Magazines. Car magazines. Lots of them....

 I have many old magazines from the 80s; 90s and 00s. Road and Track; Car and Driver; Motor Trend; and GRASSROOTS MOTORSPORTS. I am in the middle of deep-cleaning the basement and I'm wondering if I should keep any of them. In "the old days" when I was interested in a particular car I would go through most of them in search of new cars reviews and any updates and/or articles on the car. For a few years now I just go to the interwebs and type in the car name. 

 So. The question (finally) is whether I should just toss them. I would save a LOT of space, but have so many nice memories of the times using them and still remember some of the articles. (People complaining about why a 914 front fenders were only four inches wide. Why bother if they were that small so why have them at all. These days most fenders are that small!).

 Anyway I figured a lot of folks here might have the same "issue" and would appreciate feedback.

I had stacks of Classic & Sports Car as well as some other old car and bike magazines.  I gave a few away but at the end of the day I put  everything that wasn't directly related to me or a car I owned in the recycle bin.

My reasoning was if they were so useful than why were they sitting boxes?

I went through a stack and sliced out articles that I enjoyed.  I figured they were leaving my basement either waterlogged or really musty smelling someday.  

shelving young man.  Shelving.

I had to kick my oldest GRM's to the curb along with 4 Wheel Drive & Sport Utility because they had no binders.  Staples only.  Those won't work on a shelf since 1) you can't tell what you're looking at and 2) the covers slide off when you pull them out.

Edit: I've probably tossed 1000 of them.  I get what you mean by hating to let go.

I think it would be really cool to do a challenge car exterior in old magazine paper mache.

I keep my GRM, Classic Motorsports and Hot Rod. All the others get rotated out so that I have a storage sleeve of the latest issues. The Hot Rod goes back to 1967 and part of me doesn't want to just throw the whole lot in the recycle bin, while the other part admits keeping them makes no sense. I think I'll just leave the decision to my heirs.......

Tom1200 said:

My reasoning was if they were so useful than why were they sitting boxes?

This is how I treat ALL kinds of clutter and items and clothing. Sure I haven't used my helmet in a couple years so I'm not going to toss that, but other stuff. 

If it's been in a closet or shed in a box for 2, 5, 10 years..........do I really need it? Most of the time the answer is no.

In reply to stan :

My collection of mostly Road and Track goes back to the early 50's. They aren't pristine untouched  versions. So I suspect I'll be tossing them this spring. Unless I receive an offer otherwise. 

I have exactly the same problem.  I have tons of GRMs, Alfa Owners from the '80's and early '90's, old British mags about classic cars, and like frenchyd, Road and Tracks from the early 50's up until the early '90's.  I would hate to throw them away, but they take up a lot of space.  I tried donating the Road Tracks to my local library, but they did not want them.  Anyone near Huntsville, AL wants them, I would pass them on for free.

I've got literally 25 years worth of AutoWeek that I contemplate throwing out every time I move/look at them but I haven't been able to get myself to do that yet. 

I will say now that I've been subscribing for about 15 years that GRMs age far better than Hot Rod, Car Craft and all that due to the much wider variety of cars and engines seen in GRM. And GRM doesn't push fads like the rod mags did.

So my wife gave me a good idea. I have about a dozen region newsletters I kept that have my results or articles I wrote. She suggested I cut them out and make a a collage, frame it and put it in the garage. She's is an artist so we have several poster size frames I can use.

I suppose one could make some cool wallpaper or table tops with old magazines but then that's just another project.

About two years ago I had probably a dozen computer paper boxes full of magazines; as of this week I have half a box and those will be the aforementioned collage.  The magazines that apply directly to me are on my book shelves, might be all of 15 of them.

When I walk into a room I want it to make me smile; be it the kitchen (ooo look food) the library (nice place to be) the garage Mahal (my car cave).  Stacks of boxes in a room does not make me smile. 

 A lot of great suggestions -as always. 

 I think I will toss 90%, keep some of the more pertinent ones and maybe try to do the collage-thing (I'm an "artist" too, but probably not at the level of Ms.Tom1200, and have large poster size frames also).

 Thanks, as always, for the input, and a special thanks for the "young man" thing...

: D

Stan

Uh...you throw them out?

I've read each and every one at least 3 times, some even more. Actual Physical copies are the only way to get the articles in some obscure or defunct periodicals. Once it's gone, that information is lost forever.

Yes, those are milk crates. They work fantastic for storage. 

Appleseed said:

Uh...you throw them out?

I've read each and every one at least 3 times, some even more. Actual Physical copies are the only way to get the articles in some obscure or defunct periodicals. Once it's gone, that information is lost forever.

Yes, those are milk crates. They work fantastic for storage. 

and I worried about the weight on my shelves.  Is your foundation sinking yet?  :-)

I recently came across The Auto History Preservation Society and I've already used their archive.  (Apparently what I really need to keep me sane during a pandemic is a 1958 road test of an Alfa 1300ti from Sports Cars Illustrated.  "The most pleasant surprise was the discovery of a hand throttle just under the steering column.")

Anyway, NMNA, but it sounds as though we'd all be doing future people like us a favour if we made our, ahem, "archives" available for scanning.  (In my case, it's Car and Driver from 2009, when I quit the print edition cold turkey, back to 1965.  I've culled most of the rest.)

Road & Track starting December, 1986.  Grassroots Motorsports, Porsche Panorama, auto literature, dealership brochures, etc.  Second photo is Christophorus, the Porsche factory magazine, going back to the 1970s.  Back then Christophorus was soo cool.

Since all the Magazines are gone now  from print , 

Do you think anyone will scan them and put them on the web ?

I would love to have a CD rom of Christophorus  , Auto motor und Sport  and a bunch of other German magazines , 

and of course  "Chrome and Flames"

And with Google translate I might be able to understand more than the pretty pictures !

In reply to californiamilleghia :

I tried like hell to find the old Sport Compact Car hybrid how-to to swap a B6t into a Festiva because we were talking Festiva E36 M3boxes on the forum. Used to be on the net. Gone. So I pulled out my SCC back issues and there it was. Shared it here about a month ago. That info would basically be gone if I didn't save it.

californiamilleghia said:

Since all the Magazines are gone now  from print , 

Do you think anyone will scan them and put them on the web ?

Google Books has some magazines scanned.  I'm not sure how many titles, but I know they have Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines going all the way back to the beginning.  The magazines are searchable as well, which is handy.  I imagine it depends on the popularity of the magazine title, plus having someone take the time to scan them.

My collection:

I decided not to keep anything after 2000, since by that time most of the mags had an online presence, so you can find those articles on their websites. Except GRM, which is worth saving. And also, because I had to draw the line somewhere!

My "collection" and reading corner......

Oh...down in the basement at the Petersen.  There is a library but it seemed to be off limits to the public.  They had a treasure trove of magazines and books...well, because Petersen Publishing.  I really wanted in there but I had already been called out once for snickering when the tour guide said an Olds engine was a SBC.  He wasn't a car guy at all but likely some Hollywood type who's break never came.

Tom1200 said:

My reasoning was if they were so useful than why were they sitting boxes?

I think there might be some sold life advice here. I have plenty of stuff I'm on the fence about keeping, so maybe I should stuff them up in some boxes, and if I don't go looking for them by the end of this year, I should just get rid of them.

Every couple of years I do a purge.  Magazines that have less than half the content I'd want to reread get the articles cut out and scanned.

There are worse ways to waste a Sunday afternoon.