Mechanix Illustrated was an American magazine founded in the first half of the 20th Century to compete against the older Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. Billed as "The How-To-Do Magazine," Mechanix Illustrated (MI) aimed to guide readers through various projects from home improvements and advice on repairs to "build-your-own (sports car, telescope, helicopter, etc)." From its debut in 1928, it went through a number of permutations over the years, being called at various points in its life, Home Mechanix, Modern Mechanics and Inventions, Modern Mechanix and Inventions, Modern Mechanix and finally Mechanix Illustrated.

Although it featured many how-to articles, the most eagerly awaited and read features were Tom McCahill's monthly automobile tests which ran from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. McCahill's feisty opinions were delivered in a prose laced with similes that are still quoted today among car enthusiasts: "As anyone brighter than a rusty spike must know..."; flooring the accelerator pedal on a certain car is "...like stepping on a wet sponge"; the clock/tachometer combination on another car is "...about as useful as feathers on a moose." McCahill died in 1974, and three years later CBS bought Fawcett Publications, the company which published MI, and continued publishing the magazine, renaming it Home Mechanix in 1984. .

Defunct magazines | Science and technology magazines | United States magazines