Modeling and Parts Review No More

After Hours to End With July Issue

Posted February 10 2009 01:24 PM by MustangMan
Filed under: Editorials

After Hours Ending With July 2009 Issue

Editor Houlahan fills us in on the decision to stop publishing the After Hours section in his blog.

Running a magazine is like dealing with a large family. You have a daughter that doesn't like vegetables and you have a son that's afraid of clowns and you have another son that needs a bedtime story or he can't get to sleep. All of these issues make for a stressful home environment, but you do your best to fulfill everyone's wishes because you love them. Well, running a magazine is eerily similar.

We have readers that love classic Mustangs and nothing else. We have readers that have never owned a Mustang, but enjoyed our previous magazine for all of the Ford content. And of course we have late-model readers that could give a rat's behind about heritage and Ford history. Being a business we also have advertisers, and just like our readers, we have advertisers that only sell late-model parts, or only sell drag racing parts, or only concours show parts. You get the drift. Anyway, because I care about all of these aspects of the magazine I try to do my best that when you pick up a copy of the magazine there's something in there for YOU. Sure, it's not cover to cover classic Ford, or cover to cover car show and events, but we do something for everyone.

One section that carried over from the merger, After Hours, has been a struggle for me from day one. I knew our classic readers wouldn't care for it, yet most of the late-model readers we're good with it. Frankly, all I could see was that was five or six pages I could be giving our readers more event coverage, another classic Ford feature, or another great tech story.

With the economy being tighter than my waisteline on Thanksgiving day, it has not been easy to keep us swimming in pages to bring you all the coverage I want to. After many months of discussions with management they've finally agreed to drop After Hours from the magazine. This is something I wish we could have done sooner, but nothing worth doing happens overnight. I hope you find this a turn in the right direction and please let your friends know that after July Modified Mustangs & Fords will not have After Hours published anymore.

Thanks for your support and understanding.

Mark Houlahan

Editor, Modified Mustangs & Fords

Reader Comments:

1. That should shut up a lot of people....

...now if we could only get a 1970 Mercury Cougar in the magazine some time.....

shipfitter_sjd - Posted February 10 2009 09:56 PM

2. Will a '68 Cougar make you feel better Steve? It's coming in the May issue, which goes to the printer in less than two weeks...

:)

Mark

MustangMan - Posted February 11 2009 08:43 AM

3. SWEET!!!!!!

YES! That does make me feel better!!!

Thanks!

Steve

shipfitter_sjd - Posted February 11 2009 02:13 PM

4. Tell me more!

shipfitter_sjd - Posted February 11 2009 07:18 PM

5. I'll will let my friends know, and they'll end their subscriptions, too! Mine should be up by then, and I won't be renewing. There's other Mustang mags out there that haven't gone bland. MM&F isn't found at very many west coast retailers anyway. I'll be surprised if you're still around in two years anyway........

Blown4.6GT - Posted February 15 2009 01:10 AM

6. Thanks for the comments Blown4.6, but Mustang & Fords survived for 26 years without that kind of content, so I'm sure we'll be fine (and around) in two years. Say hello to the guys at Muscle Mustangs for me, since that's the only Mustang book you'll find that kind of "content" in from now on...

You say it'll be bland just because there's no half-naked women in it? I won't even validate that comment with a response...

To each his own, but believe it or not we have a lot of readers AND advertisers that don't like AH...

Mark

MustangMan - Posted February 16 2009 10:36 AM

7. Thank you so very much for ending the after hours section of your magazine. I look forward to the new content beginning in August. Thanks again.

mustrev - Posted February 16 2009 11:05 AM

8. I thought the "After Hours" section was good for displaying products. The girls were good too, but it was an ad space for things and info other than 8000 parts for the Mustang I don't own. If the decision was based on the section being "distasteful" or "exploitative", that is plain lame. Then People magazine shouldn't run a "sexiest man alive" issue, and so on. I hope the space is filled with something other than more of the same. In short, it's sad, but I hope for the best. Thanks.

bleedingblue - Posted February 16 2009 02:47 PM

9. Ladies running 200 MPH at Bonneville, winning in TF/FC or working on cars - two thumbs up. Ladies leaning over 20" chrome rims - I say "rice". [url=http://www.lowridermagazine.com/index.html]Here's a link for Blown 4.6[/url] - this is right up your alley.

Falcon67 - Posted February 17 2009 09:20 AM

10. Guess I was wrong. It didn't shut anyone up! Just goes to show you that you cannot please all of the people all of the time and that you cannot please some of the people all of the time but you can only please some of the people some of the time.

Ha Ha! That is about as funny as our stimulus bill!

shipfitter_sjd - Posted February 17 2009 08:20 PM

11. But this won't cost us anywhere nearly as much as the (non)stimulus bill that just passed.

cmr/gclark - Posted February 20 2009 08:31 AM

12. Isn't that the plain, honest to God truth?

shipfitter_sjd - Posted February 20 2009 10:15 AM

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