The postwar years saw a jump in the magazine’s auto coverage, a trend that lasted decades. From 1950 to 1980—when high-tech items such as computers start to appear—nearly every issue ran articles on cars, and many covers featured images of autos and their attendant tech.

Wilbur Shaw, The Race Champion Who Tested Our Vehicles

In August 1950, Popular Science debuted a new column: consumer cars, reviewed by the auto-racing champion Wilbur Shaw. Shaw won the Indianapolis 500 three times and became president of the organization after he saved the race from cancellation in 1946. He used the speedway to test cars for his reviews. The column ended abruptly when a plane crash killed Shaw in October 1954. He had been flying home from Detroit, where he was driving a new Chrysler luxury car for Popular Science. This article was originally published in the November 2015 issue of Popular Science, under the title “Efficient Autos Hit the Road.”