OVERVIEW:
Custom Classic Trucks magazine, published by Petersen Publishing Company, was started in response to growing trends and interest in restoring
or customizing classic pickup trucks from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. It was especially focused on Ford and Chevrolet trucks.
Originally titled Custom & Classic Trucks, the ampersand was dropped with the April, 1996 issue. But it remained a bi-monthly until February, 2004 when it went to a monthly schedule. It remained a monthly title until it ended.
Content included events and shows, "how-to" technical articles, and featured show trucks as well as work-in-progress and completed owner vehicles. It competed with similar content and an earlier market entrant from McMullen-Yee entitled Truckin Classic Trucks. Both titles would remain competitors for several years, although by 1996 they were in the same corporate entity, K-III Communications (later Primedia).
OWNERSHIP:
The editors and staff rode a wave of changes as the title moved through various new owners:
- 1996 -- Robert E. Petersen sells his company to a private equity firm for an estimated $550 million,
- 1998 -- The private equity firm sells titles to EMAP P.L.C. for $1.5 billion,
- 2001 -- EMAP P.L.C. sells its American magazine titles to Primedia for $515 million,
- 2007 -- Primedia sells its Enthusiast Media division to Source Interlink Media for $1.2 billion, and,
- 2014 -- Source Interlink rebrands to TEN: The Enthusiast Network, and multiple titles are ended including Custom Classic Trucks. The content was folded into Classic Trucks
PUBLICATION DATA:
The publisher provided net paid circulation data to Oxbridge Communication's compendium, The Standard Periodical Directory from
1998 to 2005 with a few gaps in-between. Reported volume ranged from 188,000 to 243,000 print issues annually.
CONTENT COMPLETENESS:
A total of 185 issues was printed from April, 1994 until August, 2014. Cover images are complete through the end of print except November, 2011.
INTERNET:
The publisher provided online content beginning in April, 2001. The site is now defunct: www.customclassictrucks.com.
Monthly schedule
