Wheels editor Glenn Butler calls it a day

AFTER almost three years at the helm and 36 action-packed editions, Wheels editor Glenn Butler has called it a day.

Butler, who will enter the field of automotive PR, has steered Wheels through a digital transformation. He’s created the standalone WheelsMag.com.au website, and evolved the WhichCar.com.au website into a must-read reference site for new-car buyers.

He is the 13th editor to head up Wheels, appointed after the magazine’s nerve centre shifted from Sydney to Melbourne.

“My relationship with Wheels started in 1996, and every single day since I’ve lived in perpetual fear that Robbo, Carey, Stahly, Ponch and others I’m chuffed to call mates will discover me for the fraud I am,” he wrote in his first column as editor, published in the January 2014 edition.

It was something of a baptism of fire. Even before the chair was warm Butler was thrown into the hot seat, with the axing of FPV and alarm bells ringing loudly over the future of Holden’s manufacturing – following in the wake of Ford announcing it would become a full-line importer from 2016 – shaking Australian car enthusiasts to the core.

Butler was also responsible for some of Wheels’ greatest moments during his two-weeks-shy-of-three-years tenure. He introduced us to Melbourne underworld figure Mick Gatto (pictured, above) in one of the most controversial, and talked-about, road tests the magazine has ever conducted. He’s taken us behind the wheel of some of the world’s most desirable supercars, and driven a V8 Supercar. In fact, he’s highlighted his laps of Sandown at the helm of Craig Lowndes’ Red Bull Racing Commodore as the crowning driving moment of his time in the editor’s chair.

Butler also joined the campaign in 2014 to push an almost stock FPV GT-F north of 300km/h in the Northern Territory (above), a feat that fell tantalisingly short even under the experienced hands of pro driver John Bowe.

Butler’s tenure at Wheels hasn’t been without its controversy, either. Some readers reacted in horror when the BMW i3, a small, lightweight battery-powered hatchback, was named the 2014 Wheels Car of the Year. As with some of other controversial COTY decisions (did someone mention the Leyland P76?), only time will tell if that choice will come to be seen as far sighted or misguided.

Wheels fans needn’t fear that their favourite motoring brand is going to get the wobbles though, as deputy editor Alex Inwood, senior journalist Nathan Ponchard, editor-at-large Toby Hagon and the champion Wheels team will continue to deliver Australia’s most engaging automotive content, while the search continues for a new editor.

WHEELS EDITORS THROUGH THE AGES

• 1953-56 Athol Yeomans
• 1956-58 Ian Simpson
• 1958-63 Ian Fraser
• 1963-68 Bill Tuckey
• 1968-71 Rob Luck
• 1971-87 Peter Robinson
• 1987-94 Phil Scott
• 1994-99 Angus MacKenzie
• 1999-2002 Ewen Page
• 2002-10 Ged Bulmer
• 2010-12 Bill Thomas
• 2012-13 Stephen Corby
• 2013-16 Glenn Butler
• 2016-