BOOKS SUPPORTED IN 2022

Four new titles

One of the most important functions of the Michael Sedgwick Memorial Trust is to provide assistance — financial and/or advisory — in publishing automotive books that might otherwise never see light of day. Four such books were published in 2022.

Recreational Vehicles: A World History 1872–1939 by Andrew Woodmansey is published by Pen & Sword at £30. This book explores the ‘strange’ idea of putting a house on wheels and travelling with it, from the concept’s horse-drawn roots through the steam era to the golden age of 1930s caravans and motorhomes.

S.F. Edge: Maker of Motoring History by Simon Fisher is published by Evro Publishing at £45. Selwyn Francis Edge, invariably known simply as ‘SF’, was a significant pioneer of motoring. His victory in the 1902 Gordon Bennett Cup initiated serious British endeavour in motor racing and he played an important role in the growth of car manufacture in Britain, particularly with Napier and AC Cars.

Rover Cars of the 1930s In Detail by James Taylor is published by Herridge & Sons at £55. Very little has been written about this pivotal period in Rover’s history, when the company’s cars — discreet, exceptionally well made, thoroughly reliable and aspirational — became the preferred choice of the professional classes.

Formula 1’s Unsung Pioneers by Ian Wagstaff is published by Evro Publishing at £95. This is the story of the British Racing Partnership, which was active from 1958 to 1964. The team pioneered commercial sponsorship in Formula 1 and also played a significant part in the careers of notable drivers such as Stirling Moss and Innes Ireland.

THINKING OF DOING IT YOURSELF?

An event in 2023 for all prospective authors of motoring books

The object of the Michael Sedgwick Memorial Trust is to encourage and support the dissemination of motoring history. As well as advising and assisting authors in their dealings with publishers and other organisations, the Trust arranges conferences where intending authors can meet and learn from the experience of others. The last one, in 2017, ‘How to Publish Motoring History’ at the British Motor Museum, Gaydon, was judged a great success by the 60 delegates attending.

We are planning another one-day conference in autumn 2023. With an increasing number of authors considering self-publishing, it seems the right time to go into this subject in detail. We propose to stage a ‘Self-Publishing Workshop’ with the morning session on the pros and cons of different publishing methods and insight from those with experience of self-publishing and the afternoon concentrating on the practical aspects of preparing a book for print.

Is this something that would appeal to you? If so, we would be delighted to hear of your particular areas of interest and receive any other comments that would help us fine-tune the content of the conference. Please contact Ray Hutton, Chairman of the Trustees: rayhutton@aol.com

RISE OF THE MEGABOOK

Ray Hutton contemplates lavish books at exceedingly high prices

Like most things in these inflationary times, the price of books is going up. That is understandable as publishers face increasing costs but you may have noticed another trend: lavish works on exotic and classic cars offered at exceedingly high prices.

In one sense, this is the book business following the supercar market. Aston Martin, Bugatti, Ferrari and McLaren produce special editions that can sell at 10 times the price of the regular models on which they are based. Similarly, the megabooks are beautifully designed and use expensive materials but their selling prices are disproportionally high. They are aimed at collectors who must always have the rarest or most expensive and can afford it.

Of course, books on very specialised subjects appealing to a small but well-defined audience have long commanded high prices. But this is something different, at least in the motoring field: the book itself is a luxury object that transcends the subject matter, however well described and depicted.

Palawan Press, started in 1993 by Simon Draper, a notable owner-driver in historic racing, began the move up-market with an eclectic group of titles, mostly motoring history but including other subjects that interested him. The formula was, and is, to produce large-format books with the finest design and production values, printed in small numbers (often hundreds rather than thousands) and priced high (£500 and up). They remain in the publisher’s warehouse for as long as it takes to sell the edition and are never reprinted, ‘remaindered’ or sold off cheaply. That way, new generations of readers may seek them out, so that their value secondhand can rise beyond the original price and the first buyer can consider these books as an investment.

Of course, if you have paid £1 million or more for the car of your dreams, a £500 book about it is a minor extra cost. Indeed, some publishers have recognised that owners of rare cars and arch-enthusiasts are prepared to pay even more for numbered, boxed and leatherbound limited editions. The standard edition of Palawan’s latest book, Porsche Silver Steeds: Porsche Racing 1948–65 (a three-volume set) is £600 but the supreme leather version is £2,500.

