This big hardcover volume dates to 1953, published by Viking Press, and was authored by Philip Van Doren Stern. It’s a sprawling tale of the car’s history as told through photographs, ads and short stories that originally appeared in Motor magazine during its first 50 years of publication. Motor was a general interest car magazine, and the book encompasses articles that take the reader through social and technological issues associated with driving in a roughly chronological fashion. A lot of the history will be familiar to the Hemmings Nation, but the breakouts in the text are where the book shines most brightly. There are stories on the Selden patents, fashions for early drivers of both genders, primitive tool sets, aftermarket accessories, celebrity owners, the beginning of traffic enforcement, highway construction and more.
Stern’s book, which totals 258 pages, is probably best described as an early version of the American Heritage book The Automobile in America, by Stephen J. Sears, which first appeared in 1977. The Motor collection is concise and generally, a lot of fun. It’s affordable, too: We found copies on Amazon starting at less than four bucks. Our sincere thanks to Hemmings reader Mark Brunner for donating his copy to our library.
from Hemmings Daily – News for the collector car enthusiast http://ift.tt/1P1BnKn
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