Category Archives: Book Review

Brooklin Collectors Guide Update

By Gianluigi Cappi 

Text and photographs copyright of the Author(s) unless otherwise stated.

The Brooklin Collectors Guide was published in September 2019 and covers all Brooklin models released up to the date of publication. Of course, many more models were produced after that time and an update was made in November 2020 to show models released from September 2019 to October 2020. At that time Volume 2 of the Collectors Guide was also published, covering European Collections made by Brooklin.

Now it is time to make a second update showing models produced from the first update to the end of 2023. In this book I also included a few photos of models mentioned in the Collectors Guide but without a picture. As a request by collectors, I also show all the pictures of the Hot Road series. Finally, a few pages show interesting realizations by Brooklin.

The book is being self-published and will only be available directly from the Author and will not be featured on the Brooklin website as previous volumes have been. It is a book of 40 pages and the price is only 18 euro plus shipping: 10 euro to Europe, 15 to USA, 20 to the rest of the world (I sold one in New Zealand!). If a collector wants it, they can just send me an email with their address and, after confirmation from me, he can pay with Paypal.

I intend to go to the printer early this week and I will print only the copies which were requested and paid, so there is not much time left for collectors to contact me at gianluigicappi@gmail.com.


We welcome your comments and questions.   Please go to our Model Auto Review Facebook page or email the Editors at maronlineeditor at gmail.com.

Book Review January 2024

By Maz Woolley


Oldsmobile Album Auto Review #197 by Rod Ward. English Text. 32 pages, with many colour and Black and white pictures. Softbound. Size 148 x 210 millimetres ISBN 978 1 85482 196 9. Available from Zeteo.Com or selected booksellers and museums.

The first of Rod Ward’s new books for 2024 have already come out, more details of the year’s programme can be found at zeteo.com.

Here we have another of his encyclopaedic trips through the history of a now obsolete brand from start to end. Here we also get side trips to Reo, Viking and Saturn which were all related to the Oldsmobile in some way.

Oldsmobile were the first mass-market car in US history with the sales of the curved dash and its successors providing simple and rugged transport in America before the Ford T arrived. The book tells of the cars developed over the years and their designers with plenty of background on Oldsmobile’s place in the GM family.

In 2004 the last Oldsmobile was built and shipped. A victim of the rapidly changing US Sales market and the fact that the glamour of the 4-4-2 had long been replaced by a rather non-descript product line up with little to differentiate it from the cheaper GM ranges.

The book is short but absolutely packed full with illustrations and text it is excellent value with a cover price of only 5.95 UK Pounds. It goes well with Rod’s other great marque histories, and we will be seeing two more US marques covered this year with books on Plymouth and Pontiac.

For those who are interested the Auto Review publication for 2024 is:

AR197 Oldsmobile AlbumIncluding Reo, Viking and SaturnAvailable NOW

AR198 Armour on WheelsThe story of wheeled armoured fighting vehiclesAvailable NOW

AR199 Cars produced in Latin America.Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and moreApril 2024

AR200 Plymouth Album.Plus DeSoto, Fargo, ValiantApril 2024

AR201 Commercial Vehicle Album 2Minor postwar UK ManufacturersJune 2024

AR202 They also made cars: Suzuki Album. Plus Isuzu, Hino and DaihatsuJune 2024

AR203 Pontiac AlbumPlus the story of OaklandSeptember 2024

AR204 MAN.Including Büssing-NAG and moreSeptember 2024

AR205Not just Volvo, Saab and Scania:The Other Nordics.Vehicles made in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, IcelandNovember 2024

AR206 The White Saga.Including Autocar, Freightliner, Reo, Diamond T, Western Star, Cletrac, Indiana, Sterling, EuclidNovember 2024


We welcome your comments and questions.   Please go to our Model Auto Review Facebook page or email the Editors at maronlineeditor at gmail.com.

Book Review – Wolseley Four-Fifty and Six-Eighty: a Super Profile

By Rod Ward

Wolseley Four-Fifty and Six-Eighty: a Super Profile by Anders Ditlev Clausager

Published by the Wolseley Register, 363 Old Birmimgham Road, Lickey, Rednal, Worcs B45 8EU. Email: regalia@thewolseleyregister.com. Website: www.wolseleyregister.co.uk/shop. Telephone 0121 445 1872. Size A4, softbound, 72 pages.