Phillip Porter, whose company Porter Press International has enjoyed success with its Great Cars series of profusely illustrated ‘autobiographies’ priced at £60, has recently become more ambitious, launching an ‘Ultimate’ series in which the latest offering, a three-volume set covering the Porsche 962, costs £850. Porter Press has also just published the story of BRM, Racing for Britain, at £120, with a collector’s edition (just 17 books, each in a presentation case with a genuine BRM engine component) selling for £2,500.

In some cases, megabooks are only viable if sponsored by the owners of the cars they describe and depict. What’s in it for the sponsor, apart from the obvious pride of having a splendid book about their precious car? Once again, the book business is following the booming classic car market: a well-researched book can provide detailed provenance of a car and enhance its value.

Although megabooks often contain valuable motoring history, the Michael Sedgwick Memorial Trust does not get involved with them. By definition, our objective — to encourage the recording and publication of motoring history — cannot be achieved if the resulting books are priced way beyond most enthusiasts’ pockets.

RECORDING THE HISTORY OF THE CLASSIC CAR MOVEMENT

Anders Ditlev Clausager outlines an idea

The American anthropologist Kate Sullivan has researched the differing cultures among American and Scandinavian vehicle preservation movements and has published on the subject. Her paper at the European Conference for Automotive History in 2019 got me thinking. Why have we not had any similar study in Britain, a nation that can make as good a claim as any to have been the pioneer in fostering the preservation of historic vehicles?

The past 50 years have seen enormous growth in the preservation and use of historic vehicles and of archive material, and in the research and writing up of automotive history. Next year, 2023, sees the 50th anniversary of Classic Cars magazine, which I consider was a focal point for channelling the growing interest in ‘classic cars’ by which, in Britain at the time, we meant early post-World War Two cars in particular.

In the 1970s the idea of owning, restoring, preserving and using a classic car became the popular and widespread hobby that it is today. The large number of post-1945 cars originally made and then still in existence, compared with the pre-1939 period, meant a ‘democratisation’ of the movement: it was now about Morris Minors and MGBs rather than Bugattis and Bentleys. Much of this was driven by nostalgia.

Many new classic car clubs were established during the 1970s, other new magazines appeared, and more books were published. The Montagu Motor Museum at Beaulieu became the National Motor Museum in 1972 and several new museums emerged, with the seeds of today’s British Motor Museum sown at Donington in 1976. A proposed possession tax led to the formation of the Classic Vehicle Clubs Committee, which eventually joined with the Historic Vehicle Clubs Committee to become today’s Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs (FBHVC). In 1984 the first really big show was held at the National Exhibition Centre.

To sum up these scattered thoughts, I believe that this is an opportune time to research a proper social history of the Classic Car Movement, bearing in mind that many enthusiasts who have been involved for a long time are still around. From the surveys undertaken by the FBHVC we have for some years been well informed about the impact of the classic car sector in business terms, but what would be interesting is to compile the hitherto missing social side of our shared history.

I believe the best way to research and record this history properly would be as a rigorous academic study, undertaken for a doctoral degree. Anyone volunteering to undertake such a project could be offered sponsorship, or a bursary, from within the Classic Car Movement, including the FBHVC, as well as the Michael Sedgwick Memorial Trust, and the Society of Automotive Historians, but equally businesses, even individuals, in the classic car world. May I appeal to any readers who work in or have connections to a university to investigate the possibility of such a study being undertaken within their institution?

BETTER PICTURES FOR YOUR BOOK

Michael Ware provides guidance

How often have you been disappointed when opening a new book and discovering that the illustrations are poor or stale in content and sometimes of disappointing quality as well?

Photographs (or other illustrations) are a very important part of a book, especially if they are unusual and of the period. At this point I had better own up to having trained for three years at the Photographic Department of the Guildford School of Art and worked for some years as a motoring photographer and running the Photographic Library at the Montagu/National Motor Museum at Beaulieu — perhaps I am biased?

Specialist authors are often so keen to get the words and information onto the page that they treat photos as afterthoughts and leave the search for them to the last minute. I believe photographs and facts should be researched together.

Problems often start with the author’s contract. If a publisher has agreed to publish your book, there will be a paragraph in the contract about photographs. Some will say that the author is responsible for providing illustrations, which means both finding and paying for them. Some publishers wishing to get the best-looking book may offer an author a sum of money for obtaining at least some of the pictures.

