The American automotive industry has a clouded future, but a very bright past. That glorious history is evident in several magazines that have just arrived in the MagSampler.com newsstand.

We carry three titles from Auto Round-Up Publications in Jane Lew, West Virginia (be careful, this can get confusing): the biweekly Auto Round-Up Magazine and its companion monthlies, Truck Round-Up Magazine and Auto/Truck Round-Up Monthly. We'll get to the fourth magazine, Antique Automobile, a little later.

All three Round-Up magazines use newsprint stock. They are filled with ads for cars, trucks, motorcycles and a great miscellany of automotive paraphernalia. These are national magazines, so the ads are not for people looking for an old Honda Civic to use to drive to the train station every morning. The cars being offered (and being sought) are classics, antiques, muscle cars and street rods, or at least the shells that can be turned into something very special. Almost all the ads are illustrated, some in color.

Looking through the recent issue of Auto/Truck Round-Up, I find a 1940 Chevy coupe in Mankato, Kansas, "barn fresh" (I love that!), needs restoration, $5,000 or best offer. A few pages later, an ad from Mountain Home, Arkansas offers my very first car, a 1976 AMC Pacer. As expected, it's described as "not running," but for just $995 you can get it ― and another Pacer thrown in for free!

On page 23 there's an ultra-cool 1931 Ford Model A street rod, gussied up with automatic transmission, rack and pinion steering, disc brakes, tilt steering wheel and CD player, just $34,800. Maybe that's what Ford should be making today.

You'll find all sorts of great stuff for sale in these magazines: collections of state license plates covering many decades, old gas station signs, even old gas pumps. There are also listings for hundreds of automotive events throughout the country.