Price: £15.99 plus p&p: £2.40 UK, £9.00 America/Africa/Asia, £10.50 Australasia.

The Wolseley Register has been producing its range of profiles devoted to specific Wolseley cars for some years now, originally A5 size, but now grown to A4, with many more pages and now with a prestigious author on board. Anders Clausager is well-known to be an authority on all matters BMC, so surely no-one would dare to criticise or comment on his text: certainly not this reviewer. There is all you would ever need to know about these models of Wolseley cars, and there are even a couple of pages on scale models as well. There are lots of illustrations, many in colour and reproduced from company literature.  

Essential reading for Wolseley fans


We welcome your comments and questions.   Please go to our Model Auto Review Facebook page or email the Editors at maronlineeditor at gmail.com.

Auto Review Books for 2023

By Rod Ward

Text and photographs copyright of the Author(s) unless otherwise stated.

Reader’s of MAR Online may already know that since passing on the editorship of MAR Online I have been creating a series of A5 sized books on transport, collecting and popular culture. The format of most of the titles is of thirty-two A5 pages with eight pages of full colour printing. Many include photographs and illustrations never seen in any other publication. We set the cover price at £5.95 when we relaunched this series and are still holding it at that today despite all inflationary pressures. This makes the books great value when compared to ephemeral magazines. 

Full details of all the books available may be found on Zeteo.com and books can be ordered from me via that website. You can also order from one of our stockists, which include Oxford Die-cast, motor book specialists Chaters, and transport book specialists MDS Books. Readers in the USA can order via our long-standing supporter Pete’s Model Garage in Lakeville, Massachusetts. If you have a favourite bookshop or specialist book dealer, please ask them to contact us for trade terms.  

We are excited to present our new titles for 2023. These are:

AR187 Berliet Album (Including Alco, Rochet Schneider and more) Available
AR188 Mercury Album (Including Cougar and Edsel)  Available
AR189 Commercial Vehicle Album Some lesser-known British manufacturers  April 2023
AR190 Chrysler Album (Including Imperial and Maxwell)  April 2023
AR191 Mazda Album (and the story of the Wankel engine)  June 2023
AR192 American Classic 2 (And the men behind ten of the marques) June 2023
AR193 Fun on the beach (Dune Buggies and Beach Cars) September 2023
AR194 The VW Golf (and other cars on the same platform) In preparation
AR195 Tesla and the other new electrics In preparation
AR196 The Roadmakers (and other construction equipment) In preparation

The first two titles are available now and here is a description of them both.

AR187 Berliet Album

In the early years of the 20th century the company established by Marius Berliet made cars which were so advanced that they formed the basis of early Sunbeam cars in England, and Alco cars in the USA. Primarily a car manufacturer, Berliet also made lorries and buses; by the time of the Great War it was the biggest producer of commercial vehicles in France. By the late 1930s the emphasis had changed and it had become a truck company which also made cars. After the Second World War no cars were produced at all. In the postwar years Berliet, now run by Marius’s son Paul, was once again the biggest manufacturer of commercial vehicles in France. Berliet built the biggest truck in the world in 1957, the T100. In 1967 Berliet lost its independence when it found itself under the same ownership as Citroën, when the company was acquired by Michelin. In 1974, encouraged by the French government, which was promoting auto industry consolidation, Renault acquired Berliet from Michelin. Renault then combined the firm with Saviem, and the Berliet name disappeared after both were absorbed by the RVI group in 1978.


AR188 Mercury Album

Mercury was created as a car marque in 1938 by Edsel Ford, to fill the gap between Ford and Lincoln-Zephyr, competing against middle-priced models from General Motors, Chrysler and other manufacturers. After the Second World War Mercury was conjoined with Lincoln in Ford’s new Lincoln-Mercury Division (see Auto Review 162 Lincoln and Continental). Mercury settled in the mid-market, which it shared for a short time in the 1950s with the doomed Edsel, which is also described in these pages. Sub-ranges in later years included Comet, Cougar and Merkur, but in a 21st century process of rationalisation, Ford axed the Mercury brand in 2010.

