From Sports Car Market, publisher Keith Martin has announced the launch of American Car Collector magazine to debut with an initial combined paid and complimentary distribution of 30K. Sister publication Corvette Market will be folded into ACC effective with launch date January 2012.

According to Martin:

We decided to launch American Car Collector for three reasons: First, there is no magazine in the marketplace that focuses solely the collectability of American cars. As you can see from the increasing number of auctions, there seems to be no end to the interest in American cars, from the great classics to modern super cars.

Second, Sports Car Market has twenty-five years of experience in analyzing the collector car market, so we have a well-developed skill set in the arena of market analysis and evaluation. Our databases of auction results already include American cars, and they reach back 25 years.

And finally, readers of our Corvette Market magazine kept asking us if we could report on other American makes in addition to Corvette. We have found that American collector car owners are likely to have Fords, Chevys, MoPars and more in their collections – and they want to keep on top of the market for all of them.

Every page in American Car Collector will provide entertaining information about the American collector car market, including the people who make up the market, and the cars they are collecting, buying, selling and restoring.

When we surveyed our advertisers, they were unanimous in their support of the launch of American Car Collector. ACC will focus on analyzing the values that are achieved at auctions, and for auctions like Mecum, Auctions America, Barrett-Jackson, Leake, Silver and more, easily 90% of the cars they feature are American.

The advertisers and readers were quite excited about having the same focus and analytical approach created by Sports Car Marketbrought to bear on muscle cars, pony cars, hot rods, and more – we’ve even created a section for collectible pickup trucks in response to what our readers have indicated they wanted.

Readers have also indicated they want to read about other collectors, and about new products being introduced for collectors. You’ll find a new, fresh approach to reporting on collecting in American Car Collector.

Sports Car Market will continue to have 100% of the American content that it has always had; there will just be much much more in American Car Collector.  ACC will encompass Corvette Market, and will consequently have a special section on Corvettes in every issue.

ACC will have a major presence at prestigious swap meets, as we believe those attending swap meets are as anxious to know what their cars are worth as those attending auctions. ACC will be producing the official programs for Bloomington Gold, as well as all ten Carlisle events. Swap meets will always have a need for printed programs, and ACC is ideally positioned to produce them, bringing our production and editorial expertise to bear – and freeing swap meets from having to be in the “program business.”

In a challenging time for magazines, Sports Car Market has continued to grow, and has had a record-setting year in terms of readership and advertising sales. We believe this is because SCM offers information you simply can’t get anywhere else, presented in a thoughtful way by top-flight, knowledgeable writers who are experts in their various fields.

ACC enters a tough market for new magazines challenged by the high cost of obtaining paid readers and shift of both eyeballs and advertising to online sources. The competitive landscape includes Hemmings Classic Carand various club titles aimed at American classics including AACA’s Speedster with a circulation over 35K. Car Collector ceased publication last year due to internal cash woes. However, SCM possesses a unique data base of price and trends reporting, which should add traction to the new magazine’s pages and reader interest.

ACC subscribers will receive a print, and an online version compatible with iPads. Frequency 6X with an introductory rate of $29.95 (base rate $34.95).

More at www.americancarcollector.com.

Today AutoTrader Classics announced it will cease all print production as of the July issues and devote itself entirely to electronic distribution. Citing high print costs and a decline in traditional print-based readership, the company hopes to devote all resources to maintaining a profitable web presence.

According to AutoTrader President and CEO Chip Perry:

The continued movement of both consumers and advertisers to online forms of media makes this the right time to shift the focus of AutoTrader Classics to an online only brand and maximize the potential of this part of our business. With a strong online only brand, we believe AutoTraderClassics.com can continue to grow while effectively serving our customers’ needs for the long-term.

I’ve been preaching the inevitability of AT’s newly announced reality for several years. Let’s hope they are able to fully regroup and give eBay and Craigslist a run for their market share.

Dave Kinney’s Cars That Matter Price Guide has been rebranded as Hagerty Price Guide.

Launched in 2006, CTM enjoyed a partnership with Hagerty Insurance consisting of joint distribution and publishing, and his since evolved as perhaps the most credible and oft-referred value reference tool in the market. Dave is a frequent auction goer and keyed to the growing collector car market.

CTM’s value listings begin with vehicles produced from 1946 on, pretty much capturing the bulk of purchasing activity taking place today.

