Pete Petersen - Remembering Pete

***Ed Blown Vert*** · 09-29-2007, 06:50 AM

Pete Petersen - Remembering Pete

The world of hot rodding owes an inestimable debt to Robert Einar "Pete" Petersen.
Petersen, who passed away on March 23 from complications of neuroendocrine cancer, was a true American success story. Born in east Los Angeles in 1926 and modestly self-described as "just a kid from Barstow," he founded one of America's most successful magazine publishing companies.
Nearly 60 years ago, at barely 21 years old, Petersen set out to create a national publication to cover the fledgling hot rod community. HOT ROD magazine, and many other successes that followed-Motor Trend, Rod & Custom, Car Craft, Guns & Ammo, Teen, Savvy, and Skin Diver, to name just a few-grew beyond his wildest expectations. Bob Petersen was a self-made, tough, street-smart guy who never forgot his humble origins, and he was quietly modest about his remarkable achievements.
Actor James Garner, his close associate for over 35 years, says, "Pete didn't classify his friends by their social status. He was either your friend or he wasn't." John Dianna, a longtime Petersen honcho and now CEO of Buckaroo Communications, adds, " If he liked and trusted you, you were his guy for life. Pete was a man's man, a rugged individual with a certain magnetism that definitely contributed to his success."
Looking back, it took guts to establish HOT ROD magazine in January 1948. "Hot rod" was a pejorative term. Pete had the vision to see that hot rodding was more than a bunch of kids racing at the dry lakes and on the street. It was becoming a major sport. Alex Xydias, founder of the So-Cal Speed Shop, recalls, "We didn't really like the term 'hot rod.' That's what the Los Angeles Times and the Hearst newspapers used when they wrote about 'speed-crazed kids racing on the streets.' We called our cars 'roadsters.' For a long time, the SCTA (Southern California Timing Association) didn't even let coupes and sedans race at the dry lakes."
Dean Batchelor, in his book The American Hot Rod, tells this story: "The last SCTA dry lake meet in 1947, on October 19, sticks in my mind for several reasons. Alex Xydias and I had driven up to El Mirage in my roadster, and it would be the first run with my new flathead engine. We drove up Saturday to make it easier to get ready for Sunday's time trials. While walking around the pit area, a young guy neither of us knew collared Alex to show him the layout for a new magazine he was going to publish. He didn't say, 'I'm thinking of publishing it.' He said, 'I'm going to publish it.' He discussed the magazine's proposed coverage with Alex, how it would be circulated, and other things related to the publication's format, and then he asked Alex if he would advertise his speed shop in it. Alex put him off by suggesting he call or come by the shop during the week. After he left, Alex turned to me and asked, 'What do you think? Will it work?' My reply was, 'I think it'll sell great in Southern California, but I can't see much success in other parts of the country.'
"Right. I've eaten those words many times since 1947. The young man was Robert E. Petersen, who with Bob Lindsay started Hot Rod magazine, the circulation of which has since topped 1 million copies per month."
HOT ROD magazine made its debut at the First Annual HOT ROD Exposition at the LA National Guard Armory. Years ago when I asked Pete about using the name HOT ROD, he said matter-of-factly, "That's what they were called. Anything else wouldn't have been believable."
Right from the beginning, when he and Bob Lindsay put the money together to publish the magazine's first issue, Pete understood the business potential in selling advertisements to budding speed equipment manufacturers. His original assignment had been to gather ads for the hot rod show program, but (typical of this hard-driving businessman) Pete went far beyond that simple brief. Despite his youth, he somehow knew that if he could help focus this growing passion and contribute to making hot rodding legitimate and safe, the sport would grow-and it would last.
It's the stuff of legend that Petersen hawked the first issues of HRM for 25 cents each on the steps of the Armory. Pete was told he couldn't sell his magazines inside. His show partners were annoyed that not only had he sold plenty of ads for the program, he'd also sold them to run in his new magazine's first issue.
Optimistically, and again typical of the man, readers of Volume 1, Number 1 were invited to place a subscription order. The price was $3 "throughout the world." Pete later said, "That's how we got enough money to eat some nights. We'd be at a drive-in or a race, and we'd say, 'Let's go sell some subs.' We'd sell 'em, then we'd have enough money for supper."
Alex Xydias didn't buy an ad for his fledgling So-Cal Speed Shop in that first issue of Hot Rod. He finally got in on the third issue. "I couldn't see that a magazine that just went to a few dry lakes racers would ever be successful," he confesses. "Our customers might have come from as far away as the San Diego Roadster Club, but we didn't have many guys from Fresno in the SCTA. Of course, when I did place an ad, and started getting orders from guys all across the country, I realized Pete was right. If it weren't for HOT ROD, how else would a guy in Ohio who wanted a Winfield cam know where to buy it?"