It had been in existence for just over 70 years.

Our thanks to Dave Turner for some text incorporated here, which was previously published by us in Model Auto Review many decades ago.


The programme for 2023 covers a wide range of topics and hopefully most people with an interest in vehicles will find something to interest them.


We welcome your comments and questions.   Please go to our Model Auto Review Facebook page or email the Editors at maronlineeditor at gmail.com.

Book Review – Alles Mit Motor

Alles Mit Motor – by Otfried Jaus, Andy Schwietzer, and Paul Schilperoord. German Text. 272 pages, Publisher is Dr. Pal Negyesi and it is supported by Collection K,a German private collection of Standard and Gutbrod vehicles.

More details on the book can be found on Austro Classic’s website here.

The tells the story of the Gutbrod family of entrepreneurs and their companies from 1926 to 1954. Wilhelm Gutbrod set up his own business in 1926 with the manufacture of motorcycles under the brand name “Standard”. He was the first to work with the engineer and publicist Josef Ganz. Based on his revolutionary ideas, Standard produced a small series of people’s cars from 1933. The company also offered three- and four-wheeled vans and agricultural machinery. After the Second World War, Gutbrod succeeded, with the help of former Mercedes-Benz engineers, in mass-producing the first mass-produced passenger car with fuel injection. Unfortunately, economic reality caught up with the company. In 1954 and the production of motor vehicles had to be ended.

The book covers an interesting ‘backwater’ of German motoring history.

MCW

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Britain’s Toy Car Wars, Updated

A Book Review by Karl Schnelle

Text and photographs copyright of the Author(s) unless otherwise stated.

Late last year, Giles Chapman published a revised and expanded edition of his 2016 book, Britain’s Toy Car Wars, Dinky vs Corgi vs Matchbox. Again published by The Heritage Press, this new book is a smaller format but has additional text, now titled, Britain’s Toy Car Wars, The War of Wheels Between Dinky, Corgi, & Matchbox. The previous 25 x 23 cm book included three large sections of color photos and 15 chapters,126 pages. The new 2021 book is 14 x 21 cm but contains 15 chapters in 239 pages. The chapters have been retitled with more descriptive terms but follow the same general outline.

More details are included in the new book that has come to light over the last five years, such as our own Terry Hardgrave’s research on H Hudson Dobson. The previous version was reviewed in MAR Online so I will not repeat it here; the same comments apply to this book as well.

I recommend either book as a great read on these three iconic British toy car brands. Both are available online, so buy the larger softbound book for the color photos and buy the smaller hardback if you want to read a little more in-depth details about the three companies.


We welcome your comments and questions.   Please go to our Model Auto Review Facebook page or email the Editors at maronlineeditor at gmail.com.

More on Model Car Books

By Paul Mayo

Text and photographs copyright of the Author(s) unless otherwise stated.

I’ve been enjoying the articles since I started looking at the beginning of the year and have been intrigued by the posts on books.  I hope the following are also of interest – many were inherited from my father who was a good scratch build model maker.

The earliest is Miniature Car Construction by Cyril Posthumus published in 1949 by Percival Marshall & Co. Ltd with a foreword by the late William Boddy, the former editor of Motor Sport magazine.  It covers scratch-building of models and tells you how to make wheels, tyres, the chassis, the body, fittings & then painting.  It has 91 pages with 57 figures & 8 photographic plates in black & white.

In 1951 the well known model car builder Rex Hays published Racing Cars in Miniature also by Percival Marshall & Co. Ltd this time with a foreword by R L Walkerley another noted journalist with The Motor magazine.  This book covers the same territory but has lengthy chapters on the 4.5 litre Blower Bentley & the Alfa Romeo Type 158 “Alfette” and it is also well-illustrated with 93 pages containing 53 figures & 9 photographic plates in black & white.




Rex Hays had a bigger book on Motor Modelling published in 1961 as an Arco Publications Handybook. Again the subject is building scale models from scratch concentrating on sporting and racing cars as its subjects. 175 pages include 35 figures & 16 black & white photographic plates.

