Wheels magazine - Encyclopedia

Wheels magazine was founded by Athol Yeoman in 1953 with the first edtion appering in May of that year. Wheels has become Australia's largest-selling motoring magazine.

Wheels is a monthly magazine made up of news, features and road tests. It is considered the Australian motoring enthusiasts' bible and every issue is pored over, argued about and studied by hundreds of thousands of Australians. It is also distributed to more than a dozen countries worldwide. Amongst its better known readers are ex-deputy prime minister John Anderson, Ford Motor Company boss William Clay Ford, General Motors vice president Bob Lutz, and indeed many of the world's car companies.

Despite Australia's isolation from automotive world centres in North America and Europe, Wheels magazine is held in high regard. Past editors have gone on to run magazines in both the UK and the USA, and indeed UK's Autocar magazine staff list reads like a Wheels 10 year reunion.

Wheels is always ready to dish out criticism, and is often the subject of criticism, usually by either Ford or Holden fans depending on the results of the latest comparison. Even so, they can't help but shell out another $7.95 at the newsagent's the following month.

Wheels magazine's Car of the Year (COTY) award, started in 1963 by then-editor Bill Tuckey, is the longest continually running automotive award of its kind in the world. Its power and prestige can make or break a new model. The award is bestowed once a year to the car which the judges deemed best satisfied the five established criteria released in that year. Ford and Holden have won numerous times, as have Mazda and Honda. Notably, Toyota has never won the award.

The Wheels COTY is unique in that in 1972, 1979 and 1986 (when under the command of Peter Robinson) the award was not given at all, due to the panel of judges believing that no car released was good enough to fulfill the criteria.

It was particularly controversial in 1979. 31 all-new or revised car ranges were released in Australia (the most important being the Ford Falcon XD) that year, and Wheels was overall not pleased with any as a whole. The result was an infamous March 1980 cover (A lemon on wheels, with text proclaiming "NO CAR OF THE YEAR"), backlash from public and media alike, negative outbursts from Ford Australia's then head Edsel Ford II and a seen only once full page advert from Ford (which had 31 lemons with the names of the eligible 1979 COTY contestants letrasetted on them - the Ford Falcon XD in larger font) proclaiming "There are times when being a lemon is not a bitter experience at all".

Other times the COTY has been won effortlessly by a car, often without consideration for other contenders. The 1978 winner, the Holden Commodore VB had for the headline "Well, it really couldn't be anything else now, could it?".

The awards have had a few rather controversial cars win it. In 1973, the ill-fated Leyland P76 V8 won (in the year of a major oil crisis), and in 1982 the much maligned Holden Camira won.

Occasionally more than one car has won it. In 1983 and 1992 the award was won by the Ford Telstar and Mazda 626 (which were rebadged versions of the same car). In 1991 it was deemed that two completely separate cars were good enough for the award, being the Nissan Pulsar and Honda NSX.

There is also a Wheels magazine in Sweden. The swedish magazine mostly deals with hot rods and custom cars. [1]

There a magazine called "World of Wheels", who sometimes might be referred as "Wheels"

Category: Automobile magazines

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