The Epiphone Wilshire was introduced in 1960, three years after Gibson had bought the Epiphone Guitar Company and moved production to Kalamazoo, Michigan. Its double cutway body design allowed easy access to the upper frets, coupled with its light weight, intonatable bridge and playability made it a natural competitor of the Fender Stratocaster.

The original design of the Wilshire (from 1959 to 1962) had two P90 pickups(white from 1959 to 1960, then black from 1961 to 1962), a 3 per side headstock, symmetrical pickguard and a solid mahogany body and one piece neck.

The design was changed in 1963 to a 6 in a row batwing headstock, mini humbuckers and asymmetrical pickguard. This model was discontinued in 1970.

The Wilshire was briefly reissued in 1975 - 1979 as a Japanese (Matsumoku) made model for the Japanese domestic market only. These reissues had a maple neck, 3-per-side headstock and full sized humbuckers.

The Wilshire was reissued in 1982 to 1985 as the Wilshire II and Wilshire III. The Wilshire II had two mini-humbucker pickups and the Wilshire III had three. Epiphone once again reissued the Wilshire beginning in 2009. Several models were introduced: the limited edition Pro, '66 Worn (with or without "tremotone" (tremolo)) and '62 USA. In 2011, Epiphone released the Frank Iero signature Wilshire "Phant-o-Matic"