Old cars & new ideas: Terry Elrich drives Hemmings Motor News to success

Vermont Business Magazine, Nov 1994 by Andrews, Richard

Terry Ehrich publishes Hemmings Motor News, a hefty monthly advertiser of practically anything connected with collectible autos. Few would dispute its billing as "The bible of the collector-car hobby."

Hemmings also issues Hemmings' Vintage Auto Almanac, a directory to dealers, clubs, museums, salvage yards and other specialists; a color photo calendar featuring derelict cars moldering in the outback; and other related publications.

It surprised some people last spring when the Vermont Senate rejected Ehrich, a successful businessman, as one of Governor Howard B Dean 's nominees to the Environmental Board, but his willing acceptance of environmental regulation did not sit well with the Republican majority.

Ehrich promotes community involvement and innovative management practices at Hemmings Motor News, and Hemmings is an active member of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility.

Richard Andrews interviewed Ehrich at Hemmings' Bennington headquarters in October.

VBM: Tell us a bit about your business.

EHRICH: Our business is widely known as "The bible of the old car hobby."

We have a lot of readers in the Bible Belt. For years people would refer to us that way, but we never did, because we felt it would cause offense.

But we finally recognized that a lot of folks who were referring to us that way were Bible Belt Christians. They would say, "It's not as rewarding as the real Bible, but still, in the old car hobby you are the bible."

We looked it up in Webster's Dictionary. Definition number two or three is "an authoritative text." So we decided we can do it, too.

We are a shopper for the collector vehicle hobby. The only editorial matter in the magazine is a section of letters from readers and responses from Hemmings -- from me, in fact. The rest of it is all advertising, people trying to sell cars and parts and services, and people trying to buy the same stuff.

It is a business in which the customers create the product. It's as though you opened up a make-your-own sandwich shop. None of your customers would ever seriously complain, unless you were putting out stale onions or soggy tomatoes.

Our job is to be accurate and timely. What they say to each other is pretty much their business. We do refuse advertisements which ate sexist, racist, religious, political, and so forth.

VBM: Do you get them much?

EHRICH: Very seldom. We also refuse advertisements from unreliable advertisers. We don't really care whether you're just a goofy guy who doesn't run his business competently, or a crook. The effect on customers is the same.

So we have a list of a couple hundred folks who have proved themselves unreliable, either through a series of small incidents or one or two big imbroglios.

VBM: Do you get into disputes?

EHRICH: Yes. And it's no fun. We have, for example, a fellow who bought a car from another fellow a thousand miles away who didn't go to see the car. He just sent the man a check.

The car was put on a car hauled by a third party and transported from, I think, California to wherever this guy lives, Wisconsin or somewhere. Then months later the purchaser pulled the engine out of the cat and discovered the block was cracked. And he had only purchased the car for the engine.

Well, you can imagine. Here's the seller saying, "Hey, it was in great shape when it left my shop, and the problem is that yo-yo left it out in the freezing winter."

And the other guy is saying, "The radiator was drained when it arrived here. It had to have been cracked in transport or before the guy shipped it to me."

Each of these guys has witnesses. I don't know how you straighten out a mess like that.

VBM: But ultimately you have to decided.

EHRICH: Well, in that case our decision has pretty much been, we have to assume innocence. And you don't want to. You want to scold everyone in sight. It takes self control to hold back. So, yeah, sometimes we get in the middle of it. We hate it. It's much easier, frankly, when a customer is irritated with us, because then we usually can fix it.

VBM: How did you get started?

EHRICH: Well, when I was 13 I bought a 1929 Model A Ford for 35 bucks, money I'd earned delivering the Rutland Herald and mowing lawns. I drove around the back yard and up in the meadows on the mountain, and broke it, and took it apart, and fixed it, and drove it some more, and broke it, and took it apart, and fixed it.

I loved that car. And by the time I graduated from high school I had six cars. None of them was more than about a $125 vehicle.

VBM: Where did you live then?

EHRICH: In Arlington. I loved cars so much that I quit a very lucrative job as a caddy at the Ekwanok in Manchester to work in a gas station, so I could use the tools on my own cars. And, frankly, pumping gas at the Shell station in Arlington was a lot more fun than caddying for the rich folks up in Manchester. Nothing against the rich folks! But the life of a caddy, although it's well paid, is not especially interesting.

When I went to college, I sold all my cars except for one old Mercury convertible. I didn't have time to do more than keep a car running. My brother and I both went to Harvard, he a year after me, and much of the time we shared cars, shared the repair duties. We'd go from one old junker to the next and when it died we'd let it go and find another. Quite a few of them were sold for 10 bucks to junkyards between Cambridge and Vermont, you know, they'd die during a trip. Then I graduated, finally -- it took me a while. I went to New York City, and became the advertising manager for the New York Review of Books. Lived in Manhattan, had no time to play with cars, and no place to keep cars. But, as it worked out, my then father-in-law and a neighbor of his wanted to purchase Hemmings Motor News as an investment, and they needed somebody to run it. They figured, Gee, here's someone who's in the family, he's got some car experience and some advertising sales experience and some peripheral publishing experience. So they offered me the chance to buy in with them, and I did.