Author Archives: Tabitha

The rolling stone
The Octane Lounge July 13, 2015

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.theoctanelounge.com to subscribe to Auto Shift Weekly newsmag, available for your Apple iPad or for your home PC or laptop in pdf format.

Description

The fact that Keith Richards is even alive, let alone about to release his first solo album in 23 years after having just completed a Rolling Stones tour that wrapped up in Canada on July 15 is something of shocker. After all, Richards, now 71, was the poster boy for the drug-fueled excesses of the 1960s and ’70s, a virtual human chemistry experiment with his trademark dangling cigarette.

Please contact us to order this feature.

Profiles, Juan Manuel Fangio
July 13, 2015

Overview

If you are not a member of the media, but still wish to check out some of our stories online, visit www.theoctanelounge.com, which is owned by Wheelbase Media.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

Anyone who believes that automobile racing is a sport best left to the young is obviously forgetting Juan Manuel Fangio.
As one of the top – if not the top – drivers of all time, this native of Argentina enjoyed his greatest triumphs at an age when most of his contemporaries had either died behind the wheel or had long since retired. His amazing racing record speaks volumes about his skill and daring not to mention his absolute determination to be the best.

Please contact us to order this feature.

Is hydrogen really all that “clean”?
July 13, 2015

Overview

If you are not a member of the media, but still wish to check out some of our stories online, visit www.theoctanelounge.com, which is owned by Wheelbase Media.

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

Simply put, hydrogen is converted to electricity to power an electric car. It’s carried in a tank and a “fuel cell” converts the hydrogen to electricity through a chemical process. Similar technology has been used to create electricity during space travel, so it’s really not all that new. Electricity is created as you drive, which takes care of two of the biggest problems with current battery-electric cars: time waiting for it to charge; and battery range. As long as there’s hydrogen in the tank, you’re moving.

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Some people just never learn to wait their turn
Full Throttle July 13, 2015

Overview

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.

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 was at the tail end of a pack of cars that were lined up at a yield sign, all waiting for a break in traffic. Suddenly, a woman in a dirty SUV behind me got on the horn, honking with one hand and gesturing rather animatedly with the point of a lit cigarette squeezed in the other.
She either couldn’t or wouldn’t wait for the cars ahead of her to proceed safely into the flow of traffic. So, she drove over the curb, around me, clipped a bus stop and mouthed what I can only imagine were words she wouldn’t want her mother to hear stumble out of that big trap of hers.

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2015 Kia K900
AutoGraph July 13, 2015

AutoGraph

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

What it is: Weekly automotive infographics that inform, enlighten and delight readers. Our high-impact infographics add visual appeal and variety to your auto-section pages. Wheelbase’s designers are some of the best in the business with numerous awards for dynamic newsgraphics and page design. AutoGraph will show your readers, with engaging visual style, what they want and need to know about their automobiles as well as today’s trends. These professional, useful and intelligent graphics will help raise the profile of your auto section.

Product specifications

Designed by Wheelbase Media’s editorial staff using Macromedia Freehand (for backward compatibility for most systems) as well as Adobe Photoshop.
Mac or PC use.
Files included in your download: native Freehand file; Freehand EPS file (which is how to edit the AutoGraph with Adobe Illustrator) and a 300 dpi CMYK low-compression jpg file.
Print size: 8 inches wide, 6 inches tall, scalable about 10 percent up or down.
AutoGraph uses typical system fonts for compatibility.

Please contact us to order this feature.

Fine Lines: 1964-’66 Barracuda
FineLines July 13, 2015

Overview

If you are not a member of the media, but still wish to check out some of our stories online, visit www.theoctanelounge.com, which is owned by Wheelbase Media.
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

What was the first “pony” car to be introduced to the general public? If you said the Mustang, you would be wrong . . . by about two weeks.
In a move designed to steal some of the Mustang’s thunder, Plymouth brought its Barracuda to market just ahead of Ford’s brash new attention getter.

Please contact us to order this feature.

The Auto Sleuth
July 13, 2015

Overview

If you are not a member of the media, but still wish to check out some of our stories online, visit www.theoctanelounge.com, which is owned by Wheelbase Media.
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.

Shift!
July 13, 2015

Overview

If you are not a member of the media, but still wish to check out some of our stories online, visit www.theoctanelounge.com, which is owned by Wheelbase Media.
Use: Media professionals demanding automotive content on technology and vehicles designed to reduce pollution and save readers money.

What it is: The first “green” feature. One of our most popular new weekly features takes a look at the auto world from the unique perspective of fuel efficiency and technology as it relates to the environment, from hydrogen, hybrids, electric power and other alternative methods of propulsion. “Shift” is exactly that: a shift in thinking. What will the vehicle of tomorrow look like? Your readers can find out today in Shift. This predesigned module can be used as-is or reconfigured to fit just about any space.

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 “Shift” art.
Multi-platform page layout opens with either Quark Xpress or Adobe Indesign.
Layout is 8″x13″, but can be reconfigured by your designer to fit most spaces.
PDF of layout included.
About 900 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.

So, you want to buy a used supercar . . .
AutoKnow July 13, 2015

Overview

If you are not a member of the media, but still wish to check out some of our stories online, visit www.theoctanelounge.com, which is owned by Wheelbase Media.
Use: Media professionals demanding a variety of automotive topics for broader readership.
What it is: Diversity matters. An automotive print product or Web site largely based on new-vehicle reviews is missing an enormous readership. Auto Know gives us the latitude to explore fantastic auto-related stories outside the realm of mere reviews. Whether it’s about how surround sound is engineered into a vehicle, European cars that will land on our shores, or knowing when it’s time to throw in the towel on your old beater, Auto Know is the perfect tool to capture new readers. . . with solid, interesting stories.

Product specifications

Mac and PC page layout with accompanying text and art files for maximum work flexibility.
Layout is 8×21.5 inches (newspaper), but can be reconfigured by your designer to fit most spaces.
PDF of layout included.
About 800-900 words; separate Word text included if you don’t want to use the supplied layout.
Artwork resolution (200-250 dpi) is high enough for print use.
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

With an economy that left many formerly “rich” people selling off their toys at bargain prices, a used exotic supercar might seem pretty tempting. Heck, why not spring for an older, low-miles Ferrari rather than a newer Corvette? Or a newfour-door sedan? It’s what you’ve always wanted, right? Well, owning a 10-year-old Ferrari is not to be confused with owning a used 10-year-old Toyota Camry, and many people get a rude a rude awakening. Lance Hedrick is fully aware of the dirty little secret of used supercars.

Please contact us to order this feature.

Top Gear
July 13, 2015

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.

If you are not a member of the media, but still wish to check out some of our stories online, visit www.theoctanelounge.com, which is owned by Wheelbase Media.