Herein lies the rub. Many of the pictures you can find for free are often those originally supplied by manufacturers in quantity and as a result are well known. Pictures collected by major picture libraries and other specialist sources are in many cases more interesting and less familiar but you will have to pay a reproduction fee and some are quite expensive. That said, your book may only be printed in small quantities and a library may reduce its price accordingly. Don’t entirely despair: if your book includes new motoring research, the Michael Sedgwick Memorial Trust should be approached and may be able to make a financial contribution towards this area of cost.

Questions are often asked about copyright. This is a really tricky subject. In Britain, a photograph becomes out of copyright 70 years after the death of the photographer, but the position differs elsewhere. However, for your book, you are not trying to buy copyright, you just want to acquire ‘a right to reproduce’, which is what libraries and others charge for.

Beware of pulling images from the internet. Many are of low resolution and/or low quality and also of unknown provenance, which can mean infringing copyright if reproduced in a book. Many books now carry wording similar to this version in Roger Day and Tim Green’s fascinating Motoring History of the Kennet Valley: ‘Uncredited photographs are from our own personal collections and every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright owners. However, should anyone believe that copyright has been unacknowledged please contact the authors so that the matter can be corrected in future editions.’ I have written various books based around historic photographs, some on non-motoring subjects, and I always acknowledged each photograph. So far I have never had a copyright holder come out of the woodwork. I think ‘due diligence’ is a phrase that applies here.

Finally, don’t forget the part a caption plays. A picture can be an extension of the text, an explanation of the text or just a really good illustration that enhances the book. Whichever, a well-written caption is always needed to provide explanation.

A GET-TOGETHER FOR MOTORING HISTORIANS

The third European Conference for Automotive History

The third European Conference for Automotive History, organised by Anders Ditlev Clausager of the SAHB (Society of Automobile Historians in Britain) and Thomas Ulrich of the German AHG (Automobilhistorische Gesellschaft), with sponsorship from FIVA (Fédération International des Véhicules Anciens), was hosted in the Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile in Turin, Italy, over the weekend of 15–16 October 2022, with 90 delegates from 20 countries. There were 18 presentations on a wide range of subjects, including Pietro Frua, the Soviet automobile industry, car manufacture in Denmark, John Tjaarda’s project for a world car, the automobile in poster art, and even the automobile as mechanical mistress.

Delegates were able to join guided ‘behind-the-scenes’ tours of the museum’s vehicle store and workshop, and the documentation centre. They also enjoyed visits to the Fiat Centro Storico museum in the original Fiat factory in downtown Turin and to the new Stellantis Heritage Hub in a part of the Mirafiori factory with about 200 cars on display, mostly Fiats and Lancias, including many one-offs and prototypes. Many delegates stayed in a hotel in the former Fiat factory at Lingotto, with a Fiat 500 themed café on the top floor adjacent to the original 1920s pista, the roof-top proving track famously used in the film The Italian Job.

The museum in Turin was originally opened in 1960 and was named after its founder, the Italian pioneer motorist Conte Carlo Biscaretti di Ruffia, who began collecting historic vehicles in the 1930s. The building is of striking modern design, on a site overlooking the river Po. The museum was extended and renamed in 2011 and now houses some 200 vehicles.

The first two conferences were held in the Cité de l’Automobile in Mulhouse, France, in 2016, and in the Louwman Museum in The Hague, The Netherlands, in 2019. The next conference is planned for 2024 and will hopefully be held in Munich, Germany. The FIVA has now become involved as a sponsor, and it is hoped that selected papers from the three conferences held so far will be published with their support.

WHAT IS THE MICHAEL SEDGWICK MEMORIAL TRUST?

The Michael Sedgwick Memorial Trust is a charity, not a membership organisation, run by volunteer Trustees who between them have huge experience of writing and publishing books. The Trust exists to encourage new and original research into any aspect of motoring history and to offer financial and other assistance to authors and publishers.

The Trust wishes to see research into motoring history reach the public domain, through publication as books, other printed media or on the internet. The Trust gives advice to would-be authors and tries to ‘connect’ authors and publishers. The Trust believes that even books with very limited sales potential should be published if the subject matter is worthy and the research is new and comprehensive.

In cases where a publisher or author believes that a subject merits publication but is unlikely to be a viable commercial proposition, the Trust can often offer some financial help to bridge the gap or enable an author to self-publish.

Where research is of a very specialist nature and not commercially viable, the Trust may offer funding to assist with research provided that copies of resulting texts are lodged in selected specialist libraries, County Record Offices and possibly published on the internet.

michaelsedgwicktrust.co.uk