There was no warning, not even a hint. Cars & Parts, the best all-around magazine covering the collector-car hobby, is dead. I learned this on Monday, when Auto Enthusiast, accompanied by a brief letter from Amos Publishing, arrived in my mailbox.
I have subscribed to Cars & Parts for more than 30 years. Other than attending car shows, it was my primary source of information about collector cars. I looked forward to getting it each month and reading it from cover to cover.
It was a great magazine with a good balance of content. A typical month had articles on feature cars, restoration how-to, shows, auctions, and a salvage yard in some remote part of the country complete with photos of rusting classics. My favorite part was a forum that showcased pictures and brief histories of cars sent in by real people: the readers. I thought the editor, Brad Bowling, was doing a solid job in adding new content and in keeping up quality in difficult economic times. Clearly the magazine was the product of people who cared about what they did. I only sent email to the editorial staff a couple of times, but each message was promptly and carefully answered.
The letter from Amos Publishing explained that Cars & Parts and its six sister magazines are no longer available in their current magazine format. Further that they have been combined into a new magazine called Auto Enthusiast, which I would receive for the remainder of my subscription. Cars & Parts, now called “Classics,” makes up its final section. Amos even kept a few Cars & Parts features—the salvage yard article, a column by Earl Duty, and the design of the classified ads section. Seven magazines for one sounds like an OK tradeoff, right?
Not exactly. The new magazine is slick and glossy. But it seems to be more concerned with ads than content. Plus combining seven magazines into one means none of them will get the depth they need and that readers want. There’s no forum, no letters, no reader feedback. (Maybe that will come as the issue I read marked the magazine’s debut.) The few articles in the Classics section were frustratingly brief. The new editor’s first column remarked that this is a changing world and promised a great ride. He didn’t bother to explain why Amos made the change. I was reminded of my favorite texting abbreviation—GOI (for get over it).
When something or someone is gone forever (a firing, a closing, a dismissal), it’s tempting to focus on how the situation was handled rather than what happened. Although I’m sure Amos thought things through carefully, I think they are open to some criticism there. They probably figured readers would focus on the future rather than mourn the past. Whatever their reasoning was, you don’t kill a magazine that some readers have been taking for decades without some warning. And even though everyone knows that printed media is facing a tough challenge in an increasingly online world, it would have eased the pain if Amos had explained why they acted and what their business plan is for survival in the future.
I’ll miss Cars & Parts. I wonder how other former readers feel. I made some quick searches for a forum where people might be weighing in on how we were blindsided. I couldn’t find one. So in absence of an online wake, this posting will need to do.
Mud Bay Blog 
That’s terrible and a shocking way to find out. I am reminded of the Gourmet book Jennie got me that was supposed to come with a subscription to the magazine. The magazine which is no longer being published. At least when they end a TV show that people have been watching forever there is advanced warning.
Here is a copy of an email to the Publisher and Senior Director of Marketing and Sales, John Nichols, that I sent on November 8th right after receiving the first issue of “Auto Enthusiast”. I never received a reply so apparently my email was ignored.
Sir:
I have been a subscriber to Cars & Parts since 1966 and today I received in the mail “Auto Enthusiast”. I immediately looked through the magazine thinking this was some kind of promo issue for a new type of car magazine. After spending considerable time looking through this issue and noticing its 100 plus pages of advertising, I threw the magazine into my waste basket. I quickly noticed as the issue was flying into the receptacle the attached envelope affixed to the back cover. I quickly retrieved the issue from the trash and removed the envelope from the back cover thinking that the information contained inside of the envelope was some hype letter trying to convince me to subscribe to this new fangled advertising magazine. I was more curious than anything just to see what the outrageous subscription rates were per year for this phone book of ads. I was shocked to find that the info. contained within the envelope was a cover letter stating that my 44 years of subscription to the great little magazine of Cars & Parts has been discontinued and I will now receive “Auto Enthusiast” in its place. All of this with no advance warning. I just finished reading my latest issue of the Cars & Parts and now this……. I’m shocked!
This totally and completely sucks! After 44 years I’m done! You can immediately cancel the remainder of my subscription to the defunct Cars & Parts Magazine and send me any refund that is due on the remaining issues. I have absolutely no desire to wade through a zillion advertisements just to read a couple of articles on various vehicles…half of which I am not interested in. What a shame! You guys should be ashamed in destroying yet another automotive land mark…..Cars & Parts. What a sad ending for a great magazine!
As I footnote, I learned later that all subscriptions are non-refundable, so this “Book of Ads” continues to weight down my waste basket with each new issue. And, the irony of the whole thing is that I just re-subscribed to “Cars & Parts” magazine two months before the new “phone book” of ads started arriving. Since it is against “company policy” to give subscription refunds, I am throwing money away each time an issue of “Auto Enthusiast” arrives and it ends up in the waste basket unread.
