Editor Houlahan

Sir -

Modified Mustangs was my favorite Mustang magazine when it came out.  It seemed that it always had one article about a S197, one featuring an SN95/New Edge car, a piece on a Fox and one on something else.  This at a time when all the other rags forgot about everything except the new cars.  I liked it so much that I let my subscriptions to MM&FF and 5.0 lapse and reupped my subscription in the middle of 08 for three years.  Immediately thereafter you changed the format.  In my opinion, it was not a good move, but I still enjoyed the publication for the most part.  I still got a fairly healthy dose of 5.0-related information and the rest of the articles made good "reading room" material, if you know what I mean.  I just received my December 09 issue and, as always, the first thing I turned to was your column.  Not to suck up, but yours is one of the best and most entertaining editor's columns out there and I really looked forward to it each month.  That said, this month's column was a HUGE disappointment.  Taking Modified Mustangs and Fords to a classics only format will completely ruin it for me.  I truly feel cheated out of my money by not one but two changes in format.  I can take the current dose of classic content, as I like all Mustangs generally speaking, but I have absolutely no interest in an "all classics all the time" publication.  As it sits now, I have two years of a magazine in which I have no interest left coming to me.  I would like to see Source Interlink offer to transfer subscriptions from Modified to MMFF or 5.0 to those of us that don't want to complete our subscriptions.  In short, I didn't subscribe to a magazine about classics.  I own a 93 Saleen, an 85 Saleen and a highly modified 93 LX convertible and that is where my interest lies.  While I like them, I do not, nor will I probably ever, own a classic Mustang or Ford.  What can be done about this problem?  

With regret,

David Clem
Edmonds, WA
davidclem at comcast.net  

David, I'm sorry to hear you're wishing to move on, but I understand your sentiments. One thing I hope you'll understand as a late-model enthusiast is that, indeed, there are plenty of other magazines which fall within your interests, including the aforementioned Muscle and 5.0 titles we publish and from a publishing stand point, we simply had too many of them. The old Mustang & Fords magazine stood well on its own, but someone somewhere thought it would do better merged with Modified, the book you originally subscribed to. Mustang & Fords was a MUCH larger title, more well established, with more readership. To this day the majority of the readership has been classic owners, or owners that have both, not late-model only owners like yourself.

We can't compete with our big sister titles and the late-model coverage they produce, thus, we were losing readers and advertiser (late-model) to those magazines. We struggled and discussed our options for many months (this wasn't a fly by night decision) and felt for the magazine to be successful we need to go back to a segment of the Mustang hobby that has been sorely ignored for the last year and a half, that is the classic performance/modified/restomod Ford and Mustang market.

We know the late-model only guys from the original Modified side of the merger have not been thrilled with the classic content to date, and like you, will not like an all classic magazine. You can contact our customer service department (just scroll all the way down to the bottom of any page on our site and click on the red "subscriber services" link where you can send an email or locate the 800 number in the FAQ) and they'll refund or transfer your remaining sub to another one of our books.

Thanks for the compliment on the column, I do try to keep it light hearted and relative to the every day issues us Ford and Mustang owners deal with. I'm sorry to see you leave, but please know that in the end, all I want for any of our readers is for them to enjoy what they read, even if that means transferring to 5.0 Mustang or Mustang Monthly.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Mark  
Mark Houlahan
Editor
Modified Mustangs & Fords Magazine

1965 FFR Roadster 427W/TKO-600
1966 Mustang 289-4V/C4
1968 Mustang 4.6L Three-Valve/5R55S auto
1990 Mustang 347/AOD
1998 Escort 2.0L SOHC/F4E-111 Auto
2002 Explorer Sport Trac 4.0L V-6/5R55 Auto