6OTH ANNIVERSARY OF FOUR WHEELER MAGAZINE

SIX DECADES OF COVERING NEW VEHICLES, HOW-TO'S, ROAD TESTS, EVENTS, AND THE OFF-ROAD CULTURE

- Tori Tellem

The Feb. '12 issue of Four Wheeler was perhaps one of our most significant. It marked 50 years of being published. Humans are lucky to live that long, let alone paper goods. To celebrate, we did a deep dive and revisited the magazine's entire history—the ebb and flow of new 4x4s, how you were building and modifying your vehicles, groundbreaking new products, events from around the world, trends that went mainstream (or crashed and burned), automotive milestones, and everything else related to the off-road world.

Then we blinked.

We're now at our 60th anniversary. Don't think much of - 196 note could have happened in just 10 years that could shift the entire off-road industry? Without effort, some things that instantly come to mind include the increasing demand for electric vehicles, a global pandemic, a new segment called Overlanding (to which we responded with our popular Four Wheeler Overland Adventure event), the rise and/or fall of diesel engines and compact trucks, and an auto manufacturer chip shortage that caused unremarkable used 4x4s to cost nearly as much as some base-model new ones. And while we've reflected mainly on happenings of the past decade, we did manage to sneak in a few moments from the previous decades, too.

Remember our 50th-anniversary recap? It was in the February 2012 issue. We also did a 54th-anniversary recap in the May '16 issue, which may sound random to celebrate, but it was an excuse to put together a collection of The Best —our best-of feature trucks, adventures, ads, and Top Truck Challenge, with never-before seen-before-then photos.