Description
Author: Graham Robson, Hardbound, 224 Pages, ISBN: 9781899870158
1st Edition, 1996
How many times have you searched for a car's top speed, then not known how much it cost? Or looked for an engine size, but not known what was the car's top speed? Wondered which Ferrari was fastest? Which car was made over the longest period? Or tried to equate length with weight, and body options — and failed? That's right — often, and so have I.
This book, I hope, will solve all — or at least most of — your problems, for it sets out to list, summarize and describe every production car made, or sold, in the UK from 1945 to the end of 1970. A companion volume will cover the period 1971 to 1995.
Because I have a large library at home, I know I am very lucky, but I've always been irritated by the lack of an all-can-do book to save me the hours of digging around for information. Some time ago, more than 40 years after I bought my first motoring magazine, I decided to do something about it.
CARS in the UK sets out to provide you with all the facts, without any flowery opinions — and hopefully without any prejudice. There are tens of thousands of 'what's, 'when's, 'how fast's' and 'how much's in these pages — and I hope I have covered every production car sold in the UK. Because of the way sales and prices have changed so radically over the years, I have also included tables to help you work out what is cheap by 1970 standards — or costly by 1945 standards.
When I first approached my publisher, John Blunsden, he thought I was about to propose yet another 'Centenary Book' (for the book appears for the first time in the British motor industry's centenary year, 1996), but when he saw that my intention was to cover only the post-Second World War period, but to do so in great detail, he became enthusiastic.
Originally, the intention had been to produce one vast volume covering the first 50 postwar years, but as the project progressed we both realized that if it were to do every subject justice, such a book would almost certainly be a lot too large for the reader to handle comfortably, as well as colossally expensive. We therefore decided to cover the same period in two matching volumes, to be published in quick succession, which would neatly and tidily split at the end of 1970, halfway through my target of 50 postwar years.
New-model descriptions and production dates - Production and sales figures - Technical specifications of over 1,500 models
Year-by-year Retail Price Index - Industrial and technical developments - Changes in the motoring scene
. . . and in the companion volume:
CARS IN THE UK A survey of all British-built and officially imported cars available in the United Kingdom since 1945
Volume Two: 1971 to 1995
GRAHAM ROBSON
