NEW YORK -- General Media Publishing Group, publisher of Penthouse, has acquired three automotive magazines from Lopez Publications Inc., the company announced Wednesday.
The monthly magazines -- Stock Car Racing, SuperStock and Drag and Open Wheel -- will be published by Four Wheeler Publishing, a division of General Media, said Robert Guccione, the company's chairman, in a statement.
The division, based in Los Angeles, already publishes a magazine entitled Four Wheeler.
The three magazines have a combined circulation of more than 200,000.
'We intend to apply the same winning formula to our new automotive titles that we have to Four Wheeler,' Guccione said.
Four Wheeler has increased advertising by 87 percent and circulation by 64 percent since General Media acquired the publishing group in 1986, he said.
General Media is seeking to acquire other automotive magazines as well, Guccione said.
General Media, which recently acquired Compute! Magazine Group from Capital Cities/ABC Publishing, publishes Omni, Longevity and several other magazines in addition to Penthouse.
Penthouse recently announced its total number of ad pages for the first six months of this year rose to 310.26, up 5.1 percent from 295.06 a year ago.
Ad revenues rose 12.7 percent to $13 million from $11.6 million a year ago.
