Vanwall - Green For Glory

By Ed McDonough ISBN 1 86126 542 5 Published by Crowood, £19.95

It’s surprising that this is the first Vanwall book for 13 years (and almost 30 since the comprehensive Jenks/Posthumus one), since historic events such as Goodwood have given the remaining cars plenty of exposure in recent years (not to mention our own Vanwall edition last May). And a homegrown world-beater always makes a good subject.

So it’s disappointing that this one doesn’t look more impressive. The monochromes are rather grey, the colour shots are cramped onto small pages, and the layout is uninviting.

Long quotations from Brooks, and to a lesser extent Moss and others, give the inside view, and tell us a little more about Tony Vandervell himself, while quotes from previous works add some depth.

I’d like to have seen more technical info and drawings of a machine which majored on design; otherwise, a compact view of the team which took up the flag BRM had dropped. GC