Yep……I sure do miss “Cars & Parts”!
I share your disappointment with the demise of “Cars & parts” and the poor manner in which its obituary was handled. “Auto Enthusiast” would be more appropriately named, “Ad Enthusiast.” The new publication reminds me of the free weekly flyers available at super markets. I cannot imagine that many subscribers of a magazine written and presented as well as “Cars & parts” would find this new abomination an acceptable substitute.
as a die hard street rod owner who for the last 25 years has subscribed to cars and parts i was very sorry to hear of the death of this great magazine. from what i have seen this rag will have a quick and painful death. long live the swap meet in Springfield Oh.
Thanks _very much_ for posting this blog since there is no other place to vent on this topic. I’ve subscribed to CARS & PARTS since 1988, always looking forward to receiving it each month and reading it cover to cover. When AUTO ENTHUSIAST showed up, I thought it was a promo and I laid it aside. Finally, I called Amos Customer Service after two months went by and no C&P. ACS told me about the switch. What a shock. Since I’d just renewed my subscription for three years, I wasn’t at all pleased. I pulled out the two issues of AE that had come and I then found the attached letter. It’s a rotten way to treat loyal subscribers. Amos could at least have sprung for a separate letter so we’d know right away what had happened. In recent years I’d noted the increase in ads, the decrease in size and number of pages, the parade of new editors, but the titanic efforts of Brad Bowling and his writers to update and improve the publication for the changing hobby were very much appreciated. Apparently it was just too much. I will very much miss this quality publication, especially the folksy and accessible writing of former editor Bob Stevens, the episodic histories of the various marques, and the restoration series of the Miss Vickys, Peggy Sues, etc. I hope that Earl Duty’s outstanding tech articles will remain in the new pub to keep new generations informed. Farewell, CARS & PARTS, I will keep all of the back issues.
I’m shocked the greateast magazine, Cars&Parts, is gone. I was behind reading 6 months and didn’t realize the lousy replacement magazine that I didn’t order was all that was left. What a shame. They’ve lost my business. I’m cancelling Auto Enthusiast. They dodn’t get it.
Unfortunately, it looks like we are all stuck with this new advertising rag whether we want it or not. As posted above, due to company policy, Amos Press will not refund any money on magazine subscriptions. So, apparently we will keep receiving this garbage magazine until our subscriptions run out! At any rate, all of the issues of Auto Enthusiast that I have received thus far have immediately gone from my mail box to the trash can and I will continue to throw each issue away without being read until my current subscription is finally over later this year. I have no desire to read a catalog full of advertisements!
All I can add at this point is that Amos Press is obviously run by a drawer full of complete morons!
Here is what I just sent the Ohio Attorney General and the Better Business Bureau regarding the fraud by Amos Publishing Co. You guys should do the same.
Greetings
For decades, I was a subscriber to a special interest publication titled Cars & Parts, renewing my subscription year after year. The last payment to receive Cars & Parts for an additional year was made on August 2, 2010 for $31.95.
Months ago and without notice, Amos Automotive Publishing P.O. Box 926 Sidney, OH 45365-0926 discontinued publishing Cars & Parts substituting another of their publications. The replacement magazine contains little of interest to me. Moreover, it is offered for $19.99. Four attempts to stop the receipt of the replacement magazine and obtain a refund of the total amount paid have failed. Today, I was told that subscriptions were non-refundable.
My contention is Amos Publishing Co has perpetrated a fraud by accepting my payment for a subscription to Cars & Parts then, almost immediately thereafter, giving me no choice but to accept another publication in which I have no interest in receiving. While the dollar amount here is almost insignificant, the deception is not. Please intervene to obtain a just conclusion in this matter.
Barry: That is a great letter! Please post here the reply, if any, that you receive from either the Ohio Attorney General or the Better Business Bureau.
Thanks!
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to think that my receiving “Auto Enthusiast” was just a publicity
gimmick. I too had renewed my subscription, etc., etc.
When I have tried to compain, I get a line saying that they are confused. Do I want to subscribe to Cars and Parts? I live in Canada so they probably think they can get away with it. This is now one subscription that I just wish would expire.
Ms. Luann Warner
lwarner@dayton.bbb.org
Customer Service Representative
Dayton, Ohio Better Business Bureau
RE: Case #42033886
It appears I did fully present you with relevant facts about the fraud perpetrated by Amos Publishing on me and countless other former subscribers to their publication, Cars & Parts. That may be the reason why you have apparently ended your involvement in this matter by accepting the Amos contention that by substituting another automotive magazine, they were relieved of any responsibility to provide the product they offered or refund my purchase price.
