First
Hot Rod Swimsuit Issue - Where It All Began
Thanks
to Hot Rod Magazine - By Thom Taylor
The
premise was simple and the results better than imagined, but the first HOT ROD
swimsuit issue (Apr. '87) created major chaos before ever making it onto the
newsstand.
Pat
Ganahl had just become editor and needed a wow! cover to kick up the numbers.
HOT ROD's April issue had always been the victim of shenanigans in the April
fool's spirit. Sports Illustrated was having huge success and getting a lot of
publicity with its swimsuit issues, so why not a whole issue riffing on SI?
This could be fun. Immediately, the drama began. Ganahl had to run the idea up
the Petersen Publishing approval ladder. First was Ganahl's boss: John Dianna,
who required a lot of arm-twisting. It was eventually agreed that if it worked
for SI, it could work for HOT ROD. Approved!
But
here's where the stories diverge. Says Ganahl, "At the time, then-director
of photography Bob D'Olivo was pissed at Lorentzen." D'Olivo wouldn't
allow Lorentzen in the HOT ROD photo studio. Ganahl's solution was to have
Lorentzen shoot the swimsuit features away from the HOT ROD digs and hire
Robert Kittila for the in-studio cover, which included coming up with the cover
model and cars. Lorentzen remembers it differently: "I shot a cover, but
not the cover that ended up being the cover." Lorentzen later got an irate
Dianna phone call demanding he return to the offices.
Once
back at the HOT ROD farm, Dianna wanted to know why the cover was shot with
guys in the bed of a truck doing obscene things? Lorentzen had never seen this
cover before. Dianna was vibrating. Lorentzen denied any knowledge of the
mystery cover. Lorentzen continues, "Dianna is so fired up, he tells me
he's going to fire Pat. I didn't want to be in the middle--I was and still
am--friends with the guy. I told Dianna I didn't want to be responsible for
nailing Pat's coffin. Dianna says, 'You just shoved the last nail in, that's
all.'" Eventually, Publisher Harry Hibler conceived a compromise wherein
the Kittila cover was cropped to lessen some of the imagined objectionable
innuendo. The first HOT ROD swimsuit issue was saved. Barely.
And
the backwash to this madness? Quite a lot, actually. The swimsuit issue sold
more than 100,000 more copies than any other issue that year, photographer
Lorentzen subsequently met cover model Stevie Sterling and they were later
married (and still are!), nearly every magazine at Petersen Publishing did
swimsuit issues to increase sales, and Editor Pat Ganahl was demoted. (But not
for the swimsuit issue, according to Ganahl.) We'll save that story for another
Where It All Began.
(Source:
Hot Rod Magazine)
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