In my book collection the earliest book I have on die-casts is Cecil Gibson’s Veteran & Vintage Cars published by Thomas Nelson in 1970 in their Troy Model Club Series.  This 62 page book covers mainly Veteran, Edwardian & Vintage vehicles in the Lesney Yesteryear and similar European ranges, Airfix 1:32 and European kit makers products and many others.  There are 16 colour plates with numerous images on each & decent descriptions on the opposite page.  An attractive if not comprehensive book & easily obtained as is the companion Commercial Vehicles book.

According to my copy the series also covered model locomotives, commercial vehicles, military vehicles and another by Cecil Gibson on Racing & Record Cars was announced.  I see on eBay that he also wrote Plastic Model Cars which is expensive to buy now.

As Pat Conneally mentions in his Reader’s Letter Cecil Gibson also wrote History of British Dinky Toys 1934-1964 published in 1966 by Model Aeronautical Press & reprinted in 1973 by Mickansue and Modellers’ World.

The last “early” book I have is Ian D. Huntley‘s Painting & Lining Scale Models, which is a soft-back published by Model & Allied Publications (MAP) & Argus Books Ltd in 1976.  94 pages with many drawings & black & white photos, but no colour other than the cover.  The illustrations are mostly of aircraft & military vehicles but the principles & techniques apply to all models.

I have more books in my collection which will be covered in a future article.


We welcome your comments and questions.   Please go to our Model Auto Review Facebook page or email the Editors at maronlineeditor at gmail.com.

More on Model Car Books

By Karl Schnelle

Text and photographs copyright of the Author(s) unless otherwise stated.

MAR Online has had two recent letters about early miniature automobile books – from Olivier Weyl and Pat Conneally. I have both of Olivier’s books but had not heard of Pat’s! I might have to track down that one, Model Cars & Road Vehicles, 1983. It does remind me of Ed Force’s books on his extensive collections with color photos of endless shelves of model cars. Of course Cecil Gibson did that with his two little red books – Veteran & Vintage Cars and Commercial Vehicles, first versions from 1970 for the UK, as pointed out by David Green. These two picture books really got me into collecting when I was an early teenager. Here are photos of my US versions from a year or two later, with the word ‘Model’ added to the titles. I assume the original English publisher did not want to confuse the American reader into thinking the cover photos were of full-sized cars! 🙂

Our faithful readers replied on our MAR Online Facebook page, and I also asked Forum43 members for their opinions on the oldest model car book. Several replied with books I had never heard of, so I though I would summarize here.

Peter Stevenson’s oldest book on a closely related subject is Electric Model Car Racing by D.J. Laidlaw-Dickson (Museum Press Limited, 1965). He reports this was a was his absolute “go-to” reference book. Tim Askew knows of another related book but does not own it: Plastic Model Cars, by Cecil Gibson, from 1962 (Model Aeronautical Press Ltd). John Roberts has that Gibson book and also Scale Model Cars by Harold Pratley (Model Aeronautical Press Ltd, 1956).

Christian Braun mentioned Model Cars of the World by Noboru Nakajima from 1977 but mostly because it has very nice photos of Teknos (of which I collect)! In my own library, I also have a 1970 book from the US – Building and Collecting Model Automobiles by Louis Hertz – I thumbed through it a lot as a kid!!! Of course, one of the famous early books is the most-likely first book on a single maker – the History of British Dinky Toys 1936-1966 by Cecil Gibson – my copy is the 1973 reprint (first edition was 1966.)!

Even though Olivier mentions Model Car Collecting by F. Brian Jewell in 1963 which several of us have, I would guess that Scale Model Cars by Harold Pratley from 1956 is the oldest book in the model car field.

Magazines

If we also consider magazines, there are several from the early days of model car collecting. Chris Sweetman thinks the earliest mention of diecast toy cars probably was Meccano Magazine from the early 1930’s where Modelled Miniatures (the precursor to Dinky Toys) were mentioned. In the US, Harvey Goranson has the August 1964 issue of Rod & Custom Models magazine, which had an article on diecast cars.

