Topic: The Vintage Motor Car Pocketbook - Cecil Clutton, Paul Bird, Anthony Harding

[neilshouse]

The Vintage Motor Car Pocketbook. By Cecil Clutton, Paul Bird, and Anthony Harding.

I bought this little book recently from a charity sale for a few pounds, it is not a comprehensive guide to Vintage cars but it appeals to me as it was written in the 1950s when these cars were not the valuable cherished cars that they are today. There are small histories of quite a few vintage makes and black and white photos of most of the cars discussed. The style of writing is wonderful, for example in the introduction there is a disclaimer 'If this book falls short of expectation, please blame the size of your pockets - not the authors.

[D-type]

I had that years ago but it has gone for a walk.  I think it's only fair to explain that it covers "Vintage" cars according to the British Vintage Sports Car club definition which I think is 1919 to 1931.

But I do have two companion volumes in similar format, which I spent my pocket money on when they were first published:

The Sports Car Pocketbook by William Boddy, 1961.  
William Boddy was the editor of the British magazine Motor Sport for many years. He still appears on the listings as "Founder Editor" and although over 80 he still contributes a two or three page feature in each edition.  He is the world authority on the history of Brooklands.   His introduction starts with an attempt to define a sports car and initially quotes Cecil Clutton's definition: " ~ this vague and undefinable term applies to any car  through which it is impossible to walk while wearing a top hat - in fact, we all know what is intended" he later says "~ I wanted the Pocketbook to provide a good cross-section of all that passed for an enthusiast's car from roughly 1910 to the present day, ~".  The selection covers British, European and US cars in that order of detail.  Not much detail but it does cover its stated field.

The Racing Car Pocketbook by Denis Jenkinson, 1962.  
Denis Jenkinson was Continental Correspondent for Motor Sport from about 1950 until a year or two before his death in 1996.  He was a man whose whole world was motor racing.   He had similar problems to Bill Boddy in defining a racing car.  He ended up with a selection covering cars that competed in racing to most FIA formulae, selected record cars and selected British hillclimb specials.  It is very thin on US  racing covering only a half dozen Indianapolis cars and Challenger-1 but is good on obscure racing cars.

There was also a fourth volume, "The Veteran Car Pocketbook" covering pre-1904 cars, which as a schoolboy I decided was not a field I was that interested in.

[Tom_I]

And here, to complete the quartet, is The Veteran Motor Car Pocketbook by Anthony Bird and Francis Hutton-Stott, published in 1963. I bought it in the late '60s, when it cost 9s.6d. (0.475 GBP).

Like the Vintage Pocketbook, it can't pretend to be comprehensive, but covers a reasonable range of manufacturers from AC to Züst. But again, the style of writing is lively and entertaining, and this makes it worth keeping. And the second paragraph of the introduction (shown below), though written some 47 years ago, is as true today as it was then, especially the bit about "completely erroneous information ... printed in perfectly good faith", even though the authors would have had no concept of the internet, Wikipedia, etc.