Behind the Scenes at HOT ROD Magazine! HOT ROD Unlimited Episode 30

MotorTrend

Ever wondered what a job at HOT ROD magazine is really like? In this episode of HOT ROD Unlimited we take you inside the offices at HOT ROD to show you what goes in to publishing the longest running automotive magazine of all time. Youll see the staff at work as we brainstorm new issues

Transcript

00:00 So a lot of people ask us, what does it take to produce a magazine?

00:03 We're the longest-running automotive magazine still being published today.

00:05 So in this episode of Hot Rod Unlimited,

00:07 we're gonna take you to our offices and show you what we do on a day-to-day basis to publish Hot Rod magazine.

00:12 We're in our El Segundo offices, and we also share these offices with Motor Trend magazine,

00:28 Car Craft, and a slew of different enthusiast magazines.

00:31 So let's take a look at what it takes to produce Hot Rod.

00:34 I'm David Freiberger. I'm the editor-in-chief of Hot Rod. As editor-in-chief, the buck stops here.

00:53 Essentially, the whole team contributes ideas and input, and we have a meeting every week,

00:58 but when it comes down to it, I decide what happens in the magazine, on the website, in the videos,

01:04 everything that has to do with the Hot Rod brand, which is also events. We run Drag Week, Power Tour,

01:10 we're doing a Homecoming event. There's just a lot to do all the time as it revolves around

01:14 content and activities that need to reflect the Hot Rod brand.

01:18 So this is my desk. My title is associate editor, and as associate editor,

01:22 I help to produce content, kind of like staff editors, but I'm kind of a low man on the totem pole,

01:26 so I'll do a lot of paperwork and do a lot of the sections of the magazine, like the new product section,

01:32 buyer's guides, I'll assemble a lot of the readers' rides,

01:35 and I also answer the phone calls from people just trying to reach the magazine.

01:39 A lot of people think that it's kind of like a dictatorship, where David decides every single thing that goes in the magazine,

01:44 but that's not necessarily true. We all kind of work together to produce really cool stuff every single month.

01:49 I'm Mike Finnegan, and I'm one of the staff editors at Hot Rod magazine.

01:52 My primary job here is to write stories about technical subjects, things like

01:57 4,000 horsepower turbo engines and the latest and greatest suspensions out there for cars and trucks.

02:03 Most of these tech articles come about by going to different shops, meeting people, finding out what they're building, and

02:08 then camping out there with my camera and taking photos while, you know, somebody builds an engine or paints a car or something.

02:15 I come back here, strap into the chair for way too long, and edit the photos, write the story,

02:20 pass it off to my co-workers who proofread it and make me actually

02:23 sound like I know what I'm talking about and can spell correctly, and eventually it makes its way into the magazine and goes to print.

02:29 I'm Brandon Glowgly. I'm a staff editor here at Hot Rod magazine. I've been here for almost two years.

02:33 One of the great things about this location is we have a massive photo bay. It's on-site.

02:37 We can go back there and have a light box over the whole car to get really good light, and you control all the variables,

02:42 unlike a location shoot where you've only got a little bit of time to shoot because the sun's going down.

02:46 Having that here is a big advantage.

02:47 My name is Alana Sher. I'm a staff editor here at Hot Rod.

02:50 Basically, a staff editor writes all different kinds of stories from lighter tech pieces to feature stories. We all do web work.

02:58 I also do a lot of the social media, so if you've ever

03:01 followed us on Twitter or on Facebook, that's usually me, unless it sucked, in which case I'm gonna say it was Jesse.

03:07 I'm Tom Taylor, and I'm a staff editor. I write and I take photos, and

03:11 because I'm the old guy, I kind of do the more historical stuff.

03:15 I like the fact that I'm making money doing something that other people just do for fun.

03:20 The main thing I spend every day doing is making the magazine happen, which involves

03:25 coming up with issue plans, a whole list of stories that are going to be in each issue, and deciding who's going to write them.

03:31 Sometimes it'll be an idea from a staffer.

03:33 Sometimes I'll assign something to a freelancer, and those stories come in and they get read a bunch of times.

03:39 I read the manuscript, then it gets sent around for the whole staff to read.

03:43 Then our art department lays it out into what we call a laser,

03:46 which is an actual presentation of what it's going to look like in the magazine.

03:49 That gets read by everybody, and ultimately it gets shipped to the press, but before it gets printed,

03:55 we have another opportunity to look at the whole magazine in its entirety,

03:58 before it actually gets printed and shipped to the subscribers into the newsstand.

04:02 The most important page of the magazine is always the cover.

04:05 It's the most prestigious page, and it's also the one that is going to make or break our sales on the newsstand any given month.

04:11 It really makes a huge difference what car we present there,

04:15 and what blurb we put on there, as to how many people buy the issue.

