Hello fellow listers:
Yesterday I purchased a book entitled "The Encyclopedia of Classic Cars, A
Celebration of the Motor Car from 1945 to 1975" by Martin Buckley, printed
by Acropolis Books. I was impressed with the size, packaging and price,
but quickly dismayed at the contents. The definition of classic is
certainly open to interpretation and in no way resembles the Classic Car
Club of America definition. It would appear to be a UK interpretation of
that poor hackneyed term and implies a vehicle which is outstanding in one
or more of various areas.
The book was written in Britain and takes a British slant with token
attention to some of the other cars produced in Europe and North America.
The tone of the author is condescending and enfuriating, particularly with
regard to American vehicles. He sounds a bit like L.J.K. Setright without
the erudition and obviously has had little or no experience other than what
he may have read in the popular press.
The book is filled with major and minor errors of fact and loaded with
unsubstantiated opinion. Many of the photos are incorrectly captioned or
out-of-place. Some of the photos, which are offered as examples of a
specific marque, show incorrectly restored vehicles without any attempt to
explain the obvious errors. Furthermore, the vehicles chosen to exemplify
the so-called classics are quite arbitrarily chosen and seem to depend more
on what the author could find to photograph. No plan seems evident. It's
as though he walked through a few car shows then used his snaps to
illustrate 50 years of cars. Some glaring omissions and puzzling
inclusions round out a thoroughly arbitrary approach to what should be an
inclusive topic - if the title is any guide.
The book is divided into two major sections with the first being devoted to
a summary of the "classic" era and the second being an A-Z of classic cars.
The early section is divided into four sub-sections entitled: The Classic
Era, The Growth of an Industry, Building the Pedigree, and Classic Culture.
The examples used and the vehicles described are largely British or
European. Any American cars mentioned are dismissed as primitive. while
the author waxes eloquently about DOHC Jaguars, FF Jensens, DS Citroens,
hydrolastic 1100s and FWD Minis. He conveniently overlooks mention of the
completely mundane LBCs of '50s Britain which represented 90% of production
As an example, a Ford Pilot is referred to as "an attractive and powerful
chase car in its day"
A particularly galling instance is the caption under a '57 Chevrolet Coupe
which is described as "a '56 Chevy: crude, but comfortable and
well-equipped". This was a car which used the most modern V-8 engine in
the world - one that is still in use after 43 years. The car had ball
joint front suspension and was available with fuel injection and up to 283
horsepower from a mere 283 cu. in. Well over 1.5 million 1957 Chevs were
built. The book however completely overlooks any production Chev sedans
and uses two pages to describe and illustrate the post-war Alvis, of which
1500 were produced, and the Gordon-Keeble of which 99 were built. While I
definitely enjoy knowing more about Alvis and Gordon-Keeble, I have yet to
see a single example of either of these post-war cars.
The author admits that he has chosen freely of what he defines as classic
cars and has depicted some failures on purpose, however his omissions are
glaring. Furthermore, there is hardly a page in the book that could not be
challenged from the point of view of historical accuracy or unsubstantiated
opinion.
The A-Z section features specific makes and chooses to represent either a
cross-section of that make or a specific model of it. In addition there
are sidebars which give a brief sketch of other cars not included in
detail. Howeve the omissions are glaring and difficult to understand.
There is no recognition or pictures of any of the following marques:
Chrysler, DeSoto, Imperial, Plymouth, Hudson, Nash, Packard, Mercury,
Pontiac, Studebaker, and Kaiser-Frazer. No British cars were omitted nor
any major European marques, except those of Russia and East Germany.
Australia was completely overlooked.
Many captions make extravagant or inaccurate claims. As an example, the
Jensen 541R is listed as the fastest four-seater in the world at that time
- 1957-60. However, the book overlooks the Chrysler 300 (except in a brief
one sentence mention) which could easily exceed 135 mph in '55 and 150 mph
in '56. Furthermore there were 193 Jensens built compared to over 1700
300s in '55 alone. There were more than 10 production American cars which
could exceed 125 mph in each of the four years indicated - not including
Corvettes and Thunderbirds.
In another caption, a Buick Riviera is indicated as having "barely adequate
drum brakes" when Buick's heavily finned aluminum brake drums were among
the best brakes in the world. On the same page, a '58 Buick is captioned
as a '56.
The Datsun 240Z article states that Datsun badge had "little credibility
with sports car drivers before the able and low-priced 240Z" What happened
to all of those Datsun 1600 and 2000 roadsters? Were they not sports cars
with credibility?
A picture showing a cover from "The Autocar" of 1940, which refers to
Lockheed Hydraulic Braking Systems, is captioned as "Power Brakes were
something to shout about in the 1940s.... No reference to power brakes is
evident nor were any available in the cars.
Pictures are grossly transposed. A story on the Edsel shows a dashboard
shot of a Thunderbird with a condescending caption about "the usual glitz"
while the Thunderbird section shows the Edsel dash with comments about
"fussy details and poor ergonomics". This from a country that produced
Austins with sit-up-and-beg steering wheels and instrument panels centered
in the middle of the dashboard?
More than 1/3 of all the captions on American cars make negative or
condescending comments about the cars or their buyers, yet cars like the
Daimler SP250, Austin Atlantic, Tatra, Reliant, and Fiat 500 are described
in glowing terms with only a brief admission in the body of the text of
faults.
I could go on but I will spare you. My point is that the book is a useful
one as some of its photographs are quite good. But the information is
questionable given the errors which I have only briefly touched on. The
book should be titled as "A British Writer Looks at Some Interesting
British and European Automobiles, With a Few American Cars Thrown In To
Encourage Overseas Sales" It is not an Encyclopedia in any sense and is
far too opinionated to represent the impartiality implied by such a title.
This is just another coffee-table book, written and released to take
advantage of the Christmas season. It would make a good stocking-stuffer
for those who are interested in looking at pictures and for those who could
use a few shots of some of the more interesting Brit/Eurocars of the
post-war era.
John McEwen
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