| Hemmings Motor News | |
| Image Alt: | Hemmings Motor News logo |
| Frequency: | Monthly |
| Total Circulation: | 211,510[1] |
| Circulation Year: | December 2012 |
| Category: | Classic Car Magazine |
| Company: | American City Business Journals |
| Founder: | Ernest Hemmings |
| Country: | United States |
| Based: | Bennington, Vermont, U.S. |
| Issn: | 0049-1845 |
Hemmings Motor News is a monthly magazine catering to traders and collectors of antique, classic, and exotic sports cars. It is the largest and oldest publication of its type in the United States, with sales of 215,000 copies per month, and is best known for its large classified advertising sections. The magazine counts as subscribers and advertisers practically every notable seller and collector of classic cars, including Jay Leno and his Big Dog Garage,[2] and most collector car clubs are included in its directory.
The magazine was started by Ernest Hemmings in Quincy, Illinois, in 1954, then purchased by Terry Ehrich, who moved the company, Hemmings Motor News Publishing, to Bennington, Vermont in the late 1960s. Ehrich published the magazine until his death in 2002. Hemmings Motor News Publishing was then acquired by American City Business Journals (ACBJ).[3] Hemmings Motor News currently has 100 employees at its Bennington, Vermont headquarters.[4]
Starting in 1970, Hemmings Motor News Publishing added Special Interest Autos, a bimonthly periodical focused primarily on American collectible automobiles. From 2000 to 2003, they published the muscle car and hotrod magazine Hemmings Rods and Performance, relaunched in 2003, under new owner ACBJ, as Hemmings Muscle Machines, with muscle cars as its sole focus.
In 2004, shortly after the release of Hemmings Muscle Machines, ACBJ ended publication of Special Interest Autos and began to develop its successor, Hemmings Classic Car, launched in October of that year. That was followed in 2005 by the addition of a new magazine, Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car.
Hemmings Motor News also contains an approximately 80-page section of editorial content. Content includes coverage of collector-car shows and auctions, sports cars, touring cars, classic cars, pre-war cars and historic racing cars, as well as family-type automobiles.
ACBJ, under the Hemmings banner, also sells a large line of calendars, clothing, signs, and other items relating to automobile collecting and memorabilia, and maintains a public display of 25 cars at their headquarters.
Richard Lentinello, executive editor of the three Hemmings-related magazines, left ACBJ in 2020.[5]
Hemmings Classic Car, launched in October 2004, is a monthly magazine and successor of Special Interest Autos (1970–January 2004), covering the topic of American, European and Japanese-built collector cars, targeting enthusiasts, owners, collectors, dealers, restorers and parts manufacturers.
Hemmings Classic Car captures several distinct collector-car audiences in a single publication, with an emphasis on early post-war 1946–1960 automobiles. Other categories include the pre-1916 Brass era cars, pre-war cars, CCCA-recognized Classic cars, and cars from the 1960s through the early 1980s.
Hemmings Classic Car features photography showcasing these automobiles, including in-construction photographs of the entire restoration process, showing readers what it takes to produce a concours-quality collectible., data showed it as the best-selling old-car magazine in the world.[6]
Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car, launched in 2005 by American City Business Journals, was an automobile enthusiast magazine with content consisting solely of collector cars built outside the United States. In March 2017, subscribers of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car were notified that the May 2017 issue would be the last, citing "financial reasons" for the cancellation.[7]
Hemmings Muscle Machines, an American City Business Journals 2005 refocused continuation of Hemmings Motor News Publishing's Hemmings Rods and Performance (2000–2005). It is a bimonthly periodical focused primarily on muscle cars from the postwar era to present. Content includes original cars, restorations, modified cars and new-production muscle cars.
In 1979, a team from Hemmings participated in the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash.[8] [9] In 1986, the same team of Terry Erich, former BMW factory motorcycle racer Justus Taylor and Hemmings editor-in-chief David Brownell entered the Great American Race,[10] and Hemmings later became a primary sponsor of the race. In 2007, Hemmings ended their participation in what was now called the Great Race, and began participating in the Hemmings Vintage Car Rally.[11] Hemmings' sponsorship of the Great Race resumed in 2011.[12]