The newly-solidified partnership will result in additional vehicle content and expanded electronic distribution including mobile devices.  Over time, I suspect the Guide will be offered via e-book downloads to eventually surpass print demand. Price guides are the ideal information source for digital delivery.

Hagerty Insurance is based in Traverse City, MI and also publishes Hagerty Magazine.

ABC Audit statements are in and the numbers for selected publications are posted here.

Please note my circ gathering process does not represent an exhaustive census of all automotive titles which, at this point, numbers just over 200. I was able to locate sub and newsstand figures for 37 magazines largely based on ABC Audit reporting and a few filing USPS 3526 Statements of Ownership and Circulation. While 2009 figures included circ numbers for over 50 magazines, a number of publishers have either withdrawn from the ABC Audit program or simply did not file. More on that in a future post.

American City Business Journals’ Nascar Illustrated showed a impressive 34.8% growth in total circ between 2009 and 2010. From the same publisher, Hemmings Classic Car (formerly Special Interest Autos) posted a healthy 10.4% growth over the same period. Niche publication Sports Car Market grew 17% during this time interval.

The Fab Four didn’t fare so well though much better than the meltdown from prior years. Automobile stayed about even with a .75% drop in total circ; Motor Trend a drop of 1.0%; Car & Driver a drop of .25%; and Road & Track a drop of 1.5%.

Of note, Old Cars Weekly changed to a smaller format during 2010, which apparently did not resonate well with readers to the tune of a 6.2% total circulation drop between 2010 and 2009; a 1.11% drop was recorded between 2009 and 2008.

A future post addressing these figures in greater detail on the way. Meanwhile, I have a book to write!

You’d think the war between two e-commerce giants eBay and Amazon wouldn’t matter much to CPI readers, but thanks to unaddressed channel conflict facing magazines today, I believe a strong parallel exists between the worlds of these two e-retailers and publishing in general. Let me explain.

EBay’s March 28th deal to acquire online service vendor GSI Commerce hopes to challenge Amazon’s turf in streamlining the process of seller shipments. It will enable merchants to offload order fulfillment and processing resulting in eBay expanding its merchant relationships and gaining a piece of the action. GSI provides warehousing, inventory control, shipping—functions that eBay lacks and Amazon delivered in spades to the tune of a 40% uptick in sales last year versus eBay’s 11%. What’s more, it signals a shift among consumers away from eBay’s core auction business toward immediate fixed price purchases, Amazon’s home turf. 

But here’s the rub. The GSI deal included the company’s ShopRunner program, a free-ship membership plan nearly identical to Amazon Prime. (For those not in the know, a $79 annual Prime membership gets you free shipping for any qualifying Amazon item. And that means consumers inevitably narrow product searches to Prime-only merch, leaving non-Prime sellers at a disadvantage. Yet these folks aren’t Amazon’s virtual bread and butter.)

With ShopRunner, you’d think eBay  would now have the perfect Killer App to Amazon Prime? The latest scoop, however, says eBay will unload ShopRunner for fear of alienating their sellers whom, for whatever reason, could/would not participate in the program. As a result eBay remains hostage to their smaller merchants while Amazon cranks up Prime to the benefit of their core constituency. 

So where’ the relevance to publishers? As I suggested early on, channel conflict is the hobgoblin of overly risk-averse companies unwilling to embrace new technology. Online pure-plays are selling automotive products direct to consumers, dispensing a wide range of automotive-related news and features, posting new car reviews, publishing immediate auctions results… all without the baggage and legacy costs associated with printing magazines. They are successful, in part, because they are able to execute from a clear strategy without being held captive by a diminishing group of customers without computers. And their customer demographic combine tech-savvy Boomers and a good dose of  today’s youth that only know music through downloads. Okay, so you say your publication’s “multi-channel” strategy means its equally effective online and in print? If your online ditty relies on repacked print such as ezines, I’m afraid you’re not in the game.

It’s fascinating to watch Amazon and eBay duke it out. I recall when launching the Mobilia Magazineonline auction section of our website in 1999 (after four years already providing web-based content), Amazon attempted to challenge eBay with a new auction format. Their failure to seize the high ground then perhaps worked in its favor as it allowed Amazon to fully devote itself to fixed price sales backed by superior fulfillment. You might say that the auction format is receding from consumers’ buying patterns leaving eBay at a competitive disadvantage, yet they now have the opportunity with ShopRunner to go for broke. But they blinked and if I was an eBay shareholder I’d be mighty pissed right now.

