Announcing Hagerty’s First-Ever Voters’ Voice Cover Choice! 

Introducing Hagerty Drivers Club Days, a unique celebration of driving, car culture, and the car community. As part of the first-ever HDC Days from June 21 to June 23, we’re treating members of the Hagerty Drivers Club to some amazing deals, cool contests, and epic events and experiences. Not an HDC member? You can join the Club here!

We’re putting you in the driver’s seat! In honor of Hagerty Drivers Club Days, we’re giving all members of the club—that’s you!—the chance to select the cover of the September/October 2024 issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. (Members can click HERE to vote! Instructions are listed at the bottom of this article.)

“We cherish our members and produce the magazine to celebrate, entertain, and inform them. As part of our first-ever Hagerty Drivers Club Days, we thought it would be fun to give club members the opportunity to choose the cover of our next issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine,” says Larry Webster, editor-in-chief. “It’s our way of inviting club members to join us in the joy of creating the magazine.”

The job of a magazine cover is to get readers excited to look inside. There’s no formula to follow, but four main aspects come together to elicit a strong emotion—the subject of the photo, the shot’s visual power, the cover words, and, critically, the design that artfully combines it all. “It’s a tricky, highly subjective balance,” says creative director Todd Kraemer.

Hagerty Drivers Club magazine serves a diverse and passionate audience of 830,000 club members, which means every issue contains a wide range of material to satisfy varied interests. For this special selection process, the editorial team first decided on three vastly different subjects, described in greater detail below. “We’re always keen to learn what excites our members,” says Webster, “So we’re also using this process to get their feedback.”

That decision meant that the usual cover selection process jumped into overdrive. The team spent two days experimenting, debating, and vigorously arguing for their favorites. The goal, as always, was to produce a cover that makes members smile when they open their mailboxes. The team whittled down the 70 initial options to these three.

COVER 1: Horsepower

Car folks love horsepower—the motive output of an engine—and in the September/October issue, there’s a special feature that paints the history of not just engine performance but also of when backyard tinkerers turned power into an industry. What better way to illustrate that topic than with the engine that gave big power to the masses—the Ford Flathead V-8? Our photo showcases a Flathead that resides in a custom hot rod. The low camera angle and the lighting dignify a machine that’s usually hidden underhood.  

COVER 2: Horsepower via Mustang and Lamborghini

As much as we love horsepower, the numbers don’t describe the feel of an engine. The engine massively contributes to the personality of the car—the way it sounds, the way it responds, and of course, how it shoves the driver back into the seat. To add color to the numbers, editor-at-large Aaron Robinson drove two vastly different cars—a V-8-powered Shelby Mustang and a V-12-powered Lamborghini Miura—that produce the same power but with different engine technology. How do they feel from behind the wheel? We photographed the cars in a simulated drag race, with the smaller Lamborghini closer to the camera to visually represent the comparison piece inside while also acknowledging—with the cover words—the unconventional pairing.  

COVER 3: The Exotics

Multi-million-dollar, rare exotics rarely appear in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine because we focus on cars more commonly owned by our members. That said, there’s a successor to the McLaren F1—a car most enthusiasts consider the greatest driver’s car ever made and that is now worth tens of millions of dollars—called the GMA T.50. We got both cars together—a major feat in itself—to create a story about how these rare birds compare. We loved this cover shot for the motion it communicates, the position of the cars, and how the road is heading right toward the viewer.  

You can cast your vote through Thursday, July 18. Here’s how it works: 

1. Members can vote by logging in to their Hagerty Drivers Club account here and click on “Log In” at the top right corner. 
2. Once logged in, you’ll see the main image at the top of the page that reads “Get in the driver’s seat.” Click the white button on the right that reads “Vote Now”.
3. You’ll be taken to the voting page with the three cover choices. 
4. Click on the image of the cover of your choice and your vote will be placed—that’s all you have to do!

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