: Good Bye Sports and Exotic Car magazine


Good Bye Sports and Exotic Car magazine, you'll be missed.

At the same time, Edd China left Wheeler Dealers one of my favorite car magazines, Hemming's Sport and Exotic Car called it quits; it was a tough week.

Sport and Exotic (S&E) was one of four monthly publications from the Hemming's empire. The other three publications, Hemming's Motor News, Classic Car, and Muscle Car live on.
I don’t know if I’m just a pessimist and therefore tuned to the belly rumblings that proceed the vomiting of bad news but I had a foreboding that this magazine was in trouble months before. During one of their many subscription renewals drives they published the circulation numbers of all four of their magazines, three of them boasted numbers of about 125K and Sport and Exotic was the conspicuous underachiever at 49K. The writing was on the sidewall, S&E was the only flat tire of the four.

I know paper publishing is a dying endeavor but Hemming's offered digital versions of all its magazines, that’s how I got S&E; so they weren’t a complete dinosaur.

Sport and Exotic Car featured great writing, solid photography, and unique content. What other magazines would feature Triumphs and MG’s beside second generation Acura Integras? They were a niche publication, for sure, but they were my niche. S&E was one of those rare publications where I had to ration my reading or I’d consume an issue in one sitting.  

Aside from the woes me, I actually have a point. I wonder if there is any market for people who love old sports cars and the near classic coupes, sport sedans, and exotics? Are we just a muscle car country and there is no room for any other type of enthusiast? I know there are tuner car magazines but I’m on the wrong side of life to read a magazine with half naked girls writhing on slammed Civics while authors tell tales of their latest piercings. I’m turning into a curmudgeon and I like it. 

Is there a space where people can read about a Triumph TR4 in one article and a Saab 900 in another?


Marve Harwell (C) 2017

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