"Soon I bought even bigger ads," Alex recalls. "I wanted my little shop in Burbank to look as big as Roy Richter's Bell Auto Parts. With his magazines, Pete gave us all that chance. I've heard people say the speed equipment manufacturers made Petersen rich, but it's just the other way around. Thanks to his magazines, he made many people successful and wealthy."
HRM was tiny at first. Pete's partner, Bob Lindsay, initially managed the office side of the business. Pete sold subscriptions, wrote and sold advertising, took many of the photos, planned editorial, and even wrote copy. Sometimes he really had to work to get an advertiser. He liked to tell a story about Vic Edelbrock, Sr., a winning dry lakes racer who developed and sold speed equipment out of his gas station on Highland Avenue in Hollywood. At first, Edelbrock didn't want to buy ads. After Pete convinced Vic to spend some money on quarter-page ads (by writing the copy and photographing the equipment himself), Edelbrock complained that his phone was ringing off the hook "and we have time to pump gas." To cut down on phone calls, Pete convinced Edelbrock to offer a catalog for 25 cents. Vic soon said they were making a fair amount of money selling catalogs to people all over the country, but the work involved in responding to the mail meant they still didn't have time to sell gas. Petersen recalled that he gently suggested to Edelbrock that perhaps he wasn't in the gas station business anymore and that now he was a "speed merchant."
In his book Hot Rod Pioneers, Ed Almquist quotes Petersen as saying, "We sold most ads to small businesses who didn't know any more about guaranteed circulation than we did. We'd show them the magazine ad, collect for it, and then rush back to pay the printer."
Wally Parks, 14 years Pete's senior and president of the SCTA at the time of HOT ROD's germination, was highly respected in the hot rod community. Pete clearly understood that Wally could be of inestimable help in many ways. Early on, he retained Parks to be the editor of HOT ROD, because he knew his experience as a dry lakes racer and as the SCTA's leader provided the credibility his fledgling magazine sorely needed.
Almost as soon as HOT ROD could stand on its own two feet, Petersen was back in January 1949 with Motor Trend, "The Magazine for a Motoring World." It was a more broadly focused monthly that covered the new-car industry, road-tested new models, and attracted an even wider variety of advertisers than HRM. Alex Xydias says, "Only 23 at the time, Pete realized there was a need for a national magazine that covered both domestic and imported cars. Besides," Alex laughs, "he knew selling an ad schedule to Ford Motor Company was worth a lot more than a selling a handful of small ads to speed shops."
Asked the secret to the success of his publications, Pete responded, "We hired talented guys who really knew about the subject matter: cars, guns, surfing, skin diving, whatever. We could always teach people how to write," he'd say, "but it was more important that they knew what they were talking about." And he could pick 'em: Wally Parks, Barney Navarro, Eric Rickman, Bob D'Olivo, Don Francisco, Roger Huntington, Ray Brock, Racer Brown, Tex Smith, Tom Medley, Alex Xydias, Don Prieto-the list goes on and on. That style of knowledgeable, in-depth reporting gave HOT ROD and later, Motor Trend, authentic, first-person validity. From the beginning, HRM was written by experienced, respected authorities.
"Pete was a wonderful judge of people," says Checkered Flag 200 chairman, car collector, and former Petersen Museum board member Bruce Meyer. "He could read them astutely, and he could recognize opportunities. He especially valued loyalty and trust. No one I knew had so many 30- to 40-year-old friendships. He gave so many people great opportunities."
Carroll Shelby, Pete's close friend for over 50 years, says, "Bob Petersen started more institutions than anybody I ever knew, and he didn't always get credit for what he did." Characteristically, Petersen was modest about his role in establishing the NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) and SEMA (originally the Speed Equipment Manufacturers Association, now the Specialty Equipment Market Association). From the beginning, he understood that legitimizing this so-called outlaw hot rod sport required a bona fide trade organization and a national club so guys all over the country could feel they were a part of something more important than fixing up old cars, dry lakes competitions, and even street racing. Bob Petersen helped underwrite both organizations and played a key role in their expansion. Besides being the right thing to do, it was good for business, and despite his lack of formal education Pete was instinctively an astute businessman.
