Publications about real automobiles

[Lee]

List you sources relating to the full size automobiles

[stanhas87]

Dear Sirs:

Oh! That is a large one.

Well there goes a part of it:

Magazines about the new cars,USA: Motor Trend,Car and Driver,Automobile,Road and Track.On the past,Motor Trend tested cars the no one did before,such as the GM Station Wagons.Automobile and Road an Track cover the upper class vehicles.Car and Driver cover Police Cars,and they tested my all Time favorite: the 1977 Dodge Monaco police car.

Collectable Automobile cover the cars from the past and technical data,production figures are given.Commercial vehicles are featured (buses appeared twice) and the sweet part: models of the vehicles that are featured at each issue.How about that?

CAR British;features european cars.

Quatro Rodas (Four Wheels).Brazilian,published since 1960. Portuguese.Covers the Brazilian cars and some of the European,American,Japanese cars.It also offered 'Car of the World' issue at least twice and it was a portuguese version of the 'World Cars' book.albeit on a magazine format.

World Cars.Annual,published by the Auto Club of Italy.Covered all cars that were manufactured at the year that this book was released .It was published from 1962 to 1985 and covered Makes,technical data,prototypes and the car manufacturers activities.As an example,I lerned that French cars were assembled in Madagascar and Vietnam and Dodge Coronets were assembled in Peru.Also,the Mexican Volkswagen had its own entry and technical detail (other publisher would go: see Volkswagen and that would be that).
On that one I need help:a similar publication existed in the 1950's,but I do bot know who was the responsible party.Further,there is a similar-and more complete-German publication that is alike to the World cars but again,I do not know the details.

Catalog of American cars.Divided in three parts,and they are in its sixth or seventh edition by now.The first part covers the 1800-1952 period;the second goes from 1946 to 1975 and the third covers the 1976-1999 period.A thourogh source on American cars and include production figures,technical data,acessories and brief history of the makes and models involved;a good amount of pictures as well.

[stanhas87]

Dear Sirs:

One of the reasons why I go to Los Angeles Auto Show: the car brochures that are given away. Of course,the dealers also have these and they are more thorough. I have the ones from the 1999 thru 2004 shows and these are considered historical documents because it specify the engines,colors and models of a particular year. I also have the catalogs from the Aro wagon that was intended to come to the US. Or the seldom seem,rear-drive,1987 Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue. And so on. At the show,Ferrarri,Lamborghini,Lotus,Bentley,Rolls Royce and Maserati does not supply any catalogs.

[stanhas87]

Dear Sirs:

Cars of the Fabulous 1950's.Publications International; english. Gives a year-by-year list of models that were offered by the American Manufacturers.

The First Century of the Automobile by Fredrick Winkowski and Frank D. Sullivan. A photo reference,with text,about these Author's picks of the most 100 significant cars of the last centrury.

[BillC]

I use magazines and Ward's Auto, but one of may favorite resources is McClelland's, here in Houston. They sell old brochures and have an incredible selection. Great reference materials.

[skunk]

I do a lot of searches on eBay to get the original brochures. They provide fantastic reference material, usually including a couple of scale drawings. You'd be amazed at the oddities one can find.

[stanhas87]

Dear Sirs:

Autobooks in Burbank,California is the ultimate spot for vehicle literature.Not only cars,but planes and military vehicles as well. Models are also sold,along with magazines and books on miniatures.A great place for this kind of literature.

[stanhas87]

Dear Sirs:

I found this last tuesday and is very thourogh albeit not complete:

World Car Guide 2004 by the Daily Express. This is a British publication and lists the vehicle models from the major manufacturers, some small ones such as the Pagani Zonda and the smalles and obscure ones such as Dacia,Hindustan et all. Aditional articles include best seller car models in the UK an the top selling car on 10 -12 countries. Technical specs are not thourogh but include something very useful: lenght and widht of the models covered by this publication. I learned here that the Mexican Volkswagen bettle ceased to exist in 2003 and the Morris-based Hindustan Ambassador is still quite alive.Yes,they show the Vic and Gran Marquis in here,but at this edition the Marauder is still alive and the Chrysler 300 is not listed yet and the Magnum is not mentioned.

As I learned this publication exists for fifty years (first one appeared in 1954) and covered most of the car shows during this period and of course the models that debuted along the way.