First, here is a definition of fraud: “The wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.” Then there is this one: “A thing intended to deceive others, typically by unjustifiably claiming or being credited with qualities it does not possess.” A simple example would be the farmer that offers wheat but delivers corn. While both grow in the ground from seed and are both grains and in some applications one could possibly be substituted for the other, they are not the same. A baker would not accept corn if they bought wheat, even if the substitution was because the wheat crop had failed. Would your bureau abandon that baker?
Moreover, Amos Publishing offered Cars & Parts at $31.95 which I paid in full. Their unacceptable substitute is offered for $19.99. What stronger evidence could be presented to prove that even they do not consider the substitute to be of equal value to Cars & Parts?
I realize that this issue concerns an almost trivial amount. However, by not standing firm in demanding the full return of my original purchase price, Amos Publishing retains the rewards of their deception. You may also be interested that there are others concerned about this lack of ethics by Amos Publishing. Some of their comments may be seen by clicking https://mudbay.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/a-wake-for-cars-parts/ . I intend to share this email with them and others. You may also be interested that subscriptions are still solicited to Cars & Parts at http://www.magazineline.com/magazineline/cars&parts.htm
Barry Holt Blank
I too was a long time subscriber and very disappointed in how things were handled.This is the 4th time for me a magazine I was subscribed too has done this.First it was fabulous mustangs and exotic fords…they folded and sent hot rod in its place.Then it was musclecar review.They sent car craft in its place.Then musclecar classics.Dont remember who they substituted but it is a total rip off to send a generic magazine in place of what you are supposed to be getting but they all got away with it in spite of numerous complaints.Guess when one gets away with it it leaves the door wide open for everyone else to do the same.
Cars & Parts was a great magazine, and I too thought that the slick copy of Auto Enthusiast that arrived in my mailbox was a “promo” which didn’t even look interesting to me, so I didn’t even open the plastic sleeve for several months after it arrived. A.E. is a sucky rag and poor substitute for C&P. I too hope that Cars & Parts Springfield continues to be held. If I had been offered the CHOICE of receiving C&P as a WEB MAG (via paid subscription) I would have chosen to continue receiving C&P in digital form only (over receiving their substitute rag in my mailbox). I wouldn’t have LIKED the fact that I could no longer hold C&P “in my hands”… but I would probably have remained a customer.
Amos Press continues to send me their stupid advertising “catalog” and I still continue to throw it in the trash can each month without even looking at it. As stated above I sent them an email telling them exactly what I thought of their dish rag and I requested my money back on my subscription. Never received a reply or my money back either. Figured that I would just wait until my totally worthless subscription ran out. It finally did…..and now those stupid morons keep sending me renewal notices!! Fat chance that I will ever subscribe to that fish rag! Heck, I wouldn’t even take that crappy magazine if it were given to me free each month!!! The magazine is so bad that my mailman won’t even read it!!
I feel your pain. Not only did the publisher ignore my requests to stop sending the worthless replacement for Cars & Parts, the Dayton Better Business Bureau and the Ohio Attorney General also have done nothing to address the issue of fraud. However, I did pay for the subscription with a credit card. Discover, bless them, gave me a full refund. While that sounds like a good thing, the dispute was never about the few dollars involved but the morality of Amos in dealing with long time customers. The refund was donated to charity.
Wow, I feel like an IDIOT! I’ve been tossing “Auto Enthusiast” routinely in the trash after taking a look at one or two and thinking also that it was advertising. Then driving to Arizona this weekend, I thought about “Cars & Parts” and Studebaker Hawks (I owned a Stude in AZ years ago) and started to look for them. Damn, it took almost a year for me to realize it was GONE – not because I forgot to pay the renewal but GONE and replaced by AD’s… oh well… Welcome to Today… dr. g.
Not sure what the problem is guys, the new mag works great for lining the birdcage with…
This new mag, is in a word, crap beyond belief. What a waste of ink and paper, and a bag over the head punch in the gut to the rest of us loyal subscribers. Shame on them.
I liked you post Maintaining your car for longer life is a good option
but most of busy people dont have time spare time for maintaining their
car and look after their maintainence which degrades the value of their car
in mean time and they have to go to garage for repair work in such case
purchase of an after market part or spares for car is a good option
and i suggest JDM Performance Car Parts store
Long ago, I was a long-term subscriber to “Cars & Parts”. Things are not easy in the print media. Yes, it IS discouraging. I find that at age 68, time is slipping by, faster & faster. Just try to find a decent FOUR-door hardtop without a monstrous-size engine….preferably w/ vent windows!
just remembered the fine Cars and Parts magazine, and found this site. The Amos Company certainly is unethical in their handling of the subscriptions—terrible business practices. But we are stuck with it.