New Books
“More Motoring Abroad,” by Rodney Walkerley. (Temple Press, Ltd., Bowling Green Lane, E.C.1; 190 pages, 5½ in. by 9 in., 12s. 6d.)
This is altogether excellent. “Athos” of the Motor has written an absorbingly entertaining-sequel to his “Motoring Abroad” which is useful, enormously so, to those taking a car to the Continent, yet which is enormously entertaining reading for motorists who never intend to leave the home shores, or even the club armchair. There is no motor-racing chapter in this edition, but plenty of motoring anecdote, including a graphic account of how Walkerley for the Motor and Stanley Barnes for the R.A.C. Competitions Department motored to Barcelona in the former’s Ford V8 Pilot for the first post-war Grand Prix race at Barcelona.
France, food, wine and hotels get very full cover. The photographs in this very pleasing book are from various Government Touring Offices, which seem to lack imagination, were they not adequately offset by excellent drawings done by the one and only Brockbank. His depiction of a Frenchman in a hurry in a 2 c,v. Citroën on page 29 is worthy of a frame.
Walkerley writes entirely in the spirit of a poem he quotes: —
Dance, and Provencal song and sunburnt mirth!
O, for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene.
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth!
The only people unlikely to like his book are student hitch-hikers and unimaginative English hotel-keepers. — W. B.
“‘Daily Mail’ Motoring Guide,1954.” (Daily Mail; 160 pages, 4¾ in. by 7¼ in., 2s.)
This hardy annual contains useful data on modern cars, the Sport, car radio, maintenance, diesel engines for cars, accessories, etc., etc. Compiled by Courtenay Edwards, Motoring Correspondent to the Daily Mail, the articles are by well-known authorities such as Gordon Wilkins, Dudley Noble, W. M. Whiteman, M.A., John Yoxall (on caravanning). Paul Frere, Robert Braunschweig, A. G. Douglas Clease, B.Sc., A.M.I.Mech.E., S. C. H. Davis, etc. There are many useful conversion tables for those touring abroad” — W. B.
“A.B.C. of British Motor Cycles,” by Douglas Armstrong. (Ian Allen. Ltd., Craven House, Hampton Court, Surrey: 72 pages, 4 in. by 6 in., 2s.)
This annual pocket, reference work gives a description of each motor-cycle on the British market, some details of the firms who make them, including brief reference to their competition careers, and excellent, if small, photographs of most of the different models, treated alphabetically, make by make. There are tabulated specifications, with prices, at the end. — W. B.
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The Bugatti Owners’ Club have issued their 25th anniversary issue of their bi-monthly magazine Bugantics. It includes a history of the B.O.C., photographs of all but five of the Bugatti types made between 1907 and 1951, and congratulatory messages from well-known authorities. Non-members can obtain copies, at 2s. 6d. each, while the supply lasts, from K. Nightingale, Crescent Copper Works, Edward Street Parade, Birmingham 1.
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Shell-Mex and B.P. Ltd. have issued a new enlarged edition of their in series of motor touring booklets. They also issue Shell Successes 1953, a 64-page book packed with pictures of racing drivers and motor-cyclists who used Shell last year, and articles by Hawthorn, Moss, Wharton and other well-known drivers. These books are available free from any Shell-Mex and B.P. office.