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Post by DeadCanDanceR on Apr 16, 2022 18:33:44 GMT -5
Great books! Like the Observer's book- did you know that Olyslager is Dutch? Thanks, mate! No, I didn’t. I thought that it was a British editorial house!
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Post by GBOAC002 on Apr 17, 2022 3:35:55 GMT -5
I bought my first Observers Book of Automobiles in 1958. It was actually as a result of winning a school prize in the form of a book token for English. That was me hooked and I dutifully added each year's updated edition until the very last one which was a paperback version. I also chased down 1955, 56, and 57 hardbacks when they were still cheap. Some were minus their dust jackets and all are UK editions. I've never worried about the lack of dust jackets. The unique feature for several years was the inclusion of car manufacturers addresses which spurred me to writing to companies around the globe. I would request car brochures. Many companies to their credit responded and sent me catalogues. I soon ran out of storage space and regrettably many of those early catalogues were swapped or moved on.
Even today I still refer to my Observers Automobiles book collection. They do pop up at Toy Fairs but with repro covers and US editions to be careful about.
I also note your book by George Bishop who's column in Car Magazine could always be guaranteed to make readers laugh.
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Post by DeadCanDanceR on Apr 17, 2022 8:35:15 GMT -5
I bought my first Observers Book of Automobiles in 1958. It was actually as a result of winning a school prize in the form of a book token for English. That was me hooked and I dutifully added each year's updated edition until the very last one which was a paperback version. I also chased down 1955, 56, and 57 hardbacks when they were still cheap. Some were minus their dust jackets and all are UK editions. I've never worried about the lack of dust jackets. The unique feature for several years was the inclusion of car manufacturers addresses which spurred me to writing to companies around the globe. I would request car brochures. Many companies to their credit responded and sent me catalogues. I soon ran out of storage space and regrettably many of those early catalogues were swapped or moved on. Even today I still refer to my Observers Automobiles book collection. They do pop up at Toy Fairs but with repro covers and US editions to be careful about. I also note your book by George Bishop who's column in Car Magazine could always be guaranteed to make readers laugh. Thanks for your very interesting comments and the information about this little book, Ian! I never saw one again, I guess they didn’t sell well here! At around that time, the late 70s, I discovered the special yearly issues Road and Track and other American magazines published about the cars available in the American market. I bought a few and I still have them but, I must confess that I haven’t even opened them in years!
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Post by GBOAC002 on Apr 17, 2022 17:13:54 GMT -5
The R&T, Car & Driver, and Motor Trend magazines did indeed do special issues coinciding with Autumn model changes for the US. Catching them on the shop shelves could be hit and miss in the UK. When I did manage to obtain them I have to confess to also saving these and seldom referring to them later. My local news shop would get confused by these special issues and I recall having to try to explain these were in addition to the standard monthly issues... When I asked the shop to try to get the 'special' ones sometimes it would work and other times fail!
The 70s/80s was a pretty dull period for US car design and it took them time to restore their 'MoJo'. 90s and 2000s especially Dodge Viper seemed to put some pizzaz back into the process. In fact I made a point of visiting California in '96 to take in the Concorso Italiano, Laguna Seca, and Pebble. Unforgettable! A couple more visits to New York in '03 ( to travel on last of the BA Concorde flights) and California again in '05 ( this time for family reasons and too early for Pebble week) were interesting times for me.
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Post by DeadCanDanceR on Apr 17, 2022 18:08:44 GMT -5
The R&T, Car & Driver, and Motor Trend magazines did indeed do special issues coinciding with Autumn model changes for the US. Catching them on the shop shelves could be hit and miss in the UK. When I did manage to obtain them I have to confess to also saving these and seldom referring to them later. My local news shop would get confused by these special issues and I recall having to try to explain these were in addition to the standard monthly issues... When I asked the shop to try to get the 'special' ones sometimes it would work and other times fail! The 70s/80s was a pretty dull period for US car design and it took them time to restore their 'MoJo'. 90s and 2000s especially Dodge Viper seemed to put some pizzaz back into the process. In fact I made a point of visiting California in '96 to take in the Concorso Italiano, Laguna Seca, and Pebble. Unforgettable! A couple more visits to New York in '03 ( to travel on last of the BA Concorde flights) and California again in '05 ( this time for family reasons and too early for Pebble week) were interesting times for me. Agreed, although I’d say that that dull period for US car design was from about the early to mid 70s to the mid to late 80s! And, speaking of California, I was extremely close to going to Pebble Beach in 1985, for the Royale gathering, but I was extremely bussy at the time because I was about to graduate. I should have gone! However, I visited the area, and was able to test drive an Alpina and a couple of BMWs at Laguna Seca about 10 years ago while doing some auto journalism! About those special issues. This conversation made me unbox these: It’s going to be fun browsing them after maybe 35 years without even opening them!
