British Sports Cars in America 1946-1981, by Jonathan A Stein. AQ/Dalton Watson, £29.95.

For British car manufacturers, America has often looked like a land of golden opportunity, where wealthy buyers will surely queue to snap up every car you can shift. It has not often turned out that way, but there is as much interest in the falterings of TVR as in the success of the MGB, and this high quality book looks equally at the big players (Jaguar, MG, Triumph) and the tiddlers such as Elva, Berkeley and Peerless. Stein’s overview introduces us to the importers and the dealers, the idealists and the con-men who tried to sell funny little foreign cars to Americans, with increasing success from the ’50s and increasing gloom in the ’70s.

Well researched, with many period illustrations and comments from those involved, the book is produced by the team who produce the lavish and enjoyable Automobile Quarterly (the only hardbacked magazine I know of) and it is handled in the UK by Dalton Watson, P Box 2, Belton, Loughborough LE1 9UW (add £2 p&p).

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