04:18 Hot Rod has a fantastic archives from back in the days when it was owned by Peterson Publishing, right here in the building.

04:24 So when I get to do these historical articles, you know, I can reach back there and find stuff taken in the day.

04:30 It's just a goldmine, and there's always something new popping up every day.

04:34 This job is a lot more desk work than you probably think.

04:38 I am welded to this thing 10 hours to 15 hours every single day when I'm in town.

04:43 But the good part is when I'm not in town, because we're out in events, looking at cars, racing stuff,

04:48 and really, that's the fun part of the job.

04:51 But I also like it when I get here, and I get to craft words and pictures and present them in the most delicious way,

05:00 so that readers will like them as much as they possibly can.

05:03 My favorite thing about working for Hot Rod is I don't sit at a desk all day long.

05:06 I'm actually rarely at my desk.

05:08 I'm constantly either in the studio or out somewhere or covering events.

05:13 You're just constantly, constantly busy.

05:15 I like being busy. It keeps my mind sane.

05:17 Probably the best day at work ever so far has been purposely pit maneuvering my boss, David, with a Dodge Ram van.

05:23 People ask what is the craziest thing that I've done as editor-in-chief of Hot Rod,

05:29 and you know what? We do stuff all the time that is pretty whacked.

05:32 Like, we took a C4 Corvette and cut it all up to see if it would go faster when it was lighter.

05:38 That was a big outrage on the internet.

05:40 But we've done some legit stuff, too.

05:42 Like, I hooked up with Lingenfelter and drove one of their new cars 202 miles an hour on what was essentially a farm road.

05:49 That was pretty crazy.

05:51 But the thing I really like doing is racing at Bonneville.

05:54 We have a car that we run there that goes 260 miles an hour.

05:58 I've actually been that fast in a stock-bodied car.

06:01 I'm pretty proud of that and the records that we hold at Bonneville.

06:03 So I showed you guys where we spend half of our days working on the magazine and our cubicles,

06:09 but now I'm going to show you the really cool thing.

06:11 This is our tech center.

06:12 Here's where we spend our other half of our days working on our project cars.

06:15 We share the tech center with some other magazines like Motor Trend Magazine and Motorcyclist Magazine.

06:19 And I heard Brandon and Mike are working in here, so we're going to go check out and see what they're doing.

06:23 We are working on the world-famous F-Bomb.

06:29 This is probably one of Hot Rod's biggest projects.

06:32 You've seen it in the Fast and the Furious movie doing wheelies on dirt and killing bad guys.

06:36 And she runs hot, so we're taking the hood off.

06:38 The tech center is probably the main reason we get so much work done here at Hot Rod.

06:41 It's chock full of stuff from Snap-on tools, Lincoln electric welders and fab equipment,

06:47 lifts from Direct Lift.

06:48 We've got Pete's Bar over here, which is a place where we can relax.

06:51 And it's named after our founder, Robert E. Peterson.

06:54 And I've personally slept on these couches numerous nights after building cars all night long

06:59 and testing parts and thrashing to get stuff to racing events.

07:02 So we've showed you what we do on a day-to-day basis here at our offices,

07:09 but we can't leave you just yet until showing you some of the perks of the job.

07:13 [ENGINE REVVING]

07:16 [MUSIC PLAYING]

07:20 Everything we need to test parts, build cars, go racing, have Jesse make a bunch of noise.

07:38 Yeah, yeah.

07:38 Let's do that line over again.

07:40 [MUSIC PLAYING]

07:43 [LAUGHTER]

07:45 Jerks.

07:45 Craziest thing is when we had naked Thursdays, but we don't do that anymore.

07:50 I don't know.

07:50 Some-- I don't know.

07:52 [MUSIC PLAYING]

07:55 We've got lifts from Direct Lift.

07:56 We've got Jesse making noise again.

07:58 Jeez.

07:59 What?

07:59 It's hard.

08:00 You've gotten old.

08:01 You hear that?

08:02 Anything I have to say about Fry Burger, if he found out, I'd probably get fired.

08:06 So I probably should just not say anything about him.

08:09 You want to go to lunch?

08:10 You want to go to lunch?

08:11 You want to go to lunch?

08:11 [LAUGHTER]

08:13 What?

08:14 Who likes Camaros anyway?

08:18 [LAUGHTER]

08:20 I took acting in high school.

08:22 Did you?

08:22 The only thing I remember doing well at was they had--

08:25 somebody had to write out a scene of an animal, and you had to act it.

08:30 And I was a dragon coming out of a waterfall.

08:32 [LAUGHTER]

08:34 Sounds really weird, but I did a really good job of shaking my-- and I don't remember.

08:39 Uh-huh.

08:40 God, that conversation got out of hand.

08:42 Uh-huh.

08:43 Sorry.

08:44 [LAUGHTER]

08:50 Can that be at the end?

08:51 No.

08:52 Oh.

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Transcript

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