Steve Thaemert and his father put a thousand dollars together four years ago and, defying media industry trends, launched a magazine to follow the passions of do-it-yourself builders of hot rods.

They called it Rat Rod, embracing a term that had been a put-down in the world of car tuners and custom builders. And as other auto and hot rod magazines collapsed around them, Rat Rod became a hit on newsstands and developed a Facebook following of nearly 1.5 million people. This week, the Shakopee-based publisher announced it was expanding to the world of custom motorcycles with a new magazine called Raw Bike, available in December.

"There's a void on the newsstand," Thaemert said. "It's the same thing we saw when [we] started our magazine."

The new magazine will follow Rat Rod's formula, which is heavy on high-quality photos and contributions from readers and light on ads. Rat Rod's revenue comes chiefly from $30 annual subscriptions, and the new magazine will be the same, Thaemert said.

His company's success highlights a phenomenon in publishing in which intensely focused titles that form a community around them are succeeding while those that are too broad lose out. This summer, Source Interlink Media, which published 72 magazines for hobbyists and enthusiast groups, closed a dozen car-oriented titles such as Popular Hot Rodding, Rod & Custom, High Performance Pontiac, Mud Life, Camaro Performers and Honda Tuning.

Raw Bike will be edited by Jerry and Tracy Ripley, a St. Louis-based husband-and-wife team of motorcycle enthusiasts. "It will be operated by people who are living it," Thaemert said. "We're rat rod people. We have a mutual respect for people who do things with their own hands and get dirty."

Rat Rod put the spotlight on customizers and hobbyists who tend to rely on recycled parts for their cars and see beauty in rust as well as chrome, a portion of the car hobbyist world that was largely ignored by other magazines and advertisers.

Thaemert says his definition for a rat rod has changed over the years, but he simply calls such cars "blue-collar hot rods."

"The term rat rod was really a derogatory term for a long time," he said. "We had to go against the grain to bring the magazine to market. People told us we'd never get it on the newsstand, but we did, and we got in Wal-Mart."

Evan Ramstad • 612-673-4241