By Tom Vogele
In the late 1990s, Street Rodder magazine was thriving, pumping out 300-page issues like they were pamphlets. Street rodding and the supporting industry had expanded to incredible levels, and to honor our supportive advertisers we developed the Street Rodder Road Tour program in 1996. Street rods built entirely from aftermarket parts were constructed and driven to all annual events on the National Street Rod Association event schedule. In the first year, Darrell Mayabb designed a blue 1933 Ford three-window coupe with bold GT-style white stripes, which was driven to every NSRA event (25,000 miles to 11 events) by Jerry Dixey, attracting rodders nationwide to subscribe to Street Rodder for a chance to win the 1933. (Editor’s note: It was later purchased from the winner and is now owned by Lokar’s Skip and Debbie Walls.)
The following year, in 1997, Street Rodder celebrated its 25th anniversary, and we needed a Road Tour car for the occasion. The decision was made for Barry Lobeck and his team, who also built the 1933, to create a clone of our founder Tom McMullen’s iconic “McMullen Roadster” to celebrate our Golden Anniversary and endure the rigors of the 1997 Road Tour. Supercharger, quick-change, and topless Jerry all had another successful year, but we couldn’t give our anniversary car away. Cecil Taylor at Hercules Motor Cars agreed to build a 1933 Ford woodie to help promote our subscription program, and the McMullen clone returned to the Street Rodder offices in SoCal.
By the early 2000s, we had created a fantastic space for the Street Rodder staff. First, we had our area separate from the corporate building; second, we had a fully functioning tech center complete with an in-floor dyno; and lastly, Barry White’s Street Rod Repair Shop was in the same space. Various employees took the supercharged 1932 to local car shows and events, proving its reliability and quality construction.
As investment bankers swept through the automotive publishing world, they were constantly amazed by the modified cars in our Street Rod & Performance Group (SR&PG) of magazines, especially street rods. Eventually, they commissioned SRRC to replicate one-half of the iconic McMullen Roadster for the corporate office lobby. The impressive half-clone resided there for years until it was moved to El Segundo, the home of the Hot Rod Garage TV/photo studio.
Eventually, corporate owners stopped promoting subscriptions by giving away the Road Tour cars, as they didn’t want to accept the liability of these handbuilt automobiles. By this time, the Road Tour had gained its own momentum, and as the years went by, the cars began to stack up like cordwood. As VP of the SR&PG, I was asked to have five of them appraised, and they would offer them for bid to employees only. Even with the reasonably priced cars, they were expensive; when the dust settled, they received just one bid, which was mine for the 25th Anniversary/Road Tour McMullen ’32 Ford roadster clone!
My wife and I have enjoyed many cross-country trips, including one with stays at 37 different historical hotels all the way from SoCal to the Mississippi. The Street Rodder Road Tour enjoyed a quarter century of Jerry Dixey’s half-million-mile journey, proving the integrity of our entire industry. Using thousands of aftermarket parts, almost two dozen different hot rod shops and countless craftsmen, there were no major breakdowns of consequence.
As my wife and I wandered the streets and buildings of the recent Grand National Roadster Show, we ran into our good friend Brian Brennan. As I moved up the corporate ladder, I handed the reins of Street Rodder over to Brian, who skillfully guided it until investors and the Internet ultimately disrupted the print business we all cherished. But there was no cause for concern because the cream rose to the top, and another great friend, Tim Foss, and Brian came back strong with three In The Garage Media magazine titles, combining print and digital.
Tim and Brian knew I owned the 25th anniversary roadster and was interested in the half car, even offering to buy it at one time. Brian mentioned that the El Segundo studio had been closed and they saved all the pieces and moved them to ITGM’s garage. Brian said they were mine, just come pick them up! After visiting their facilities and bringing the parts home, it became clear that putting the car back together would be much easier than moving file cabinets to make room.
During the heyday of magazine publishing, there was fierce competition among Petersen Publishing, McMullen Publishing, Argus Publishing, and many other smaller niche publishers. Those feelings ran deep for many, but competition drove us to be the best, and our readers benefited from it. The two wheel caps bore Hot Rod Garage stickers when the pieces came home. At first, we thought we should remove them, but we decided they prove this little half-roadster has been on a Road Tour of its own before coming home to what is now our 3-1/2-car garage.
–MR
