[whitetop]

Hello Rich, you make some very good points also. Yes Motion did have a very large advertising campaign. Many of the "New York" based publications had not just one but as many as 3-4 Bm ads in each issue. A problem develops here though. Many of these magazines were regional based in the Northeast. Had a small readership. I have talked with many people from the midwest and western states and most, back then, had never heard of Hot Cars, Rodder & Super Stock, Chevy Action etc. because these magazines were not originally available in those areas. My point is that this put the people west of the Missisippi at a disadvantage over BM sales back in '67-'73. Yenko did have a pretty decent dealership sales force throughout the country while BM did not, and Yenko only sold slightly over 200+ cars. I grew up with the NY based publications and new of BM. I worked full time for the National Muscle Car Association from '90-'93, before it went to the race car format as it is today. We had many knowledgable/"in the know" collectors in the membership and being a BM fanatic I remember asking them questions and most knew very little or nothing at all about the subject. These were people who had their car collections in magazines or were used as sounding boards for information. Why is it that everyone has heard of Yenko for years and inumerable magazine articles/books have been written on the subject, based on the "meager" 201/211? cars made. According to Joel, 500 BM cars were made. Common sense would dictate that based upon this figure alone more people would know about BM on car count, but this is not the case. So what does that tell you?. Musclecar Review magazine was probably one of the first to push the BM material back in 92-93 and went somewhat heavy with the material in '96-'98. I saw a program on TNN last year with Chuck Hansen of Horsepower TV, Chevelle club president/ex Car Craft editor fame. He made the comment that while hearing of BM, had never seen one of the cars in person. I'm sure he could not say that about Yenko's. I know you have bought your BM Nova brand new and Joel has told you that approximately 100 Novas were made. How many of the other 99 Nova owners have contacted you or have you run across. I'm just curious. As a final thought maybe Joel inflates the car count to make the BM mystique bigger than it actually was? Or not be second fiddle to Yenko maybe? Joel was quoted in an interview in a magazine several years ago that when the EPA was putting pressure on him in '74 he admitted he was just a small speed shop and everything was blown out of proportion in terms of car sales(or something to that effect). Hmmm.. I will have to dig that article out.
Whitetop