LA CAR INVADES AUTOBOOKS

LA CAR INVADES AUTOBOOKS-AEROBOOKS IN BURBANK Hundreds of gearheads joined the staff of LA Car on Saturday, March 24th, at Autobooks-Aerobooks. Located at 3524 West Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank, Autobooks-Aerobooks is the Southland's largest automotive bookstore and one of the best places for car enthusiasts to hang out on a Saturday afternoon. It's not unusual to see celebrities, car designers, and others in the industry dropping by this unique locale.

About Autobooks-Aerobooks Autobooks-Aerobooks, the Southern California brick and mortar store, has been around since 1951. Begun as a mostly mail order sideline by Road & Track staffer Harry Morrow (a mechanical engineer by education and a racer-bookstore owner by enthusiasm), over the intervening years the store has become not only a place to pick up the latest books and magazines on the subject, but a place where people from all facets of the automotive and aircraft world meet. Every single day at Autobooks-Aerobooks is a different meeting of the official, hard core, card-carrying lifetime members of the "Car Culture Club" ... Hot Rods, Formula One, Off-Road, Classics, Homebuilts, Open Wheel, Exotics, Dirt, Pavement, Sports Cars, Bikes, Kitcars, Trucks, Busses, the Oldest, the Newest, the most rare, and even the prosaic ... If it rolls on wheels, or flies through the air, you name it and Autobooks customers live for it. Known as the place where one will most likely meet fellow partisans who share their views on the subject, it is also a place where one might be able to obtain a hot lead on those left-hand wing-nuts (or whatever) that they've been searching for what seems the past two lifetimes. No, Autobooks-Aerobooks doesn't stock car or airplane parts ... But the people who know where to look for stuff like that are part of the extended "staff" that convenes there daily.

Autobooks-Aerobooks is crammed floor to ceiling with books, tapes, DVDs, magazines, die-cast scale models and the treasure trove of experience represented by store regulars that makes any and every visit to the store a worthwhile trip. It's a long-standing tradition around this friendly bookstore for a staffer to simply pipe up when a customer asks a tough one about a particular car that they might not have much personal expertise about. You might hear, "Anyone here know where you can get Lancia Scorpio parts around here?" Or, "Who's driving that Peerless out in front? Jim up here at the register wants to know where he can get some trim pieces for his." Or, "How many pounds of fuel did an F-105 carry?" As we said experts abound at Autobooks-Aerobooks, both in print (in the books, tapes, DVDs on sales) and in person, with the largest number by far over on customer side of the front counter. That's one of the reasons that the store has been such a part of the lore and legend of Southern California for these fifty+ years. And why many people make their entire West Coast travel plans around a visit to 3524 West Magnolia in Burbank. Today, visitors aren't going to find one of Harry's cool little Cooper 500's undergoing a wheel-to-wheel rebuild out by the back door, but the possibility of "something interesting" out in the parking lot always looms large and the chances of meeting someone who digs cars and/or airplanes every bit as much as they do are very, very good. Autobook-Aerobooks is also the publisher of the celebrated Automotive Calendar of Events.

Autobooks co-owner Doug Stokes tries on the latest helmet Some of the LA CAR cast and characters scheduled for March 24th: REED BERRY is known professionally as The Traffic Guy. Since 1988, Reed has taught humor-based traffic violator school classes throughout Southern California and has served as keynote speaker at safety conferences across America. Reed will be on hand to answer traffic law-related questions. JOHN GRAFMAN spent a dozen or so years working on models for numerous automotive design studios on the west coast. You've seen his work on the exterior and interiors of some of your favorite concept and production cars. You can now see his imprint throughout LA CAR where he serves as Ye Editor. John as particularly keen insight on the design studios throughout the Southland. TOMMY GRAFMAN spent most of his childhood following his older brother John, but chose different directions when it came to cars. His first car was a 1977 Camaro. Following the path down the dark side, he then bought a 1969 Chevy Chevelle. With a little help from his friends, he rebuilt the car, turning the Chevelle into a street rod. His path down the dark side was now complete. For more than a decade, Tommy has been a production director for multiple publications. He is currently LA Car's Production Manager and also co-owner of MacMyDay (An Apple, Macintosh, service, sales, consulting, and training company). CHRISTOPHER HUDDLESTON spend many a years on the public relations side of the automotive industry. His stints included General Motors and Suzuki Motor Corporation. He's now one of us - at least when he's not wearing his VP hat Flex Fund Financial Services. BRIAN KENNEDY, Ph.D., covers events for magazines like Grassroots Motorsports, Sportscar, and Victory Lane - e.g., events in Cart, Pro Rally, Formula Atlantic, the SCCA Runoffs, Trans Am, SVRA, VSCDA, VARA, and, of course, LA CAR. He's also profiled a number of cars and interviewed a number of personalities - among them: Gene Felton (IMSA), Hurley Haywood, Jerry Seinfeld, and Nigel Olsson. He's now the author of a book to be released later this year. ZORAN SEGINA, ESQ., grew up in Eastern Europe, where he owned several Zastava 750s (a variation of the Fiat 600) and participated in local rallies. After a lengthy diet of Yugoslav-manufactured cars, he came to the Mecca of automotive culture - wherein he promptly lost his heart to a tall girl and a short Dart Swinger. He currently commutes around LA in a BMW 633Csi, having made a switch from a Volvo 240 DL with a quarter million miles on the odometer. B.T. JUSTICE, ESQ., is the BT of Letters From BT . As a transplant from the East Coast, he is all too familiar with the non-Californian routine of scraping ice and snow off the car windshield. He's also collected a number of East Coast bar cards in addition to his California credentials. As such, you can expect him to be hovering over our legal column. ROY NAKANO, ESQ - Recruited a regiment of enthusiast attorneys, designers, engineers, educators, and hot rodders to form LA CAR. Primary columnist for the Op-Ed oriented Back Seat Driving. When he's not doing cars, Roy writes for audiophile publications. He may even be able to offer an opinion or two about automotive sound systems.

Some LA Car people (L-R): Bill, Kurt, BT, Zoran, John & Roy About LA Car LA Car (a/k/a LACar.com) is a magazine about the car culture. We feature a tuner directory, consumer tips, information on car laws, and articles on car design, car performance, automotive history, the new hot rod culture, and other items of interest to the car enthusiast. The newsstands carry plenty of car magazines, but there is a need for a car publication to address the particular concerns of Angelenos - i.e., the traffic, the smog, the car clubs, the geography, and the laws that impact the drivers (the latter courtesy of our legal batallion). LA Car has come a long way since its formative days as the "journal of Los Angeles and its car culture" back in 1997. Our audience is now global, and LA CAR articles have been re-published by automotive manufacturers, entertainment publications, and other automotive publications. LA CAR's reports have been covered in local news stories on ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC television as well as on radio stations KNX, KFWB, KFI, and KPFK. Moreover, stations KCET, KLSX, KNX, KFWB, and KFI have conducted interviews with various LA CAR staff. Recently, LA Car has focused its attention more toward "lifestyle" vehicles. In addition to cars with three-pointed stars, spinning blue propellers, or flying "B's, import tuners, green car enthusiasts, street racers, lowriders, off-roaders, and others make up the fascinating community we call the car culture. Come on down and chew the fat with us!