Richard Oakes Master of Design by Douglas Anderson.

[Johno]

Published in 2021 this book chronicles the work of Richard Oakes who many will recognise as the designer of the Midas range. His contribution to the success of Midas Cars was typical of his stylish 'no nonsense' approach to both car and product design. (I first wrote this article for the joint Midas, Mini Marcos magazine)
From the 1970 Richard Oakes became synonymous with the Kit car industry and it would have been unusual to find a specialist magazine from that era which didn't mention or feature some of his designs.
The book draws from some of these articles and also from recent interviews with Richard himself. It is well illustrated with chapters devoted to specific projects and prototypes. As expected the VW based Nova, Midas, GTM cars and his Blackjack three wheeled car feature but there are other less well known projects and some interesting designs which never made it off the drawing board.
The text, whilst providing the facts about the various projects is a little repetitive in it's narrative and the author does seem to confuse the principals of Art, Aesthetics and Industrial Design. There is a certain amount if 'hero worship' written between the lines. The key to this may also be the fact that the author commissioned Richard to design and manage the ADO project which is essentially a re-body of a Midget. This car was launched in 2020 but seems to have progressed no further than the one prototype.