Tag: vette quarterly

R.I.P. Vette Magazine 1976-2019

Published on by Scott

Dateline: 2.25.20 – On December 6, 2019 I received an email from Vette magazine editor Brian Brennan. The title of the email said it all; “Vette is Terminated”. I wasn’t surprised, as I’d been hearing rumblings that the magazine was on thin ice for well over ten years.

Just the same, it was a sad day for me. Instantly I was back in the summer of 1976 when one hot steamy day in southern New Jersey at my local newsstand at the Cherry Hill News Stop at the corner of Haddonfield Rd. and Chapel Avenue in Cherry Hill, New Jersey; I saw a new magazine that stopped me in my tracks. There among the rest of the familiar car magazines was a new title; “Vette Quarterly”.

I had been haunting the local magazine stands for car magazines since 1965 and I was always on the lookout for Corvette special editions, but this was better than any special edition I’d ever seen. Vette Quarterly was “Corvettes-only” and I wanted to be part of this new publication. My favorite car magazine then was “Hi-Performance CARS”; a great east coast publication filled with the kinds of cars I saw on the local street scene and at the Atco Raceway and Cecil County Drag-O-Way where I’d been working as one of the weekend track announcers since 1972.

The icing on the cake was when I saw that Martyn “Marty” L. Schorr was the editor of Vette Quarterly. I was very familiar with Marty’s writing and leadership as the editor of CARS, so I knew Vette Quarterly was going to something special.

I’d been drawing for several car magazines for two years, so I made copies of my best illustrations and wrote a letter asking if I could be a contributing illustrator for Vette Quarterly. A week later, I got a call from Marty. As soon as I heard Marty’s voice, his Big Apple accent told me who was on the phone. Marty said, “Scott, I got your samples, very nice. What would you like to do?” That was it, I was in!

What I didn’t know was that that was the beginning of a 43-year long relationship with the publication. Vette Quarterly went bi-monthly in a few years and then by the early 1980s was a full-fledged monthly, Corvette-only magazine and I was part of it.

In the early ’80s Marty moved on to start his successful marketing and PR business, “PMPR, Inc, Public Relations & Marketing Agency”. As the decades rolled on Vette magazine was sold and bought by numerous publishers and somehow I managed to stay on as a contributing artist and writer.

In the spring of 1997 I pitched then editor, Richard Lentinello a concept I called, “The Illustrated Corvette Series” as a monthly column. Lentinello liked the idea but didn’t have an open page for another columnist, so it was, “Thanks, but no thanks”. A week later Lentinello called me to ask if I still wanted to do a column, as one of his other columnists informed him that he could no longer do his column. Of course, I said, “Yes!” My plan was to cover every year Corvette in chronological order; so maybe I’d have 50 installments. When Vette magazine was shuttered last December I had completed 275 installments and got a book deal from Car-Tech Books in 2010.

So, when I learned that Vette magazine was finished it was a sad day, as I never dreamed that my association with that one specialty publication would last so long. Along the way, in addition to my monthly column, I did a lot of feature stories. All of my feature stories and many of my monthly columns were published on www.SuperChevy.com. To check them out,, just use the search tool at the top of SuperChevy.com’s website.

In 2008 Vette published an interview with Marty Schorr where he shared with our readers how he got into the magazine biz and how and why he launched Vette Quarterly. Then in 2016 I wrote “Happy 40th Birthday Vette Magazine”.

Below are links to the two mentioned stories, as well as the transcript of when I interviewed Marty and Joel Rosen on my “Far Out Radio” show where they shared how they created their Baldwin-Motion Phase-III Supercars.

Will Vette magazine ever be resurrected? The paper publishing world is rapidly shrinking, even for mainstream magazines, so it is doubtful that we’ll ever see Vette magazine on the newsstands again. But, you know that old saying, “Never say never”. Anything could happen. We’ll see. – Scott

Marty Schorr interview for Vette magazine, Pt 1 – CLICK HERE.

Marty Schorr interview for Vette magazine, Pt 2 – CLICK HERE.

“Happy 40th Birthday Vette magazine”, CLICK HERE.