Albeit is not as complete as the former World Cars that was published by the Italian Auto Club (1962-1985;there were another publication in the 1950's and yet another that comes from Germany and that is complete as well) it is nevertheless a good reference specially for the models that do not reach the US such as Citroen,Peugeot,Seat,Skoda,Opel,Vauxhall,Holden,Alfa Romeo Fiat and several other Japanese models. Of course, Auto Index in the Internet is a very complete reference but in some cases they are two years behind on their site and is not a published affair (and will take a very,very,very long while to review all the makes that appear in there.

[Markus]

Today i was in Luzern (CH) in the Verkehrshaus and i buyed a german broschure called " Automuseen & Sammlungen in Europa" by Norbert Bauer www.Automuseen.de
"Automobil museeums & Collections in europe" includes the Infos from 250 visitable collections of cars in 20 countries!
Adresses, telefonnummbers, timetable for open hours, and a detailed summarize of a visit.
Pictures!!
List of types wich are displayed
Finding list (Find your favorit in one of 250 places)
step by step list of the history of automobiledefelopment

The Verkehrshaus of Luzern presented from March 25. 2005 a special for 100 Years of Swiss automobile.

My bible for american cars:
Mounstrous american car spotter`s guide 1920-1980 by Tad Burness and american car spotter`s guide 1981-1990 ( I miss 1991-2000) can anybody help?

For the german ones i prefer Werner Oswald With " Deutsche Autos".

For special cars i take a look on the internet by the automobileclubs of the prototype, or at the manufactor.

[stanhas87]

Markus said:

My bible for american cars:
Mounstrous american car spotter`s guide 1920-1980 by Tad Burness and american car spotter`s guide 1981-1990 ( I miss 1991-2000) can anybody help?

Dear Markus:

This editor did not published a version for 1991-2000 american cars.

However,there is an alternative: standard catalog of american cars ,part 3 , 1976-1999 ,edited by Ron Kowalke , Krause Publications. These been aroun for a whille and a new edition always pops out. The first volume covers american cars from 1820 to 1944 and it is the thicker of the all; the second edition covers american cars from 1946 to 1975. Technical specs,production - as available - engines and avaliable acessories for each model and photos are given. Granted, the photos are black and white, but is better than nothing. A section of color photos of selected cars is also available at the middle of the book.

On the internet go for:

www.autoindex.org.

It is the most extensive info avaliable for real cars.

[stanhas87]

stanhas87 said:

Dear Sirs:



World Cars.Annual,published by the Auto Club of Italy.Covered all cars that were manufactured at the year that this book was released .It was published from 1962 to 1985 and covered Makes,technical data,prototypes and the car manufacturers activities.As an example,I lerned that French cars were assembled in Madagascar and Vietnam and Dodge Coronets were assembled in Peru.Also,the Mexican Volkswagen had its own entry and technical detail (other publisher would go: see Volkswagen and that would be that)..

Dear Sirs:

It seems that the publication described above is back. See below:



www.worldofcars.pl/

[Sabuu]

stanhas87 said:

Further,there is a similar-and more complete-German publication that is alike to the World cars but again,I do not know the details

I believe you're referring to the "Auto Katalog", published by Germany's leading car-magazine Auto, Motor und Sport every year around Sept./Oct. I've been buying this one since 1987, and especially in those years it has proven to be very helpful to me regarding having a collection of color-pictures of prototype vehicles of each model-year, especially for the almost yearly changing American cars, about which not much info was available in Europe. Of course, nowadays you can simply hit an internet-site!
Furthermore, there are also two French Auto Katalog-type of yearly returning (around Aug.) books (Sylvain might know them): "Toutes les voitures du monde", by the magazine l'Automobile Magazine, and "Salon .... (year, red.) Toutes les voitures du monde", by the magazine l'Auto-Journal.
All in all, these two are quite comparable. Nowadays, I buy these books for future reference, because the internet is a sublime medium, but once-new info tends to get replaced by now-new info and thus forever lost ...
The past few years, the French magazine Automobilia has been publishing some truly outstanding special issues by René Bellu, called: "Automobilia, l'histoire automobile en France: Toutes les voitures Francaises 19..". On the dots they have covered untill now all the model-years between 1934 and 1970, 1975 and 1980 and more to follow. These books describe every car that was available on the French market that year, and from the French makes they describe into every tiny detail per car what changed compared to the past year, what colors, upholstery, engines, prices, and so on. You'd be amazed about the amount of changes that were made to the Citroën 2CV for instance, a car that has basically looked almost the same during its 40 years of existance. This can go as far as mentioning that the door-hinges get 3 instead of 2 bolts... A truly outstanding bunch of work for everyone interested in French cars.
Haynes Publications did a nice series of vehicles-books in the eighties (also published in the USA), called the "Auto Library Series". Most of them were about American vehicles (5: American Cars of the 1930's / 1940's / 1950's / 1960's and 1970's, I only have the 1950's) and British vehicles (8: British Cars of the Early Thirties / Late Thirties / Early Forties / ...... / Late Sixties, I have the Early and Late 50's and 60's).
These books describe per year exactly what changes there were for every (American or British) manufacturer on their cars. Unfortunately, the publications were completely in black and white, but still with a lot of good quality pictures and (at least to me) quite valuable.
Last but not least: my absolute favourite book concerning American cars. In Europe, it's quite difficult to find good printed material about this part of automotive industry. But a few years ago my dad picked up the best thing about American cars that I ever saw and gave it to me, it has become a sort of Holy Bible Of American Cars for me. What am I talking about?: The "Encyclopedia of American Cars, over 65 years of automotive history", by the auto editors of Consumer Guide, published in 1996. In 900 pages it covers every American producer of cars there was between 1930 and 1996, big or small. The bigger ones (from Allstate to Hudson, Edsel to Graham, Nash to Terraplane, Ford to Willys, they're ALL there) have their own entries, containing (mostly black and white) pictures of the most important cars from every model year, with descriptions of what has changed per model over the years, but also some background info concerning for instance the persons that designed a car, or why it was decided not to release a special model at the last moment, or why they couldn't sell many cars that year, and so on and so on.
Also, per year per manufacturer there are tables listing for every model of that year the production numbers, available body styles and engines and their prices). Chevrolet alone covers a total of 80 pages! To me, this is the ultime reference guide to American cars and quite often I can find more info in here about a certain car than on the internet!

