SAN JOSE, Calif. – Here’s a glimpse at the busy life of car magazine publisher James Lopez: He missed a telephone interview with a reporter because he was delivering a baby.
Lopez, 34, is publisher of the new Auto Aficionado magazine. Its second issue hit newsstands May 30. He’s also a first-year resident at the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison. This fall, he’ll move to the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver, where he’ll finish his residency and focus on sports and spine rehabilitation.
He acknowledges that both his fellow doctors-to-be and those in the classic-car community each think he’s a bit nuts.
And, frankly, he hasn’t told many of his fellow students about his other job.
“I really don’t want people there thinking I’m burning the candle at both ends,” he said. “I’ve told a few people. They’re just astounded.”
Lopez’s father builds custom homes, but that business was struggling when it came time for James Lopez to choose a profession. Lopez’s mother has multiple sclerosis, so that and his “thirst for knowledge” and love of biology and body mechanics made medicine a perfect fit.
But he’s also a car lover. He bought a Chevy Monza and worked on it long before he ever got his driver’s license. He’s owned three Alfas, some Fiats “and a bunch of American cars” – perhaps two dozen vehicles in total.
He attends lots of classic-car shows, especially the fancy events held annually at Amelia Island in Florida and on the Monterey Peninsula.
And he reads lots of car magazines. “It’s purely a love that I have for automobiles,” he said.
But in January 2004 he found himself at a newsstand with nothing to buy. Well, at least nothing in one magazine.
He compared finding one story of interest in one magazine and two in another to buying a music CD to get one or two great songs.
He told himself, “This newsstand does not have one magazine that portrays the love and passion I have for cars.”
That led him to decide to make his own. He came up with a title, put together a small sample issue and began to attract investors.
Auto Aficionado puts its focus on classic cars and the men (mostly) who own them. To be published six times a year, the first (March/April) issue looked at the cars of Ralph Lauren, Bentley GT heritage, Mercedes-Benz road racers of the past and more.
One of Lopez’s first decisions was to hire Larry Crane, a longtime Ferrari racer, automotive artist and staffer at magazines like Motor Trend and Road & Track as editor.
This job, Crane said, was one he long envisioned, and he couldn’t resist the chance to do it.
“It’s readerly and serious, a magazine for grown-ups,” he said.
His focus is on classics, both older ones and new ones, like some of the cars being shown at this year’s auto shows in Detroit and Geneva.
But, unlike the bestselling car magazines, Auto Aficionado isn’t about test drives.
“It’s a celebratory magazine,” he said. “Criticism is not our game.”
Whether it’ll succeed is an unanswered question. Subscriptions, at $40 a year, are expensive. Other magazines like this, including Classic Automobile Register, have failed. This week, Primedia said it would launch Motor Trend Classic, a bi-monthly that’ll focus on cars from 1949 to 1989, in August.
About 25,000 copies of the first issue of Auto Aficionado were printed. Crane said he hopes that number will grow to 50,000 by the end of the year. (Car and Driver, at 1.2 million, has the largest subscription of any U.S. car magazine.)
“We understand this is a very niche magazine,” Lopez said. He said he hopes to make a profit by the end of the second year of publication.
Lopez said he’s committed to finishing medical school even if his magazine becomes a big success.
Doing two things he loves keeps him going during days when he’s up for 30 hours straight.
One of his favorite quotes motivates him, he said.
“Ten years from now, you’re going to be saying one of two things – I’m glad I did it or God, I wish I did that. I always want to say I’m glad I did it.”
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