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Post by DeadCanDanceR on Apr 17, 2022 18:26:37 GMT -5
Shortly before Christmas, in late 1977, we went to Mexico City, again, and my parents bought me these two books as Christmas gifts: 9This book’s filled with all kind of photographs, both old and new (at that time), but many chapters deal with veteran cars and that makes it a bit boring. Interestingly enough, this book showed a slightly different photograph of the same gorgeous Bentley R-type Continental mentioned before. 10This is a very good book, with only a few chapters, each devoted to a particular great marque! It remains very enjoyable to this day, even though I don’t browse it as often as I used to. In a year, my collection grew from 0 to 10 books. This obsession with car related books (and magazines) was just beginning and it will prove to be extremely strong and quite influential!
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Post by DeadCanDanceR on Apr 18, 2022 11:23:08 GMT -5
Not a book, but extremely close… At around that time I asked my father for a subscription to Automobile Quarterly. Sometime during late 1977 or early 1978, my first issue arrived and I was extremely impressed with the quality and beauty of this magazine, undoubtedly the Rolls-Royce of classic car magazines! This is the first issue I received, Volume 15, Number 4: I liked it so much that I ordered all the back issues a couple of years after receiving that first issue. I was subscribed from then, up until the mid 80s. By the late 90s I bought a collection with many volumes (years) that I didn’t have and have continued buying old issues at eBay since then. Currently, I’m only missing the last 4 volumes, which are very expensive and pretty hard to find! This is how my Automobile Quarterly collection looks now:
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Post by Tom on Apr 18, 2022 15:52:44 GMT -5
Wow, that's impressive!
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Post by oldirish33 on Apr 18, 2022 15:57:54 GMT -5
Great Collector Cars was one of the first car books I ever bought. Great selection!
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Post by DeadCanDanceR on Apr 18, 2022 16:31:52 GMT -5
Thanks, Tom! And, so very enjoyable! Truth is that I’m really enjoying writing this thread (thanks Jeff for the idea). It’s being a fantastic excuse to revisit many books I had not even opened in years! Great Collector Cars was one of the first car books I ever bought. Great selection! I guess that great minds think alike, then!…LOL Thanks, Jerry! There are many more to come!
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Post by GBOAC002 on Apr 18, 2022 17:26:03 GMT -5
Another recipient of Stein's 'Great Cars' here. My only Automobile Quarterly is Vol 23, Issue 1 which covered the Lamborghini story. I have frequently contemplated buying other issues which appear at Swapmeets but resisted thus far. It would be another slippery slope!
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Post by DeadCanDanceR on Apr 18, 2022 18:49:59 GMT -5
Another recipient of Stein's 'Great Cars' here. My only Automobile Quarterly is Vol 23, Issue 1 which covered the Lamborghini story. I have frequently contemplated buying other issues which appear at Swapmeets but resisted thus far. It would be another slippery slope! Tell me about it…! I was browsing my “Great Cars” book a little while ago. It’s such a great book!
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Post by DeadCanDanceR on Apr 18, 2022 19:04:44 GMT -5
I mentioned that, late in 1977 I bought my first “Car Classics” magazine and, I was particularly interested in a multiple page ad about a car book distributor called “Classic Motorbooks” (I’m sure that sounds familiar to many of you). My 16th birthday was coming in January and it would be the perfect excuse to try and order a few books from them… I vividly remember being awaken by my parents, on my 16th birthday in 1978. They had a big box wrapped as a birthday gift and I was ecstatic! The books in that box were these: 11I was really looking forward to this book and it ended up being a bit of a disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, this is a great book but, at that time, I preferred books with lots of photos and this one didn’t have as many as I expected. 12My second book from the Dalton Watson series! Quite nice and enjoyable, filled with photos of interesting cars from this marque, but not nearly as good as the books on Rolls-Royce from the same publishers. 13One of the most useful books that I’ve ever had, it ignited my interest and then my appreciation of American cars from the 50s and 60s. For months I carried this book with me all the time and loved identifying cars I found in the streets of Guadalajara. I learned so much from this book…and its successors! 14My third book from Dalton Watson, an absolute jewel that after all these years still is one of my favourite ones. One interesting fact is that it has always had a unique, kind of attractive smell, all its own, that none of my other books has! 15A fantastic, thick and heavy reference book, packed with lots of interesting, straightforward information! It still amazes me to read it and realize the incredible amount of automobile marques that have existed! The sad news were that the sixth book I ordered, Dalton Watson’s The Jaguar Tradition, was out of stock! I would have to wait a little while for that one!
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Post by Tom on Apr 18, 2022 23:24:26 GMT -5
I have a similar book by Georgano.
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Post by DeadCanDanceR on Apr 19, 2022 1:07:59 GMT -5
I have a similar book by Georgano. A different edition, perhaps? Isn’t it an amazingly informative book?
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