[Don Keefe]

Originally Posted by rwfisher

I contacted the subscription / membership rep for Cruisin Tigers after having issues receiving a mag for past 2 years. He finally indicated he did not see things getting better in the future and offered / completed a refund. It was indicated this was because of the time you were taking away for your book. From what I was able to find there are a bunch of members that were in the same boat so getting them to re-up may be difficult. I for one really miss getting the mag..

Excerpt from the response I received:

“You should have access to the Members Exclusive section where past issues of Poncho Perfection and Tiger News are posted. The December issue has not been printed yet due to a delay from the editor of Poncho Perfection. This has been a problem this last year as he is writing a book and put the magazine on the back burner. I’m hoping that the December issue is ready by mid-February. He has a lot of catching up to do.
Very frustrating for all of us.”

“ I don’t see this getting better any time soon.”

I am more than willing to own my portion of the problems but they are not the only reason that the magazine has had delivery problems. In December of 2022, the Cruisin' Tigers website crashed which destroyed the membership records. While a new website has been built, the records have had to be restored by hand and I was told that they weren't going to continue with that procedure, so in March of last year, the remains of the membership records were turned over to me to restore. We did the best we could using old mailing lists from before the crash and with the help of the new webmaster, we have put the membership records back in order. We have extended memberships where we didn't have records and sent out emails and postcards for people who have expired.

As for the schedule, we mailed out the August issue a few weeks ago and we are sending the October issue to the printer this week. I have all of the articles in for the December issue and will get on that as soon as October ships.

As you all know, we took a pretty big hit in November when Stan Rarden, one of our columnists, died and that further set things back. Our October issue is dedicated to him and lots of people in the hobby sent in their tributes to him. It was a very emotional issue to produce and we gave him the best sendoff we could.

As for my book, I freely admit I bit off a bit more than I should have but the topic was too good for me to pass up. It's called "Pontiac Factory Drag Cars: How a Manufacturer Ushered in the Muscle Car Era at the Drag Strip." It is being published by CarTech, who published Rocky's books and Dean Fait's bio on Arnie.

I have been working on it for two years and in the rush to get it finished, Poncho fell behind. I have been working my tail off every single day and honestly, life would have been a lot easier had I never taken on this project but I truly believe that that book will be a huge asset for the Pontiac hobby and will bring a lot of interest in the topic, as we have uncovered a ton of new stories and a lot of never before seen photography. The magazine and the Cruisin' Tigers will benefit from the added publicity this book will generate.

Yes, it's true that the magazine fell behind but we are catching up and I expect that by the time that we hit the road for the summer shows, we will be caught up- maybe sooner. We will be debuting the book at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals and I look forward to it being completely in the rearview mirror. There's still some minor revising left to do but it's essentially finished.

I apologize to those of you who have had your subscriptions screwed up but the problems are clearing up and we look forward to some spectacular new issues of Poncho Perfection, including tech, historical articles, Department X features and the best Pontiac coverage available. Again, if you have any questions or problems, please feel free to email me at donaldjkeefe@aol.com or call me at 585-489-9826. I do answer my phone and will make right whatever has happened.

Most magazine companies have abandoned the Pontiac world. Poncho Perfection and our staff are still out there fighting the good fight and we're doing it ON PAPER. Please put some faith in us and in the Pontiac hobby so we can all enjoy it and pass it on to the next generation. The worst thing that we can do is bitch and moan about how things aren't like they used to be and dig the hole deeper. There's still one all Pontiac magazine left (no Oaklands and no GMCs) and it's Poncho Perfection. If you haven't seen it yet, sign up here https://www.cruisintigers.com/products/print-membership and get instant access to our back issues. Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope it answers all of your questions. If not, you know where to find me.