The Vintage Motor Car Pocket Book

The Vintage Motor Car Pocket Book (1959) – Cecil Clutton, Paul Bird & Anthony Harding
BT Batsford Ltd • ISBN: none (older than ISBNs, younger than most of the cars) • Condition: Good
Grease-free (mostly), charmingly anorak, from Crappy Old Books

Once upon a time, before car culture meant arguing about range anxiety and touchscreens that never quite respond, there were proper cars:

• With wings (on the outside)

• With smells (oil, leather, faint terror)

• And dashboards that looked like someone had rearranged a small ship.

The Vintage Motor Car Pocket Book (1959) is a glorious little brick of enthusiasm from three men—Cecil Clutton, Paul Bird and Anthony Harding—who clearly decided that the world urgently needed a pocket-sized guide to old cars and then wrote it as if the fate of civilisation depended on valve timing and coachwork.

This is the pre-Google, pre-Wikipedia, pre-“what’s that car?” app solution:
Look it up in the book. In tiny print. With diagrams. While wearing tweed.

Condition: Good (like a well-kept pre-war saloon)

When Crappy Old Books says Good, we mean:

• The cover is intact and attached, not peeling like a neglected vinyl roof

• The spine is solid, maybe lightly creased, as if previously opened by someone muttering, “I knew that was a 1926, not a ’27…”

• All pages present and firmly bound – no missing marques, no mysteriously torn-out specifications, no DIY editing by someone with strong opinions about magnetos

• Normal, respectable ageing: lightly tanned pages, softened corners, maybe the faintest whisper of having once lived in a glove compartment alongside a folding map and three generations of crumbs

No oil smears (that we can see), no pages stuck together with leaked gasket sealant, and no evidence of having been used to wedge a wobbly axle stand. Just a Good, well-preserved little handbook of glorious vehicular obsession.

What’s actually in this tiny time machine?

Open it up and you’ll find:

• Concise entries on vintage motor cars: makes, models, dates, details

• Specifications that assume you know the difference between “side-valve” and “overhead” and frankly judge you if you don’t

• The sort of quiet certainty that of course you care deeply about wheelbase measurements and obscure coachbuilders

• Illustrations and descriptions that treat a 1920s touring car with the reverence usually reserved for medieval cathedrals

Think of it as:

• A field guide for spotting vintage cars in the wild (“Note the distinctive radiator treatment…”)

• A conversation weapon at car meets (“Actually, if you check Clutton, Bird & Harding…”)

• A portable shrine to an era when reliability was aspirational and starting the car was part ritual, part gamble

This is not a glossy coffee-table book. It’s a pocket reference written for people who think “Is that a 1913 or 1914 body style?” is a reasonable thing to ask at speed.

Why you, a modern human, might want this

You could:

• Use it as authentic research for writing, roleplaying, or reenactment set in the days when cars had proper smells and names

• Wave it around at classic car shows as a kind of laminated soul mate

• Leave it on a side table so visitors know, instantly, that you have Opinions about pre-war motoring

• Flip through it for the sheer joy of reading phrases like “four-cylinder monobloc engine” and “noted for its lively performance” in crisp, 1950s tones

It’s also an excellent reminder that your current car, which occasionally refuses to connect to Bluetooth, is still not as temperamental as something that required:

• A choke ritual

• A starting handle

• And a calm acceptance that, today, it might simply say “no.”

Why a Good, used copy is exactly right

A pristine, never-opened copy of a vintage motor car handbook would feel completely wrong, like a trailer queen that never leaves the garage. From Crappy Old Books, this Good condition copy:

• Already looks like it’s done at least one respectable tour through someone’s motoring library

• Frees you to actually use it—flip through with slightly oily fingers (within reason), tuck it in a bag, consult it dramatically at auctions

• Carries the quiet dignity of a reference book that has been read, valued, and not left under the rear suspension overnight

It’s the literary equivalent of a well-maintained classic: not concours, but absolutely ready for the road.

Ideal for readers who:

• Genuinely know what pre-selector gearboxes are and like it that way

• Collect obscure motoring literature with the fervour of a man hunting rare carburettors

• Are writing about the 1910s–30s and want to sound like they’ve actually sniffed hot castor oil

• Simply enjoy old cars, old books, and the old-fashioned idea that information belongs in your pocket, not in a distant server farm

Also ideal for:

• Nostalgic mechanics

• Classic-car tragics

• People who just like tiny, extremely serious books about very specific things

Suggested reading environment

Best enjoyed:

• In an armchair that makes a noise when you sit down

• Within sight of something with wire wheels, or at least an oil stain

• With a mug of tea (enamel, ideally) and a slight draft, to simulate a draughty garage

Side effects may include:

• Saying things like “Of course, the 1919 model was quite a different animal…”

• Quiet contempt for plastic wheel trims

• A dangerous urge to “just browse” classic car listings

The factual logbook

• Title: The Vintage Motor Car Pocket Book

• Authors: Cecil Clutton, Paul Bird & Anthony Harding

• Publisher: BT Batsford Ltd (1959)

• ISBN: None – from the noble pre-ISBN age, like many of the cars inside

• Condition: Good – solid, lightly worn, fully legible, pleasantly period

The Vintage Motor Car Pocket Book: for when you want your reference material small, serious, and slightly petrol-scented. Supplied in honestly Good condition by Crappy Old Books, who are proud to bring you the glovebox literature of a more mechanically adventurous age.

Keep browsing: See more Transport books Other books by Cecil Clutton, Paul Bird and Anthony Harding