Wheels magazine

Wheels is an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n automotive magazine

Magazine

Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

 published monthly by ACP Magazines. The publication is well-renowned by Australian car enthusiasts. Its main competitor within the Australian market is Motor, though Wheels and Motor are stablemates in the ACP Magazines catalogue and are aimed at slightly different readers as Motor concentrates on performance cars.

History

Wheels was founded in May 1953 by editor Athol Yeomans. With the help of a colleague, Yeomans planned the first copy of Wheels in a stationery room of Hudson Publications in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

. Wheels was the first Australian car magazine to appear in local newsagents and was a best seller from the start. Before its inception, only Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an and American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 publications were available in Australia. Wheels was also the first magazine to actually road test cars. In the 1950s, road testing cars was something of a rarity as major makes did not allow it.

Since 1963, Wheels have annually announced their Car of the Year

Wheels Car of the Year

Wheels magazine has announced its Car of the Year every year since 1963, with the exception of 1972, 1979 and 1986 when no cars were considered worthy of the honour . It is considered Australia's most prestigious automotive award...

award, although this has been withheld in 1972, 1979 and 1986.

It was announced in September 2010 that Bill Thomas, former deputy editor of BBC Top Gear Magazine in the UK, would take over as editor in November 2010.