Dan Leadbetter

It's a lot about I got started in vws when I bought my very first car, in 1964 VW from a retired pastor in a small town called Orland California. I was hooked from then out. I started buying hot vw's magazine, and even had a letter published in 1975 looking for parts. After high School, I drove that Volkswagen all over Northern California before moving to Southern California in 1982, I ended up working at small car specialties in Anaheim, California, where my boss Sam shackelford of rancho transaxles, was my manager. My manager. He knew Bob Clark from VW Trends MaGazine call it pile of the month. I said let's do it. Sam called Bob. Bob said have the kid write something up and we'll take a look. I spent 3 weeks hunting and pecking on keys on the typewriter, which was no easy task. Being that I got these and f's in English and grammar in high school. I finally finished it and gave it to Sam who sent it to Bob. That afternoon, Bob called me and said this is the funniest thing I've ever read. Do you want a job? That's how it started. During my tenure at McMullen and yee publishing, I created three magazines in addition to editing VW Trends. Auto sound and security magazine, splash magazine, and smart electronics magazine. I left McMullen and Yi around 1997 because the monthly deadlines were really killing me. Flash Forward to 2020. I was thinking about what I was going to do after I retired and wanted to do something fun. I knew VW Trends was killed off in 2005, so I thought what a fun thing to do to bring that magazine back. Back. I reached out to four of my friends who said yes to the idea before I could even finish my pitch. We released our first issue in 2021 and are now back to worldwide status. It has been an absolutely amazing journey and I've loved every second of it.