Author Archives: jeff

Track star – Feb 24, 2014

Overview

Don’t wait for stories to appear in the store when you can become a member of Wheelbase Media’s weekly news service and save more than 50 percent while gaining instant access to the new features as they’re produced. Click here to get started.

If you are not a member of the media, but still wish to read this and other feature stories from Wheelbase Media, visit www.shiftweekly.com to subscribe to Auto Shift Weekly newsmag, available for your Apple iPad or for your home PC or laptop in pdf format.

Description

It has been noted in this space before that if you are a true muscle-car lover, these really are the good-old days all over again.
While vintage cars from the halcyon days of the first muscle-car wave in the late 1960s fetches staggering money in the collector-car auction market, today’s muscle cars have real-world performance limits the old cars can only dream about, and for prices that are comparative bargains.

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Technology is great, but finding someone to pay for it? – Full Throttle, Feb 24, 2014

Overview

Use: Media professionals looking to diversify their automotive readership with women authors who provide their views on a wide variety of topics.

What it is: Courtney Hansen, America’s favorite Garage Girl and the former host of The Learning Channel’s Overhaulin’ auto makeover show, a new-book author and the host of Spike TV’s weekend “Power Block,” has teamed up with Wheelbase Communications for this exclusive column. If you’re looking to build more regular readership and to bring more women into the pages of your print publication and Web pages with the help of a friendly and outgoing automotive celebrity, this bi-weekly column that alternates with our own Rhonda Wheeler is a must.

Product specifications

About 800-900 words; Word text file plus high-resolution art files for print and Web use.
Mac and PC layout with accompanying text and art files for maximum work flexibility.
High-resolution artwork suitable for print.
Coming soon! Multi-platform page layout that opens with either Quark Xpress or Adobe Indesign.

Description

I don’t know if anyone saw this coming, but it makes sense, I guess.
Auto companies and governments have been spending big money trying to get us thinking about buying electric cars. The task is not an easy one. There’s very little selection and availability of electrics, a higher purchase price than…

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The Auto Sleuth – Feb 24 , 2014

Overview

Use: Voted the best automotive news column available: you need it.

What it is: If you could have only one automotive feature, this should be it. At Wheelbase Communications, we’ve chosen to stay away from providing an automotive-news column until we could do it in a non-traditional way. And here it is: the Auto Sleuth. Our worldly gumshoe has his ear to the ground, digging up the latest news on everything from product launches and updates to names in the news. The column is solely driven by reader interest. No boring statistics or auto-company pap here, just the straight goods peppered with the Auto Sleuth’s commentary and speculative, gossipy-style.

Product specifications

Mac and PC print layout with separate text and art files for maximum work flexibility.
High-resolution artwork suitable for print.
Multi-platform layout opens with either Quark Xpress or Adobe Indesign.
Layout is 8×16 inches (newspaper), but can be reconfigured by your designer to fit most spaces.
PDF of layout included.
About 850 words: separate text file included.
Fonts are not included, but we attempt to stay with standard system fonts. If not, just change the fonts to match your style.

Please contact us to order this feature.

Alexander Winton – Legends, Feb 24, 2014

Overview

Description

The challenge was 10 laps around the Detroit driving Club in Grosse Point,Mich. It was Oct. 10, 1901. It’s obvious today that Alexander Winton didn’t win the race with the 38-year-old Henry Ford.

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Top Gear – Feb 24, 2014

Overview

Use: Media professionals demanding top-quality automotive content for print/Web. Professional artwork, editing.

What it is: What’s new, what’s hot! Wheelbase Communications is committed to broadening readership (getting non-traditional auto-section readers into your publication/Web pages) and creating as much revenue potential as possible. Top Gear focuses on the aftermarket by telling your readers what’s new and what’s cool. This column includes four items per week as well as prices (where possible) and Web site addresses.

Product specifications

Mac and PC page layout with accompanying text and art files for maximum work flexibility.
High-resolution artwork suitable for print.
Includes Photoshop layers file of main art.
Multi-platform page layout opens with either Quark Xpress or Adobe Indesign.
Layout is 8×21.5 inches (newspaper), but can be reconfigured by your designer to fit most spaces.
PDF of layout included.
About 850 words: separate text file included.
Fonts are not included, but we attempt to stay with standard system fonts. If not, just change the fonts to match your style.

Please contact us to order this feature.

John W. Anderson – Feb 24, 2014

Overview

Use: Media professionals demanding top-quality automotive content for print/Web.Professional artwork, editing.

What it is: Cars are nothing without the people who create them and those who own, collect and preserve them. Profiles is designed to bring prominent, interesting car people to your readers’ attention. Fun, informative and masterfully designed, like most Wheelbase features, Profiles comes to you as a Quark Xpress/Adobe InDesign module that is completely editable for any space within your print pages or automotive Web site.

