Another magazine bites the dust

[Kenneth H.]

Just received an email from Corvette Market magazine that as of January 2012 Corvette Market will no longer be published and in its place a new magazine, American Classic Car, will be published. It will cover all american cars (Chevy, Ford, Mopar, etc) and will only have a column and some car reviews dedicated to the corvette.

I don't know how much interest there was with NCRS members in this magazine, but I enjoyed it very much. I'm sorry to see it go, and I sent an email to the publisher cancelling my subscription once they begin publishing the new magazine.

Thanks.

[Stuart F.]

Re: Another magazine bites the dust

Got the same E-Mail even though I cancelled out with them about a year ago. Isn't one of the Writer's/owner/publishers one of the fellows on that "What's My Car Worth" program on Dicovery's "Velocity" channel?

Stu Fox

[Kenneth H.]

Re: Another magazine bites the dust

Stu,

Yes, Keith Martin, one of the hosts of "What's My Car Worth?" is the publisher of Corvette Market as well as Sports Car Market.

Thanks.

[Keith M.]

Re: Another magazine bites the dust

Kenneth and Stu, as the publisher of these magazines, let me provide some clarification. Corvette Market has not "bitten the dust" - its key components have been incorporated into American Car Collector, and the frequency of publication has been increased by 50%, to six times a year from four times.
Corvette Market was profitable and doing well, but we had so many requests from subscribers to incorporate other American cars that it just made sense to fold it into a new magazine. Keeping Corvette separate AND having American Car Collector wasn't logical - did we have NO Corvettes in ACC? Did we duplicate content?
I hope our logic here makes sense.
I would hope you would take a look at a new issue before you make a decision as to canceling or continuing - you can see a sneak preview at www.americancarcollector.com.
We value our CM subscribers, and believe we are offering them a better, more informative publication with American Car Collector.
Thank you for your interest. KM

[Tom H.]

Re: Another magazine bites the dust

I hope it works out Keith. I remember when we went through this with Corvette Enthusiast. It appeared pretty clear the Corvette fan base was not fond of the idea of expanding the magazine to include the entire collector car hobby and other makes.

[Kenneth H.]

Re: Another magazine bites the dust

Keith, thanks for responding. It isn't often that the actual publisher of a magazine responds to comments on a discussion board. It speaks well for you and I appreciate it.

I do have a couple of questions and comments though. If CM was, as you say, "profitable and doing well" why change? Why not just create a NEW magazine called American Car Collector, and publish it in addition to SCM and CM? The quality of your magazines is such that I would expect that the new magazine would be profitable in short order.

As for the sneak preview of ACC, I did see a few pictures of corvettes mixed in with all of the pictures of other cars, but I'm a corvette enthusiast and am not really interested in other collector cars. My interest lies solely in corvettes. That's why I appreciated CM so much, and will really miss it when it's gone.

Thanks.

[Gerard R.]

Re: Another magazine bites the dust

Keith i have been a subscriber to Corvett Market from day one and is the only vette mag i subscribe to and i will miis Corvettes only coverage.As ken said the vettes are thing that intereswts me.

[Keith M.]

Re: Another magazine bites the dust

Tom, Kenneth and Gerard: Thanks for your comments. I do understand your feelings about not having a "Corvette only" magazine - trust me, I have a lot of personal blood, sweat and tears into creating Corvette Market, including my personal time involved with Bloomington as emcee and creating the Corvette Market seminars at Barrett-Jackson (which will continue, by the way - as a Corvette-only event).

We just couldn't build a finance and logic case for having two magazines with the kind of overlap that CM and American Car Collector would have. In a perfect world, we'd continue both.

But we had to make a choice, and the choice was to move the way that Sports Car Market did - it was originally born as the Alfa Romeo Market Letter, 25 years ago. Although some Alfa guys were very frustrated at first, in the end they stayed with us because our Alfa stuff was simply better than anyone else's - when it came to the market.

Remember what sets everything we do apart from all other magazines is our focus on auction reporting and on values. If you want to know what the black / red 427/400 horse convertible that Mecum sold at Indy went for, you'll only find out by reading American Car Collector, in the Corvette section.

In any event, I invite you to try the new magazine, and if it doesn't work, we'll refund 100% of your subscription money, even for issues you've already received.

KM

[Tom H.]

Re: Another magazine bites the dust

Keith, Thanks for chiming in here. I get your magazine now and will certainly have a look at the new one.

I think we are learning the Corvette specific publications are a thing of the past and we'll just have to deal with it. As I said before, I wish you success with the new publication.

[Kenneth H.]

Re: Another magazine bites the dust

Keith,

Thanks for your reply and comments. I'm sorry to see CM go. One last question. I received the Summer 2011 issue a few months ago and was wondering, will there be a Fall 2011 issue or is CM done as of today?

Thanks.

[Don L.]

Re: Another magazine bites the dust

As a CM subscriber, I try to understand what causes this to happen.

I look forward to seeing the new, combined publication, seeing pros and cons to the idea. For the cons, I imagine that I will have to sort through numerous makes/models/genres to find the Corvette stuff that drove me to subscribe in the beginning. With all of us having less and less time to spend on our hobbies these days, this will be a task. As for the pros, I hope to see how Corvette values are tracking against the others.

Thanks Keith, for being so "stand up" here. As was said previously, it's not often that a publisher jumps head first into the fray. I appreciate that and it means enough to me to continue - at least to see how this turns out. I'm optimistic...

[Loren L.]

Smoke & Mirrors

I'm sure that it's just a coincindence that there is a Corvette on the cover of the "sample preview issue".........

[Gerard Q.]

Re: Another magazine bites the dust

What a shame, CM is the only corvette specific magazine I subscribe to and I really enjoy it....can't say I'm really interested in a magazine that covers the entire collector car hobby.

[Walter G.]

Re: Another magazine bites the dust

I subscribe to three Hemmings publications ( HMN monthly, HMN classic car, & HMN musclecar) as well as Car Collector magazine so my interest is not totally restricted. Having said that, CM had the exclusivity I liked for my 'preferred' marque and now it will be pretty much like the other publications with overlapping information likely on auction coverage. Granted, your auction/value coverage is/will be greater than the others I've mentioned but when Corvettes are now just another category it won't be as extensive as we were accustomed to. It was great to be able to focus on a single publication that covered Corvette cover to cover. I'm not sure how Auto Enthusiast eventually fared, but I know my subscription lapsed once the new format appeared. Worst of all, that pub became mostly ads. I appreciate and have interest in '50's-'60's American cars/musclecars having owned several over the years, but my real passion is Corvette and the CM format was perfect. The change will alienate some 'Vette owners and with publications already established for other brands it will be a challenge to capture subscribers in a diminishing market for print.

[Loren L.]

Refund and Alternative?

My e-mail to Corvette Market requesting my subscription to be cancelled immediately after the mailing of the last issue and requesting a refund has received a "The check is in the mail" reply - we'll see.
For those interested in one-marque pubs, give Corvette Magazine (not the e-mail only one) a shot; Karl Ludsvigen and a bunch of others that seem to know what the action is about - I think you'll find it surprisingly good.