OVERVIEW
MiniTruckin magazine was published by McMullen & Yee Publishing in Anaheim then later Placentia, California. The company
had a large portfolio of magazines including Street Rodder, Popular Cars,
Mustang Illustrated and VW Trends.
Content focused on mini-trucks and later on sport compacts. Articles typically fell into one of three buckets: tech, features and events. Mini-truck owners had the souls of hot rodders. Like their predecessors, they took inexpensive vehicles (or cheap depending on your point of view) and created rolling masterpieces. These trucks were fundamentally simple and dependable, and they lent themselves to improvements. Youthful owners might do performance upgrades with more horsepower, yet more likely included colorful paint jobs and graphics, tilting or "dancing" beds, body kits, facelifts with front ends from other trucks, and upgraded interiors including car stereos. The owners often did heavy fabrication to build a "low and slow" vehicle, and many displayed very clean builds with much attention to detail. Owners experimented with the latest automotive technology including air ride suspensions and billet wheels.
The title had several editors including, in order, Steve Stillwell, Mike Shartsis, Courtney Halowell, Lance Martz, Mike Alexander and John Mata Jr. Like other titles from the publisher, most cover images featured bikini-clad models. Gosh, who can forget the teased hair and high-wasted bikini bottoms from the 1980s!!
OWNERSHIP:
Mr. McMullen died in a tragic accident in 1995. The editors and staff rode a wave of changes as the title moved through
various new owners:
- 1995 -- Primedia acquires McMullen & Yee Publishing and creates McMullen-Argus Publishing division;
- 2007 -- Primedia sells its Enthusiast Media division to Source Interlink Media for $1.2 billion;
- 2014 -- Source Interlink rebrands to TEN: The Enthusiast Network, and numerous titles are ended including MiniTruckin.
The table of contents can be seen by clicking on the 
icon.
PUBLICATION DATA
The publisher provided net paid circulation data to Oxbridge Communication's compendium, The Standard Periodical Directory, from
1988 to 2005 (the last year for which we have data). Circulation volume was initially reported as 650,000 annual print issues. After 4 years, it stair-
stepped down to 273,000, but then in the last few years the publisher reported 114,000 annual issues.
CONTENT COMPLETENESS:
A total of 269 issues was printed from Summer, 1988 through May, 2014. All cover images are complete.
INTERNET:
An internet presence was created and URLs added to the front covers starting in August, 1999. The
site www.minitruckinweb.com is now defunct.