The company’s $2.4B price tag for GSI will impact eBay’s earnings this year and who knows how many more in the future. And eBay is now in the warehousing business, an anathema to their fundamental business plan.

Magazine publishers who tell advertisers they reach a cadre of non-PC buyers are only fooling themselves. Anyone selling a car, part, or collectible in today’s digital world simply will not, with very few exceptions, hassle a stack of 4X6 glossy photos and wait for grandpa to write back.

Bottom line, the limitations of eBay’s receding pool of small merchants has become eBay’s limitations. Don’t let this twisted parallel universe become your magazine’s future.

Hemmings is now offering their suite of collector car publications in digital formats. The ezines are repackaged versions of the print editions.

Pricing for one-year subscriptions are as follows: Hemmings Motors News ($12), Muscle Machines ($7), Classic Car ($7), Sports & Exotic ($7), or all four for $25.

More here.

Related blog postings.

Noted automotive writer, editor, and publisher David E. Davis Jr. died yesterday from complications resulting from bladder cancer. He was 80.

Davis pioneered a number of editorial techniques that elevated automotive journalism beyond the garage crowd and help place Car & Driver on the publishing map. Who can forget that timeless March 1964 cover story comparing the Pontiac GTO with the “equivalent” Ferrari, an industry game changer.

In 1985, thanks to Rupert Murdoch’s gilded cage of financial backing, Davis launched  Automobile under the mantra “No More Boring Cars!” Davis also introduced iconic pop writers such as P.J. O’Rourke and Tom Wolfe to scores of car enthusiasts.

Passionate about cars and its personalities, Davis was equally at home at center stage, part diplomat and every bit the showman. He was brash, opinionated, and loved wine and expensive firearms not to mention Buicks and anything Italian. 

Davis later helped establish eBay’s Winding Road then eventually returned to C&D as contributor.

Thus Spake David E. no more.

After 76 years the venerable publication National Speed Sport News shuts down citing tuff economic times and the general shift of print content to the web. Encouraging, though to learn the brand will continue in an online format.

Following posted today at the NSSN website:

All good things come to an end.

And so is the case for America’s Motorsports Authority, National Speed Sport News. After more than 76 years, the publication, which was first published as National Auto Racing News on Aug. 16, 1934, has printed its last issue, dated — March 23, 2011.

While hundreds of other newspapers came and went during the past three-quarters of a century, NSSN continued to ride the support of its readers and advertisers in producing the most thorough weekly racing publication on the market. But economic times have been tight and the newspaper business has suffered at the hands of high production costs and modern technology, which provides information to readers instantly.

“This is one of the saddest days of my life,” said National Speed Sport News Publisher Corinne Economaki. “The sluggish economy has made it too difficult to continue publication and no matter how I try to make the numbers work — and believe me I have tried — it is just not feasible to keep the business going.

“For 76 years, since August 1934 when my father Chris sold copies of the first issue at Ho-Ho-Kus Speedway in northern New Jersey, to today, as I oversee the very last copy printed, this paper has been an integral part of my family,” Corinne Economaki said.

Through the years National Speed Sport News was the industry leader in covering motorsports, much of it thanks to Chris Economaki, 90, who sold the first issue of NSSN at Ho-Ho-Kus Speedway in New Jersey, and began writing for the publication soon after that and became editor in 1950.

Economaki saw the publication through its glory days, launching a career on television and taking his newspaper into thousands of homes across America. In a time when there was no Internet and very little racing was on television or radio, National Speed Sport News thrived.

When National Speed Sport News began its run, there were no seat belts, drivers wore leather helmets and the flathead Ford V8 was one of the most common racing engines. Today, safety is the utmost concern and HANS and other safety devices are all the rage. Fuel-injected engines are everywhere.

Not only has technology changed what fans see at the race track, it changed how NSSN gathered the news. In the early years most news arrived at the NSSN office by mail or telephone. Later the telecopier and the fax machine played key roles. Both were replaced by the computer modem and later by e-mail.

NSSN was printed by linotype, but later changed to phototypesetting and finally went completely digital in 2002.

But after enduring all these changes, a familiar friend will no longer appear at the mailboxes of its loyal readers.

NationalSpeedSportNews.com, the online version of the newspaper, will continue to be updated with daily news, giving Internet savvy readers the opportunity to keep up with some of the same news they enjoyed every week.

But as far as the newspaper goes, it’s the end of an era.

AutoWeekchimned in with a thoughtful look back at the publication’s value and importance to generations of motoring journalists and fans alike.