“Marty Schorr & Joel Rosen Interview, Pt. 1, CLICK HERE.

“Marty Schorr & Joel Rosen Interview, Pt. 2, CLICK HERE.

 

So, You Want To Get Into The Car Magazine Biz?

Published on by Scott

Dateline: 11.29.11

An inside look into the wonderful world of automotive journalism.

"VETTE Quarterly" was the original incarnation of VETTE Magazine and only came out four times a year.

I’m sure that many of you are familiar with or are members of LinkedIn. If you are not a LinkedIn member, DO IT!  You never know what kind of connections you make. Thanks to LinkedIn I connected with a man that was familiar with my art work, and happened to be the “New Acquisitions Editor” at CarTech Books. Thanks to my LinkedIn connection with Scott Parkhurst, I was able to get a publisher for my “Illustrated Corvette Series” book. That made me a LinkedIn Believer!

As a LinkedIn member, you can join all kinds of special interest groups. One group I’m part of is the “Automotive Journalists” group. A young fellow named David posted the following question to the group. “Any advice for someone who wants to pursue automotive journalism some day?” I wrote an answer based on my experience, but it turned out that my answer was WAY over the character count limit. So, I decided to just turn it into a post here at CorvetteReport.com. If you’ve ever wondered what the magazine biz is like, below is my advice to a young car dude with the itch to be in the car mags. – Scott

Fall 1974, the car mags were splashing Chevy's new '75 Monza. Bill Jenkins' Pro Stock Vega had turned Pro Stock on its head, so it wasn't a stretch to imagine that Jenkins would build a Monza Grumpy's Toy. Drag Racing USA magazine jumped on my illustration and ran it as a cover story scoop, "Grumpy's NEW Monza!" The illustration was created with Rapid-O-Graph technical illustration pens.

I drifted into automotive journalism through the art department. I was one of those kids that was always drawing cars in school and in my free time. I was always pouring over art in Hot Rod, Motor Trend, Road & Track, and other magazines, hoping that some day, if I practiced enough, my drawings would be good enough for publication. My first published illustration was a 2-page spread in a drag racing magazine in 1975 of what I speculated Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins’ Pro Stock Chevy Monza “might” look like. I think I was paid $150, which was enough to cover my rent for a month! That was IT, I was hooked! Continue reading “So, You Want To Get Into The Car Magazine Biz?” →

Vette Videos: SUPER RARE, One-of-a-Kind 1972 Motion Moray Eel Corvette

Published on by Scott

Dateline: 9.15.11
 The last of Joel Rosen’s Shark Corvettes – The Moray Eel

As cool as the Mako Shark-styled production 1968 Corvette was, there were a few that were… disappointed. Why, you wonder? Because the ‘68 Corvette WASN’T the ‘65-’66 Mako Shark II show car. Making a show car is one thing, designing a car to be mass produced is another. While the Mako Shark II show car looked large on the stage, it was actually about 7/8s the size of the production Corvette. In other words, a VERY tight little package that could not directly translate into a production car.

But it was fiberglass man, John Silva that took it upon himself to make his own Mako Shark. “Kit cars” were all the rage in the mid-to-late ‘60s. Meanwhile, on Long Island, New York, Joel Rosen was building ground-pounding big-block Phase III Chevys and was looking for something really exotic to offer his Corvette customers. Rosen bought two complete Silva Maco cars and got permission from Silva to make molds off of the Silva parts to make his Motion Maco kits. The Maco kits were kind of a “love it, or hate it” thing. It wasn’t quite as svelte as the Mako Shark, but for many, it was close enough.

For creative types, such as Rosen, the mind never stops. In the early ‘70s Joel was on a roll with his “shark-thing.” His Motion Maco Shark burst on the street scene in ‘71, quickly followed by two interesting variations. The Manta Ray featured the front end of the Phase III GT with its distinctive tunneled headlights and Continue reading “Vette Videos: SUPER RARE, One-of-a-Kind 1972 Motion Moray Eel Corvette” →

Interview With VETTE Magazine Founder & First Editor, Martyn L. Schorr – Pt. 2

Published on by Scott

Dateline: 8.1.11
An intimate conversation with Marty Schorr – Baldwin Motion, VETTE Quarterly, and other adventures…

(Our conversation picks up with an enterprise that’s still being talked about! You can catch Pt. 1 of this interview, HERE.)

