Jaguar

Jaguar

by Philip Porter. 224pp. 9.1/4″x 13″. (Sidgwick & Jackson, Tavistock Chambers, Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2SG. £19.95.)

The word “lavish” barely describes this thick arid heavy volume, with its leather-effect dust-sheet, which overflows with illustration both colour and period black-and-white. In style it often looks more like a sales brochure than a book, though the complete story of the Coventry company is outlined in its many pages.

Much of the detail and research of Porter’s earlier Jaguar books has been sacrificed for this very visual work, but in compensation a number of side-panels about various subjects such as Ecurie Ecosse, the BMC merger or Sir John Egan gives stimulus to the reading matter and amplifies the range of posters, brochures, drawings and cut-aways which adorn the pages.

Most surprising is the price of only £19.95, which seems good value for something with so much colour included. GC

Foulis/Haynes has come up with two more new titles, Ford-Based Kit Cars by Pierce Riemer and Stephen Mills, and The Beetle — The Chronicle of the People’s Car by Etzold.

The former, priced at £14.95, tries to cover just about everything, including fun-cars, jeeps, estates, and even the Lambo, Porsche and Ferrari replicas, so should find favour with home constructors. The other book seems unnecessary, consisting as it does (and this is only Volume One), of masses of figures relating to the ever-popular but nevertheless outdated Beetle which are available from other sources, illustrated by pictures which seem to have been lifted from Volkswagen instruction books. Not to be too unkind, there are a great many avid Beetle users who might care to have such statistics between two hard covers, but it will cost them £15.95. WB

Pirelli’s celebrated calendar has raised a great deal of money for charity (and ten of them fetched £45 more at auction than an Andy Warhol painting). To coincide with its re-introduction, Pavilion Books has told the whole remarkable story of this production — claimed to have been more successful publicity-wise than campaigns of Esso, Coca-Cola and Marlboro — in The Pirelli Calendar Album by Derek Forsythe and Michael Pye. With more than 400 colour pictures and 50 black and white ones in its 224 coffee-table size pages, it sells for £20. WB

A revised edition of Ginetta — The Illustrated History by John Rose has been issued by Foulis/Haynes, bringing the story up to the G-32, in 168 informative 6.1/2″ x 8.1/2″ pages. Ginetta’s managing director Bob Walklett again contributes the foreword. The price is £12.95. WB