Book Reviews - "A History of Motors and Motoring - Volume One, 1895-1900", March 1975, March 1975

Michael Frostick. 230 pp. 11 in. x 9¼ in. (G. T. Foulis & Co., Sparkford, Yeovil, Somerset. £1.95).

Here is an interesting volume by the great scissors-and-paste author. I never cease to wonder at the generosity of publishers who permit that is now highly valuable historic material to be reproduced from their back numbers by other publishing houses. But they do and here is another one snipped from ancient editions of The Autocar, providing for all, at a low price, what was formerly the preserve of exclusive and costly-to-fill libraries. There is the Editorial from Vol. 1, No. 1 of The Autocar, that pioneer journal’s report of the Emancipation Day Run of 1895, even to the first pages in red ink to emphasise the end of the red-flag days, followed by descriptions of “autocars” of the period, the Exhibition at the Agricultural Hall, competitions of that era, letters to the journal which Frostick has hacked out, and so on.

It is all immensely fascinating and apparently there is more to come. At the price the rather faint photolitho printing can be excused and I assume that VCC members will be queueing up for copies. But it could well make first-edition collectors, in their fine libraries, vomit.- W.B.