After starting as a messenger boy at MGM Studios, then working with Hollywood Publicity Associates, then founding and expanding Petersen Publishing Company into a world-renowned firm, Pete later developed Petersen Aviation, a jet aircraft charter company; an ammunition manufacturing firm; a Paso Robles, California, winery; and a juice- bar business. He possessed extensive real estate holdings. He invested in ideas he valued, such as a new engine design with Carroll Shelby. A silent partner in many ventures, Pete had an instinct for a great idea and loved making a good deal.
Truth be told, Bob Petersen really liked hunting and fishing more than he liked automobiles. His stellar arms collection, especially the personal guns of Samuel Colt, astutely purchased over a long time, remains priceless. "He was a voracious reader on subjects he liked," recalls John Dianna. "And he was extremely knowledgeable about collectible firearms."
Pete always had an instinct for a bargain. About eight years ago when he bought a 135 M Figoni et Falaschi Delahaye, we were at a Ford Motor Company dinner, and the Bonhams & Brooks auctioneers in Carmel had called Pete so he could bid by phone. As the bidding soared to over a million dollars, he wasn't at all perturbed.
"What do you think?" he asked. I replied that it was a lot of money and the car probably needed a re-restoration. He responded, "Where would we get another one? They only made 11 of these, right?" He'd done his homework. As the price went up in $50,000 increments, Pete commented dryly, "I sure hope this ends soon; I'm really getting hungry." He won it with a $1.35 million bid; we returned to dinner, and other than telling his wife Margie about it, he didn't say anything. He was quietly pleased, like the cat that had swallowed the canary. And as was true so often, Pete was right; today, that Delahaye is worth more than three times what he paid for it.
You'd never want to play poker against Bob Petersen. He could be very, very tough. He subtly intimidated Natural History Museum President Jim Powell back in the days when the LA Museum of Natural History operated the Petersen Museum. Despite holding two Ph.D.s, and through no lack of trying, Powell could never figure out Pete's intentions. Normally erudite and cool, Powell would stammer and hesitate in a conversation with Petersen. When Powell authorized a trial press release indicating that the Natural History Museum would have to close the Petersen Museum because funds were not available to continue running it, Pete countered by quietly threatening to sue him and the entire Natural History Museum Board. Jim Powell retreated and the release never went out. "They'll have to come to me, eventually," Pete'd say with a grin, referring to Los Angeles County's disposition of the Museum. And eventually, they did.
Pete and Margie generously established a foundation to purchase the museum from the County of Los Angeles. To no one's surprise, the property on Fairfax and Wilshire in Los Angeles has appreciated well beyond the price they paid for it. And all the cars are worth more, too.
The best part of my job as Petersen Museum director was having long lunches with Pete, where he'd talk about hot rod and racing personalities, noted movie stars (he knew a lot of Hollywood and film industry people), celebrities, and politicians. He was modest about his friendships, he appreciated loyalty, and he withheld criticism of people for the most part, especially if a person was deceased. Pete was a very classy guy, in ways that transcended his obvious wealth. And he had an intense competitive streak.
One day he brought a bound volume of the first year of HOT ROD magazine to lunch. We leafed through a few issues, commenting on people and the feature cars he remembered. He reflected on an April '48 cover that showed Stuart Hilborn and his record-setting lakester, the first fuel-injected hot rod and the first streamliner to top 150 mph. "I took that picture in front of Stuart's mother's garage," Pete said. "Any idea where that car is now?" I told him that the Hilborn car had disappeared after a brief appearance at a dragstrip in Kansas many years ago, and that Bruce Meyer had placed some ads in Rod & Custom looking for it. He said, "Well, you'd better find it before he does." And he meant it.
Pete was the only guy I knew who could use the words Montrachet and shithead in the same sentence. He could be both crude and sophisticated, often at the same time. But that was part of his charm. Confident without being overbearing, with a well-developed sense of humor, Pete had an uncanny ability to read an ongoing situation almost as though he were outside watching events transpire, and then say the right thing at the right moment. John Dianna remembers that Pete would sit through day-long business meetings, often without a comment. "But at the end of the day," Dianna recalls, "he'd say a just few insightful things, and they'd encapsulate and focus everything that had been said." Like the skilled hunter and fisherman he was, he had incredible patience. He didn't have to make the first move; he instinctively knew how and when to make the one that would count. Bob Petersen would have been one hell of a gunfighter in the Old West.
While he was a bachelor, Pete dated some of the most beautiful women in Los Angeles, but that all changed when he met Margie McNally, a lovely New York model and former Miss Rheingold. Carroll Shelby remembers meeting her on Pete and Margie's first date. "I started to say something about women we knew, and then I said I had to get my date home before her husband got there. Pete kicked me under the table. 'Why'd you do that?' I said to him. 'I really like this girl,' Pete replied." He proposed to Margie on that first date. Adds Shelby, "After Pete met Margie, he was never interested in another woman."
