Kategoria BISAC: Transportation >> Automotive - History

When launched in 1962, the Ford Cortina was an entirely new type of British car. Compared with its rivals - and with earlier Fords - it was light yet strong, inexpensive yet roomy, mechanically simple and cheap to maintain. It quickly established a totally new class of car, which even its rivals admitted should be called the 'Cortina class'. Not only did it sell well, but it was very profitable for Ford, which expanded considerably, and it became the most successful British car of the 1960s and 1970s.
About the author
Graham Robson has been a motoring writer for many years and has...

Traction engines developed in the mid 1860s and were usually dirty, noisy and somewhat crude to handle. They were driven initially by men who were perhaps not very skilled in handling them but these men were not just drivers - they developed the task into an art. This book brings together much information about these engines, from the earliest to the latest. Attention is also given to the various derivatives of the traction engine - the humble portable, the well-known steam roller, the little steam tractor, majestic road locomotives and ploughing engines and, not least, the King of the...

Registration marks are one of the very few unbroken links between the earliest days of the motor vehicle and the present day. The system introduced at the beginning of the twentieth century had a straightforward purpose in identifying the place of origin of motor vehicles, providing links to owners. As more and more vehicles came into use, the original system evolved through piecemeal development and sheer necessity to the point where adaptations changed it almost beyond recognition. This book looks back on the evolution of the British number plate, showing how the original, painstakingly...

This book tells of those fascinating makes and models that were manufactured between 1919 and 1930, from the crude and inexpensive cyclecars and popular light cars like the Austin Seven and Bullnose Morris Cowley to the Rolls-Royce and Daimler luxury limousines and the exciting sports cars such as the Frazer Nash, 12/50 Alvis and Bentley and 30/98 Vauxhall. It is intended for all those fascinated with the vintage era, whether they were motorists in those days of inexpensive petrol and uncongested roads or younger enthusiasts who have become aware of the joys of driving these cars in more...

This book covers motoring in the 1940s, the bleakest period in the brief history of the motor car. It was a time of war, deprivation and austerity when, for almost a decade, car development stood still. Wartime motorists faced petrol and tyre rationing, the hazards of the blackout and restricted areas, but they provided invaluable service to the community. Peace in 1945 brought further austerity measures and restrictions because the British economy was dominated by the need to export.

When Chase Morsey Jr. joins Ford Motor Co. in 1948, he has no idea the part he'll play in automotive history.

Morsey's arrival comes as Henry Ford II and other titans in the industry are about to kill the vaunted V-8 engine. He sees it as his sole mission to talk them out of it. In The Man Who Saved the V-8, he shares the never-before-told story of how his crusade saved the engine that would go on to power iconic cars like the Ford Thunderbird and Mustang.

"To this day, I have no idea how a young, newly hired manager like myself...had the nerve to challenge the most...

In the 1950s and 1960s, luxury car buyers, from government ministers to captains of industry, almost invariably bought British. These were stately, dignified, and grand vehicles, with many featuring leather interiors and wood trim. Unfortunately, that market has now largely disappeared and, with it, so have the car-makers themselves.

The book covers cars in the over-3-litre class from the biggest names in British luxury motoring including Alvis, Daimler, and Lagonda, and high-end models from Austin, Rover, and Jaguar. It examines the features and characteristics of these classic...

William Hillman was an early maker of cars in Coventry: he produced cars from 1907 before selling his company to the Rootes Brothers in 1928. Three years later came the Hillman Minx, the first of a line that would endure for nearly half a century. By the 1950s, the latest Minx came in multiple forms--including a versatile and much-liked compact estate derivative called the Husky. The Minx remained the core Hillman product even after the remarkable Imp arrived in 1963 to claim a slice of the market opened by the BMC Mini.

Rarely revolutionary, Hillman cars nevertheless carved out a...

Of all motor vehicles the farm tractor has proved to be among the most beneficial. It has freed hundreds of thousands of laborers and horses from backbreaking toil on the land in all weathers and it has stabilized the cost of food.

Starting with steam power in the middle of the nineteenth century, the agricultural tractor became motorized in the early years of the twentieth century. From vast prairie types, lighter, one-man machines arrived in time to avert famine in the First World War. Mass production followed, which brought the price of tractors within reach of the average farmer....