honest, if you can't verify a claim through a credible source, don't print it. It's journalism 101, folks. They teach this in junior high.

Back on the topic of production numbers - Mopar guys have to be the worst. There's one Mopar guy in my circle of friends and we always give him crap about how, if you try hard enough, you can make any Mopar sound rare. "It's the only <insert car here> that came with a Hemi, 4-speed, gold interior and factory headrests." There might have been 2,000 Hemi, 4-speed whatevers produced, but by God this is the only one with gold interior and headrests.

1969w3155

The main reason that recently dropped my subscription to HMM, was the fact that way too many clones were being featured and presented as ligitimate musclecars. I mean really, they couldn't take the time to find the real thing! Enough of 318 mopars that are now 440's or Hemi's.

agtw31

that magenta r/t challenger article was hilarious

1 of 1 with magenta stripes..big friggin deal

Diego

I can shed some light on the Mopar production figure issue since it's often portrayed in an inaccurate manner - I'll use the Challenger R/T SE as an example.

With Mopars, there is US-spec production and total production; different books (and websites) give different information, and often they are not clear about what they're giving. In between the two production criteria I've listed above are Canadian-spec cars and export-spec cars. The latter two usually aren't published, but if you know total production and US production, you can subtract the two and figure out the rest are Canadian and export cars.

The 1970 Challenger came in 4 models: base Challenger, Challenger SE, Challenger R/T, and Challenger R/T SE. The pink car featured was the latter, and total production for that model was 3,979. Of those, 3,741 were built to US-specs (and you can deduce that 238 were Canadian and export cars).

When they say how many were built with each engine or any other option, it's only for US-spec cars, so it's only a large sampling of the total production and in no way is supposed to represent total production . . . but you're never told that. For example, that pink car is 1 of 400 with a 383 4-speed, but that's only for part of the 3,741 built.

Additionally, options cannot be combined to determine a "1 of xx" number, so it's possible to find out how many US-spec cars were 383 4-speeds or FM3 Panther Pink, but not the combination. You see a lot of people combining stats to make a point, but it's not only statistically incorrect, but it's possibly misleading as well.

Panther Pink was a mid-year color, so its production figures tend to be low. In the case of the R/T SE, I believe 9 US-spec cars were built . . .although there's a rate of error involved, so it could be 10 for all I know. You could order it with a black or white bumblebee stripe, the same color choices + magenta as a side stripe, or no stripe at all; of course, maybe there was another color stripe that could work, but it wasn't a factory recommendation.

Mopar expert Galen Govier has his own registry, and often this registry is quoted to portray "1 of xxx." I really hate this because it's one person's registry and not anything that shows how many were made, so what good is it? The fact is we only know how many pink R/T SEs were built and we don't have any invoices for them, so we have no way to know how many were equipped with the magenta stripes - maybe it's the only one known to exist, but to call it "1 of 1" is misleading.