In the UK, Chris Sweetman has found online archives for two magazines:

Model Roads and Racing started October 1963, https://slotracer.online/library/model-roads-and-racing/index.html

Model Cars started April 1964 – mainly slot and scratch building but had diecast models and featured articles by Cecil Gibson, https://slotracer.online/library/model-cars/index.html

Finally, across the channel, France had Modelisme, the magazine from the 1950s to 70s that Jacques Greilsamer (co-author of Model Cars Of The World, 1967) produced.

If our readers find something else to add to the list, please let us know!



We welcome your comments and questions.   Please go to our Model Auto Review Facebook page or email the Editors at maronlineeditor at gmail.com.

English Dinky Bus and Coach – Book Review (Updated)

The English Dinky Bus and Coach – by Roger Bailey. English Text. 154 pages, with many colour and black and white illustrations. Hardbound. Size 210mm x 297mm, ISBN 978-1-8384451-0-2. Available from the Author.

Roger Bailey, who is well known for his articles in the former MAR magazine, and for his contributions to MAR Online and other magazines as well as for articles and books on Coventry Buses, has finally self-published the book that he has always meant to write on English Dinky Buses and Coaches. Roger has collected Dinky buses and coaches for most of his life and has spent the last thirty years purposefully gathering material for this book.

The large format chosen by the author really suits the subject matter allowing a page, or in some cases a page spread, to show photographs of the model a decent size along side adverts and other relevant illustrations. The text is a readable size too but that doesn’t mean that it is not comprehensive and informative. The scanned example of part of a page shown below shows the variety of detail packed in.

Roger has collected Dinky buses and coaches for most of his life and has spent the last thirty years purposefully gathering material for this book. His excellent collection of bus and coach models formed the basis for many of the professional photographs throughout. He has also been aided in this enterprise by contributions made by fellow collectors and looks forward to responses on the book from other collectors who may be able to add to the story. Photographs of Dinky factory scenes and blueprints can also be found in the book as well as some excellent photographs of real vehicles in an effort to tease out the inspirations for some of the models.

The book covers the models from Dinky in chronological order and ends with many pages looking at the diecast and plastic copies of Dinky models which were so common at the time.

Although primarily aimed at being a definitive guide to collectors who are interested in every little detail of Dinky production the book will also appeal to the more general reader who might skip some of the detailed discussion but who will love to browse the photographs and illustrations.

The Author with his latest book.

Roger hopes to visit toy fairs at Sandown and NEC in the autumn to sell the book as well as well known bus rallies like the one later in the year at Peterborough. The book costs 25 UK Pounds. At some point he will also be able to quote a price for post and packing. Should any MAR Online reader be interested in buying this book, or wants further information, Roger has a special email address for mail about this book dinkybusesandcoaches@gmail.com and I am sure he will be happy to hear from you.

your editor at maronlineeditor@gmail.com with your contact details and I will pass these to Roger so he may get in touch with you.

Having finished this book Roger has set himself the challenge of producing two A5 sized books on the buses of Hong Kong as photographed when he visited there at a time when British bus chassis were widely used.

MW


We welcome your comments and questions.   Please go to our Model Auto Review Facebook page or email the Editors at maronlineeditor at gmail.com.

Book Review February 2021

All text by, and copyright of the Reviewer. All photographs taken by the Authors and the publishers copyright over the material shown is recognised.

Staff Cars in Germany World War II – Volume 2 – Camera On 2020 – Issue No. 23 by Alan Ranger. English Text. 80 pages, with over 150 b/w pictures. Softbound. Size 210mm x 297mm, ISBN 978 83 65958 80 8. Available from Amazon and other book stores.

This new photo-album in the “Camera On” series contains over 150 black and white photographs of private cars adapted for military use by the German forces during WWII. It complements Volume 1 which was issued a year previously. With the mobilization of the German armed forces in 1939, a lack of motorized transport was identified as a critical issue. In order to partly remedy this, the military commandeered much of both Germany’s and its satellite dependencies’ passenger car stock; thus the military motor pool was supplemented by thousands of confiscated civilian passenger cars, which were partially adapted to military use.

Commercial & private limousines as well as hard tops and cabriolets were used.

This book focuses on the commandeered Opel cars from the pre-war P4 , to the Super 6, Kapitan and Admiral.

HG-S