Pete was very devoted to Margie. Their lives suffered a great tragedy when their sons Bobby and Ritchie were lost in an airplane crash when they were just boys. It would have destroyed many marriages, but it brought Pete and Margie closer together. In later life, they were very generous to organizations like the Boys & Girls Clubs and the Thalians, supporting the Mental Health Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The Petersens helped countless Los Angeles kids, even though they'd lost their own.
Carroll Shelby recalls: "We were friends for over 50 years. I owe Pete a lot. When I introduced the Cobra, he helped promote it with articles about the car in HOT ROD and Sports Car Graphic. Every CEO in Detroit respected him. He'd tell everybody, "You should see this new car Shelby's built. It's a winner.'"
So was Robert E. Petersen.
Wally Parks On Pete"In the beginning, Pete made his rounds on a ratty old Harley. It was his only transportation. He lived in a converted garage in West LA. I'd go by to bring him his unemployment check. He had a little office on Melrose , with an Army cot to sleep on when he worked late. His was really a Horatio Alger story. He and Bob Lindsay differed in many ways. Bob was the inside guy, running the office. Pete was the doorknocker; he liked to be out there selling ads and subscriptions. And he never lost confidence, even when things looked bad."
Pete Chapouris On Pete"For the 50th anniversary of the SCTA at Bonneville in 1999, Pete flew out a bunch of old-timers in one of his jets. Some of them, like Don Francisco and Louie Senter, probably couldn't have otherwise afforded that trip. At the Salt, he hired a bus and cruised the pits with these guys. It was one of the nicest things I've ever seen."
Petersen In His Own WordsThe following is an excerpt from an interview with Robert E. Petersen by Ken Gross that appeared in an issue of The Rodder's Journal.
"Right from the beginning, people just went crazy for HOT ROD. At first, I'd go up to the dry lakes and I'd go from guy to guy and I'd just sell 'em, for a quarter apiece. I'd say 'Hey, get your HOT ROD Magazine.' And I used to go to the racetracks at night, circle tracks like Ascot. Gilmore Stadium was the big deal then, 'Hot Rods at Gilmore.' I'd go down and shoot pictures during the race. During the breaks I'd sell magazines. We had a deal with the stadiums: We'd pay them a nickel a copy and we'd keep 20 cents.
"Before HOT ROD, Speed Age was there, and from time to time Car Life would come out but then it disappeared. After HOT ROD, Fawcett came out with a book called Best Hot Rods. They were going to publish out East and we ate 'em up. They didn't know anything. A guy came in from Fawcett with a suit and the whole thing, and made a big pitch to Phil Weiand. I was there working on my roadster. Phil said, 'What do you think of all that?' And I said, 'I dunno, I think that's a bunch of shit, Phil; I'd never buy that.' And the guy said, 'Well, who're you?' 'And I said, I'm the publisher of HOT ROD.'
"Wally Parks was always a great leader. He ran the SCTA. When I started HOT ROD, he was a great help because he could identify everything-the key people, the cars, etc. We worked together a lot. When he came in as editor of HOT ROD, we talked about how great it would be to have a big association. That was always Wally's dream. HOT ROD magazine put up the money to send a promotional tour around the country called the Safety Safari.
"We sent Bud Coons and Eric Rickman around . The idea was twofold. First, we'd be able to have something in our magazine besides California cars, and second, we would unite all the fellows together to make hot-rodding a national sport. Wally thought that if he could organize everybody that he could get the power to make these guys clean up their act. Those two ideas worked. HOT ROD magazine financed NHRA and got it going. In fact, the emblem was designed by our company's artist.
"SEMA came about because we were getting all kinds of pounding by the government over putting on hot equipment and wrecking cars and using more gas, etc., so we said we have to get an association to protect the hot rod group and the industry. Again, HOT ROD magazine came to the fore. We said, 'Let's do a show and we'll raise some money and we'll give part of the money to an association to clean this up.' We started it and did the first show.
"Ray Brock was the publisher of HOT ROD; it was his job to get going. At that time, SEMA was supposed to get a percentage of our take. We were working on that basis. They had a loose-knit group of guys who were in the hot rod speed equipment business who formed their own committees to do all of this. The first year, I lost money, but the second year it started to work. And after that it started to go, and more manufacturers joined."

Photo Gallery: Pete Petersen - Remembering Pete - Hot Rod Magazine

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