If I Were You, I’d Do It
In my last post I wrote about the National Street Machine Club, and I wanted to discuss its monthly magazine, Street Thunder, but I ran out of time. I’ll continue here. Marketers of automotive high performance aftermarket parts, pay attention.
When I joined the Club, I wondered what the quality of the magazine would be. After all, this was a club I knew nothing about except for the information in their direct mail letter. I doubted that it would be on par with HOT ROD, Super Chevy, Mopar Muscle, et al.
How could it be? It’s a club. And how could a club have the resources to produce a top-quality magazine? At the time I didn’t know the Club was part of the larger North American Membership Group, Inc., obviously a business with a larger resource pool.
I’m no longer a skeptic. Street Thunder could be sold on news stands right beside the best of them: It is that good.
A while back, I’d ordered four car magazines at the same time through Amazon.com. Then one day when I opened my mailbox and saw the title, I thought … What’s this? Street Thunder. This isn’t one that I ordered. How and why did I get this? I’d temporarily forgotten that a magazine was one of the benefits of membership.
Then I spotted the National Street Machine Club logo. The cover jumps out and grabs you. The words STREET THUNDER appear in large red tilted upper-case letters across the top with STREET above and to the left of THUNDER; narrow white lines around the perimeter of each letter enhance the effect. The Club logo sits atop the “ER” in THUNDER and behind STREET. You can’t miss it.
The front cover of the September/October ‘07 issue snatches your eye with a distinct “Vanilla Shake”-painted, hemi-powered ‘33 Dodge truck, a meticulous build deserving front-page prominence. The unique combination of wide whitewall tires, body-color wheels, and small hub caps add even more distinction and point to the owner’s desire to create an atypical ride.
Inside, five feature stories and two tech articles comprise the Feature Contents for this issue. And they are
- “The Final Cut” about a ‘65 Buick Riviera
- “No Respect” about a ‘76 F-150 Ford pickup
- “Superior Style” about the Dodge truck mentioned above
- “Leap of Faith” about a ‘58 Impala
- “Show of the Summer” about the Minnesota Street Rod Association
The tech articles are
- “Building Muscle for the Street” about the magazine’s Project GTO
- “When the Dust Clears” about the basics of media blasting their ‘62 Olds project car
Department Contents consist of 18 stories, articles, essays, Q & A, a quiz , and lots more– something for everyone. The departments are
- Driver’s Seat: An essay by editor Scott Parkhurst
- Clubhouse: An essay by executive director Mark Simpson
- Member Mailbox: Letters to the editor
- New Products: Some of the newest products on the market
- Member Tips: Handy tips sent in by club members
- Tech Q&A: Answers to questions sent in by club members
- Garage Test: Products sent to members for testing–and keeping
- Garage Test Preview: Products yet to be sent to members for testing
- Member Rides: Photos with captions of members’ cars or trucks
- On the Road With Bob: Travel article about the Lone Star Round Up in Austin, Tex.
- Youth Rides: Photo of and story about a teen’s car
- Member Story: The “whole story” behind a member’s car or truck
- Generation Tech: Essay by associate editor Eric Anderson
- Member Benefits: Describes some of the benefits of club membership
- Instant Classics: about late model cars that are legends in their own time
- Flashback: Photos and story about cars and trucks from by-gone eras
- Member Quiz: Tests your knowledge of automotive trivia
It seems that many of today’s car and truck magazines exist to advertise products. You know the ones I’m talking about. They resemble quarterly academic journals more than car magazines. They’re about 300 pages thick, and emphasis appears to be commercial-related rather than hobby-related.
And, yes, I know advertisements support magazines financially. To remain solvent they can’t rely on subscriptions alone to carry the business. But, I don’t like looking at 10 or so consecutive pages of ads. Who does?
You won’t find those kinds of ads in Street Thunder. Sure, they have advertisers the same as any other for-profit periodical, but they’re not obnoxious with it.
This magazine’s editorial staff knows what its readers want, and they give it to them. If you’re into hotrods of any kind or caliber, you need to be a member of this club. Dues are only $24 a year. The magazine itself is worth that much or more, in my opinion.
Street Thunder has everything a gearhead could want to read. Think seriously about joining the National Street Machine Club. If I were you, I’d do it. You won’t be sorry.