[stanhas87]

Dear Sabuu:

Based on my visits to the library I found out about world cars from the Auto Club of Italy. Also,thanks to the library system,I discovered a collection which covered the cars of the 1950's.

World cars from the Italian AAA were published from 1962 thru 1985. In 1989,a similar publication was avaliable,but after 1990,that was it. The latter publication mentioned a German and Swiss publication that is similar to what you just mentioned above,but not many details were published about these.

In Burbank,more or less close to my home,there is an auto book and model store called Autobooks. I found one issue of the German publication in there,from 1969 and comited the Capital Stupidity not to buy it (I do not read German,but I would comprehend the technical specifications printed in the book).
One of the reasons why I stated that the German publication is more complete: there was a Volkswagen 4-door sedan,based somehow on the 1961 Volkswagen 1500,that was built for the Brazilian market only.Ugly thing,some would say but it seems that the cabbies liked it because it was popular as a Cab. Anyways. While the World Cars from the Italian AAA publication did not said anything about it on its 1969 edition,the German publication did.

I agree that the Internet is this or that,but for an issue such as automotive models I do prefer a book. I am adding the World Cars collection to my library,I have that special publication from 1989 and 1990,and I intend to buy the 2005 publication mentioned above.If I manage to find the 1986-2004 editions from the German publisher,you bet I will get them too.

I do have the issues that cover american cars up to 1999.Very useful,but at times it could use more photos and/or front and rear detail for the vehicles in question.Regarding this issue,that is where the internet is useful.

Thank you for clearing it. Now I now how to 'complete' my automotive library.

Nick K

[stanhas87]

sabuu said:

You'd be amazed about the amount of changes that were made to the Citroën 2CV for instance, a car that has basically looked almost the same during its 40 years of existance. This can go as far as mentioning that the door-hinges get 3 instead of 2 bolts... !

Dear Sirs:

I can also report (and at times,one will not find such info on a book,unless if it is dedicated to the make,but still,I did not yet found such minutae info printed) my personal observations on the Vic police car,from 1998 to 2002:

-- 1998: The complete redesigned Vic is introduced,and instead of being avalible Oct 1997,it came out in 1998 proper. The cop cars will have a Silver grille;
-- 1999: The Cop car will gain the front black grille;
-- 2000: The car starts losing chrome at it rear.The chrome stripe that went the rear bumper disappears;yet there is chrome strips around the tailights,still;
-- 2001: The chrome around the rear tailights is taken off;

-- 2002 The police cruisers gains a new front grille while the 'civilian' version has the same one as the 1998 version.

Alas,these changes occured,so far as know,on the Vic Police Interceptor only.I did not followed the changes after the 2002 model,but believe me,these are there.

And,unless there is a book which is thorough on Ford models,the changes mentioned above will not be found anywhere. The Consumer Guide books,so far as know,do not bother with such minutae detail because they have to cover several models and there is only this much printing room on them.