Even after 40 years of supporting the publication of motoring history, the Michael Sedgwick Memorial Trust is still breaking new ground. To date, the Trust has supported books by single authors, or two, three or even four co-authors, but the latest project to attract support from the Trust has so many co-authors that they are not individually credited on the cover. Moke - The Early Years is credited to The Mini Moke Club in its entirety. As its title suggests, those looking for production statistics and variants, its use on the TV show The Prisoner and other later activities will not find the answer here. This book is entirely devoted to the genesis and development of the Moke through prototypes as far back as 1957 up to 1963 and to the point of production.
You will see how the many prototypes that were developed kept changing in design: Buckboards, Short Wheel Base, Twin Engine, True 4x4 and Pre-production Mokes. It contains previously unknown facts, photographs and Military reports about the Moke. Many colour and b/w photos and appendages.
This book is timely as this year sees the 60th anniversary of that introduction of the Moke as a production vehicle. The influences and challenges that led the mercurial Alec Issigonis to devise this, one of the most surprising variants of his front wheel drive, transverse engine design concept, are explored in full with many never-before published photographs and documents reproduced within this book.
This 200 page soft backed book is available at £20 from The Mini Moke Club at Moke The Early Years (mokeclub.org) .
