Automobile Year 40. MRP £29.95

For its 40th annual edition, Automobile Year has adopted a mildly ‘retro’ tone, with reflective pieces on dream cars, Formula One, the industrial onslaught of the Japanese and by the excellent Pete Lyons – the Chevrolet Corvette.

The rest of this handsome, prestige annual contains its usual – and unique in this business – blend of industry and sports coverage. Its greatest failing is that its publication schedule did not permit the thrilling conclusion of the world rally championship to be included, which rather takes the edge off the WRC review.

In one or two places, the captions appear rather stilted. In others, they appear to have been written by Martians. . .

In the main, though, this is a most acceptable summary (its broad scope means that nuts-and-bolts analyses of individual racing series are out of the question) of the past 12 months, with habitually excellent photography and printing standards.

SA