I just received a copy of the new book shown above, featuring six decades of amateur photos focused on car shows from the UK, USA, Europe and Japan. The cover shot is by Ron Budde, who was my college roommate during our year in Versailles in 1970-'71. Ron's photos of our visit to the Paris Salon de l'Auto from October 1970 were good enough that when I posted them on this blog* they caught the attention of Lewis Mitchell at Motor Show Publishing in the UK. A car enthusiast who has been obsessed with motor shows since childhood, Mr. Mitchell has collected decades of images from amateur photographic efforts and published them in 3 books, including this latest one.
The book takes us through the Fifties and a decade into the present century, and just before the middle there's a 7-page spread with Ron Budde's photos documenting our experience at that long-ago show. The chapters are organized chronologically, and locations are highlighted, so you know whether you're wandering through exposition halls in Paris, London, Geneva, or Detroit. There are color shots of exotics like the Lamborghini Miura above and the Maserati Ghibli below, and shots of concept cars and specials from 1950 onwards, but one of the most intriguing things about the collection is that there are cars that this writer, who after all has the gumption to post a blog series called "Forgotten Classics", has never seen before. For example, there's a Bertone-bodied Borgward in the Fifties section that we missed even though we did a post on Borgward racers, and numerous glimspes of automotive oddities and exotica that show up in strips of black and white shots at a smaller scale than color shots like these.
In his role as author and editor, Mr. Mitchell gives special attention to standout designs like the Abarth Biposto below. Bodied by Bertone to a design by Franco Scaglione in 1952, the car incorporated some of the themes that would appear a year later on the first of three Bertone BAT show cars for Alfa Romeo. On the cars selected for special attention, the author provides text with model names and histories, often including mechanical notes and even some production figures.
This book is an enchanting journey down Memory Lane, until you run into something you don't recall at all. I need to admit that this book was my first exposure to Toyota's RV-2. I'd never heard anything about it, despite the fact that Toyota apparently went out of its way to publicize this one-off show car. It displayed an unlikely split personality, first as a GT sports wagon (130 hp. six, 5-speed) and then as a camper with fold-out living space. A bit like that Seventies Saturday Night Live commercial about the All-Purpose Substance: "It's a dessert topping, but you can use it as a floor wax." Still, one has to admit the RV-2 has a kind of zany appeal.
Among the other unknown and / or forgotten delights was the Saab Aero-X below, from 2006. This concept car appeared 6 years after General Motors acquired full ownership of the Swedish car maker (they'd bought 50% in 1989). GM claimed the carbon fiber bodied, AWD one-door coupe with turbocharged V6 power was a forecast of their new Scandinavian design language for the company...
One door? Well, as the photo below shows, the design traded conventional entry and exit for a raised canopy that allowed 180-degree vision, but might not have made for an easy exit in a rollover, or allowed for easy production. In that it was like the one-piece canopy on GM Styling's Corvair Monza GT show car from 1962. Three years after Aero-X appeared, the Great Recession sent GM into bankruptcy, and Saab went the way of the Corvair.
"A Walk Around the Halls - Vol. II" is in 6" x 8.5" format, with 191 pages of photos and text, plus fold-out covers with color images. It is available from Motor Show Publishing Ltd.; their complete catalog can be viewed by visitng www.motorshowphotos.co.uk.
*Footnote:
Ron Budde's car show photos appeared here on April 21, 2021 in "Lost Roadside Attraction: 70s Car Show on Paris Streets, and in the Parc des Expos." After Lewis Mitchell contacted us about Ron's photos, we checked in with Ron, and he supplied more great shots for "Lost Roadside Attraction Sequel: 1970 Salon d l'Auto at the Parc des Expos", which we posted July 12, 2024.,
Photo Credits:
Top: Motor Show Publishing Ltd. (photo by Ronald Budde)
2nd & 3rd: Ronald Budde
4th: Gruppo Bertone
5th: Toyota Motors Corporation
6th & bottom: Wikimedia
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