The Fun Car Explosion

The Fun Car Explosion (1979) – Peter Filby
Book Stop | ISBN: 0906189012
Condition: Very Good | Sold by Crappy Old Books

The fun car. That glorious automotive invention designed for people who looked at an ordinary family saloon and concluded that motoring would be considerably more entertaining if the vehicle had fewer doors, less weather protection, an unnecessarily enthusiastic engine and absolutely no regard for the practicalities of transporting a week’s shopping.

Welcome to The Fun Car Explosion, Peter Filby’s wonderfully evocative celebration of the extraordinary proliferation of recreational, specialist and unconventional cars that transformed the British motoring scene during the 1960s and 1970s.

This was an age when motoring enthusiasts weren’t necessarily satisfied with whatever emerged from the factories of Ford, Vauxhall or British Leyland. Some wanted sports cars, others wanted beach buggies, and a particularly determined minority decided that the ideal solution was to purchase a collection of fibreglass panels, acquire a second-hand engine and construct something extraordinary in the garage.

The results were frequently magnificent, occasionally alarming and not always entirely waterproof.

Britain developed a remarkable cottage industry of specialist car manufacturers, kit-car companies and ambitious entrepreneurs offering alternatives to conventional motoring. From lightweight sports cars and ingenious home-built machines to eccentric recreational vehicles, the possibilities seemed almost limitless, provided the prospective owner possessed mechanical enthusiasm, a modest budget and a reassuringly flexible attitude towards reliability.

Filby’s subject captures the spirit of an era when individuality mattered more than electronic sophistication, and when a car could become a source of enormous personal satisfaction simply because nobody else in the supermarket car park possessed anything remotely similar.

The appeal of these machines was not always based upon outright performance. Some were designed for speed, others for leisure, and still others appeared to exist principally because their creators had developed an interesting idea and nobody had managed to persuade them that it was completely ridiculous.

The widespread availability of inexpensive donor vehicles, fibreglass construction techniques and relatively straightforward mechanical components made unusual automotive projects accessible to ordinary enthusiasts. A discarded Volkswagen Beetle, for example, could acquire an entirely new personality through the application of imaginative bodywork and sufficient determination.

Naturally, the resulting vehicles occasionally possessed certain shortcomings. Weather protection might be theoretical, heating could be regarded as an optional luxury, and the relationship between the bodywork and the chassis sometimes depended upon the continued goodwill of several bolts.

But that was part of the adventure.

Published in 1979, The Fun Car Explosion captures a fascinating moment in British automotive culture, when small manufacturers and individual enthusiasts were experimenting enthusiastically with the possibilities of personal transport before increasingly complex regulations and modern automotive technology changed the landscape.

This 1979 Book Stop edition, offered in Very Good condition by Crappy Old Books, is an appealing acquisition for collectors of vintage motoring literature, kit-car enthusiasts, specialist vehicle historians and anyone nostalgic for an age when building your own sports car seemed a perfectly reasonable way to spend several weekends.

A delightful excursion into the imaginative, inventive and occasionally eccentric world of alternative motoring.

Because while conventional manufacturers were busy producing sensible cars for sensible people, Britain’s automotive enthusiasts were asking a much more important question.

What happens if we put a sports-car body on that old chassis in the shed?

And, more importantly, will the wife notice that we’ve spent the holiday money on fibreglass?

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