Two Years!

This weekend is GHR’s second birthday and Year Two has been great.

For that I send my sincere thanks to all of you who read GHR, and to the hot rodders literally around the world who have been willing to share their stories with me.

Juan’s beautiful split-bumper Z-28 was the first car featured in Year Two. His Z was followed by Vince’s Apache pickup and Luke’s Barracuda. I talked to all of them at the Pistons for Paws Charity Car Show in Madison, Georgia.

That was keeping with my standard process of meeting and talking with hot rodders at shows. But in a bit of foreshadowing I didn’t realize was being foreshadowed, I next reached out to Jeremy about his ‘61 Bel Air “Bubbletop” through Instagram.

I attended one more car show in Georgia in January, and drove down to South Georgia Technical College to learn about their fantastic Motorsports Technology program, and then…

Coronavirus.

Pretty much every car show near me (and almost everywhere else) was cancelled so I went back out to Instagram, reaching out to hot rodders via the social media platform. The results have been fantastic.

In GHR’s first year, 80% of the hot rods featured were from Georgia.

In Year Two, 80% were from somewhere else.

Somewhere else like Alabama, Arizona, California, Michigan, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. Hot rods from British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Ontario, Canada graced the GHR website. And how about Rodrigo’s ‘68 Caprice which cruises around São Paulo, Brazil, but Rodrigo was working in Angola, in western Africa when we were exchanging emails? Two continents in one article!

Speaking of continents, once again, GHR had readers from every continent on Earth, except – also for the second year – from Antarctica. And I’ve actually reached out to folks down there to try to increase the Antarctic traffic to the site. Seriously. I’ve contacted a few of the research stations down there, and one person who works there, asking them to check out the site. What’s up Antarctica? Can’t a website get some love?

During Year Two GHR showcased AMC, Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford, Plymouth, and Pontiac hot rods, spanning the years 1927, ’32, ’39, ’46, ’47, and ’57; six years of the 1960s and five of the 1970s; and 1985, ’88, ’91, and ’93. We even had 21st century hot rods from 2005 and 2006.

Hot rod fans from 66 different countries read GHR this year. As you would expect, the US is first place, with Canada a very strong second. But the list of countries also includes Slovakia, Slovenia, New Zealand, Estonia, Netherlands, Vietnam, Romania, Algeria, and Paraguay.

Traffic to the site this year has increased almost every week. Average page views in Year Two were up 32% over the end of the first year. And GHR has over 400 followers on Instagram.

Once again a huge, huge Thank You to all of you who read GHR and to those who have let me tell the story of their hot rods.

I’m looking forward to Year Three. I hope and expect to be back on the car show scene in person, but will also continue to use social media to extend the reach of GHR’s coverage.

Maybe even all the way to Antarctica!

Glenn