TOM SHAW >>>>
FROMTHE
EDITOR
YOU’VE GOT THE RIGHT MAGAZINE
W
elcome to the
rollout of FOX
Mustang
Magazine.
Here are the
keys. Take ’er for a spin.
Tell your Fox friends — the ’79’93 Mustangs now have their own
magazine. FMM is wall-to-wall
Fox. No more flipping past pages
of other cars you don’t care about
in hopes of finding something —
anything — on your Fox Mustang.
Here in this magazine, the feature
cars are all Fox. Tech is all Fox.
Parts are all Fox. News and
departments, too.
Not that long ago, magazines
were full of Fox Mustangs, but it
was just about all hard-core racing. Nine-hundred horsepower
monster motors? Six-second ETs?
Three-stage nitrous systems? That
may be interesting to read, but
other than a small handful of highrollers, who’s going to build that
kind of car?
So let’s focus on the real world,
where the Fox Mustang:
the buck
without drama
corner-carver, or a heavyhitting muscle car
without your bank account
throwing a rod
FMM is about buying, keeping,
and enjoying your Mustang, be it
a hot rod, driver, or project. The
differences between us and the
rest of the magazines should be
pretty easy to spot — layout,
paper quality, page size, number
6 FOXMustangMagazine.com
of pages, better columns — but
one thing I’d like to point out is
our focus on restoration.
Up to this point, almost all of
the Fox coverage has been about
hot-rodding or racing a 5.0. That’s
good, but what about the guy
with the driver who needs to
know how to restore his dash, fix
a door, redo his interior, or repaint
his trim? Going fast is great, but
we’ve got to keep ’em on the
road, too. That’s why each issue
of FMM will have plenty of restoration articles. In this issue, we’re
fixing a dead power window; recovering a pair of bucket seats;
and sizing up old, neglected paint
to see what can be saved and
“...wherever you are on
the performance-restoration
continuum, FMM is all Fox,
every issue.”
what will need a repaint.
I watched the ’60s muscle cars
go through these same stages —
new car, modded hot rod, driver,
beater. Then, at about the 20-year
mark, they began to acquire some
vintage interest. All of a sudden
the primary interest becomes restoration instead of hot-rodding.
But wherever you may be on the
performance-restoration continuum, FMM is all Fox, every issue.
We’re getting in deep.
So how about if we go around
the table and introduce ourselves?
Curt Patterson is the boss, a.k.a.
the publisher. As one of the early
hires at Dobbs Publishing (Mustang
Monthly, Super Ford, et. al.) back in
the ’80s, Curt was responsible for
advertising and revenue. He drove
an ’88 GT convertible then. Today,
Curt’s a veteran of almost 30 new
magazine launches. He understands
the reader has to come first. Others
I’ve worked with drive themselves
nuts looking for new ways to subtract more and more value from the
magazine, thinking that the reader
won’t notice. Of course, they do.
I’m your humble editor — a
lifelong Ford guy, ’93 GT convertible owner, and magazine editor
for 25 years. I’m a car guy who
learned the magazine biz, not
vice versa. You can’t fake genuine
enthusiasm.
Jason Jacobs, former touring
drummer, is the company’s longestserving dude, handling circulation,
departments, and overall operations.
Brandon Patterson multi-tasks
as FMM’s managing editor, web
marketer, and ad-sales team
member.
Laura Burke compiles several
departments, meticulously copy
edits the entire magazine, makes
sure la