Product specifications

Mac and PC page layout with accompanying text and art files for maximum work flexibility.
High-resolution artwork suitable for print.
Includes Photoshop layers file of main art, where applicable.
Multi-platform page layout opens with either Quark Xpress or Adobe Indesign.
Layout is 8×21.5 inches (for newspaper use), with some depth variation from week to week, but can be reconfigured by your designer to fit most spaces.
PDF of layout included.
About 850 words: separate text file included.
Fonts are not included, but we attempt to stay with standard system fonts. If not, just change the fonts to match your style.

Description

He was the kind of guy who always seemed to have a patent pending.
When John W. Anderson was just a teenager, he knew how to work a saw mill and knew his way around a tile factory better than experienced workers four times his age.

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1959 Buick Electra – FineLines Feb 24, 2014

Overview

Use: Media professionals demanding top-quality automotive content for their print products and/or Web sites. Professional artwork, editing.

What it is: Many of you asked if we could put our expertise to work to create a feature that covers not just classic cars, but those vehicles that have left an indelible mark on car culture. The Fine Lines series examines significant vehicle marques, their backgrounds and their contributions to the history of the automobile. All this, with real artwork.

Product specifications

Mac and PC page layout with accompanying text and
art files for maximum work flexibility.
About 850 words: separate text file included.
Layout is 8×21.5 inches (newspaper), but can be
reconfigured by your designer to fit most spaces.
PDF of layout included.
High-resolution artwork suitable for print.
Includes Photoshop layers file of main art.
Multi-platform page layout opens with either Quark
Xpress or Adobe Indesign.
Fonts are not included, but we attempt to stay with
standard system fonts. If not, just change the fonts to
match your style.

Description

Buick is a conservative brand, right?
That wasn’t always the case. The company had a lot to gain, but also plenty to lose when it revealed a trio of new products — LeSabre, Invicta and Electra — for 1959.

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WordSearch Feb 24, 2014

Overview

Description

Use: Interactive content for media professionals looking to bolster recurring readership and increase the amount of exposure time for their products, whether print or Web.

What it is: Why are auto publications so dry and so serious? We’re living proof that car nuts have a sense of humor and want to have a little sugar on their Corn Flakes. Your readers will have fun with the “Driver ’s Seat” Word Search as they unearth people, places and events. Driver ’s Seat is just one step in making your auto product more interactive, which provides more exposure for advertisers and more revenue for all.

Product specifications

Due to the highly complicated graphic nature of this product, we do not yet offer a version that can be played online. Instead, visitors to your Web site can print out the crossword and play it at their leisure. Vote yes to having a playable online verion by clicking here.
High-resolution 300 dpi jpg CMYK file suitable for print and Web.

Please contact us to order this feature.

Toyota Yaris: 2007-’11 – Feb. 24, 2014

Overview

Description

Toyota’s tiny entry-level car arrived in the U.S. market for the 2007 calendar year, replacing the Echo sedan. Designed at the automaker’s studios in France, the Yaris was initially available in a two-door hatchback body style as well as a four-door sedan. A four-door hatchback joined the lineup for 2009. All were equipped with the 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine that produced 106 horsepower and 103 pound-feet of torque. Following a successful six-year run, the second-generation Yaris was launched for the 2012 model year.

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Why “Rush” was a better movie than “Gravity” – Feb 24, 2014

Overview

What is Auto Edit?

Welcome to AutoEdit, a new and slightly more irreverent weekly feature from Wheelbase Media.
Rather than your pages being a collection of random auto stories, the AutoEdit feature is intended to be the glue that holds it all together. Just as your editorial page is intended to be the pulse of your newspaper, Auto Edit can also be the pulse of your auto pages.

Auto edit runs 500-550 words and is all about your readers becoming more familiar with our key staff members via their personal views on the automotive world. Of all 18 of our weekly features, AutoEdit is the only one intended to provide weekly commentary. Journalistically speaking, this is just common sense since such commentary does not belong in our other news-type features.

Whether your readers agree or disagree with what’s written, they’ll know exactly how the writers of AutoEdit stand on their chosen topics. And, quite frankly, a little spirited debate is a healthy thing and that seems to be missing from more and more newspapers these days. AutoEdit is all about soul, getting back to the basics of solid content and showing readers that there are real people behind the nine-point typeface.

Story Intro

After watching the four-hour Ellen Degeneres show the other night – a.k.a. the Academy Awards – I had no choice but to rent “Gravity”, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. It won seven Oscars. Hey, I liked the racing movie “Rush” a lot and it didn’t win anything. It wasn’t even nominated. So, “Gravity’ must be really good, right?