Prototype 1968 Baldwin Motion Phase III SS-427 Corvette

ST – That’s a great segue Marty, let’s talk about the Baldwin-Motion experience.

MS – Baldwin Chevrolet was an old, local, mom & pop Chevy dealership. Joel was friends with John Mahler, the parts manager, and it all started out as a sponsorship with a strippo, red, big-block Camaro that they dropped an L-88 427 into and went drag racing. It was an advertising / promotion thing. The car ran great and we put our heads together and pitched a program to the Baldwin Chevrolet owners for a full line of supercars called, “The Fantastic Five” that included a Camaro, Chevelle, Nova, Impala, and of course, a Corvette.

We would start off with the biggest optioned engine and heavy-duty suspension and drive train, then we would drop in a 427 with a lot of hot rod parts. Because we were starting off with the toughest stuff available from the factory, the cars were amazingly durable, and still under warranty. We added aftermarket wheels, custom stripes, and badges that created a complete brand. The cars put Baldwin Chevrolet on the map and everyone made money. I did all the branding, catalogs, and ads, we had a shop do the custom stripping, and Joel did the conversions and final tests. Every car was guaranteed to run 12.5 in the quarter-mile with a professional driver. For a time we were the biggest specialty car maker under Shelby. When we got into the V-8 Vegas, Baldwin Chevrolet really didn’t want to have them branded as “Baldwin-Motion” cars because they were front heavy and didn’t handle very well. So if you ever see any of the Vega cars we did, you notice that they are “Motion Performance” car and not “Baldwin-Motion” cars.

Marty discovered that if he ran a hot Corvette on the cover of a magazine, news stand sales would improve. That's called "Corvette power."

 

ST – I was a teenager when you were splashing those incredible Baldwin-Motion and muscle car road tests in CARS. You assembled a group of writers that made the magazine something to look forward to every month. How did that all come together?

MS – When it comes out right, you’re a hero, otherwise, you’re a bum. The perception was that East Coast magazines only sold to East Coast guys. Remember that back then, because Hot Rod and Car Craft owned the newsstands, it looked like nothing was happening on the East Coast. The image was that the West Coast shops were these giant sophisticated shops – palaces – at least, that’s the way they looked in print. The first time I went to the West Coast I was shocked to see the Bill Thomas’ shop was just a little place. Dana Chevrolet only did their high-performance cars for about 1-1/2 years. Baldwin-Motion made cars for six years. The East Coast places like TASCA, SRD, Stahl, Baldwin-Motion, and Grumpy hardly got any attention at all. (Grumpy became one of drag racing’s rock stars after Pro Stock exploded in ‘70 – ST) And the editors of the West Coast books were all treated like heroes and you had to get an appointment just to talk to them. We had a lot to work with on the East.

Joe Oldham was a street racer kid that used to deliver flowers in my neighborhood and then one day he came into the CARS office to sell a Pontiac-go-fast article. It turned out that Joe used to deliver flowers in my neighborhood and knew my red Bonneville Coupe with the eight-lug wheels. Joe is now the editor of Popular Mechanics and for a long time was my road test driver and a columnist.

Roger Huntington was an engineer that used to write tech features for us. Not many readers knew that Roger had been wheelchair-bound all his life, but he wrote good tech features.

One of our early guys, Fred Mackerodt, started with CARS in ‘64 and today he’s a PR guy with a GM account. Fred was a very good editor even though he never graduated from high school. He was a good humorist writer to and used to do stories under the pen name of “Dilbert Farb.” (His trash truck road test had me in stitches when I was a kid. – ST) Cliff Gromer was another one of our regular guys, along with Alan Root, Alex Walordy, Stewart Yale, Fred Cohen, Joel Rosen, and others. Continue reading “Interview With VETTE Magazine Founder & First Editor, Martyn L. Schorr – Pt. 2” →