Fab pre-war layered cutaway drawings of 1930s cars | The Modern Motor Car reviewed
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- This fascinating pre-war publication ("The Modern Motor Car") contains lift-up colour cutaway drawings of a typical British saloon car of the early 1930s, spread over several pages. In this short video I review this eye-catching, full-colour, publication, which was issued originally back in the mid-1930s by the Shell-Mex & BP motor oils & fuels company as a promotional item to publicise their range of car, lorry and aviation lubrication products.
The cutaway drawings are multi-layered on each page, with a descriptive key on the page opposite identifying all the main automotive components that went into a typical pre-war British saloon car, including engine, chassis, brakes, steering, electrics and coachwork. Other similar cutaway drawing publications also produced by Shell-Mex & BP in the pre-war years focus on motorcycles, aircraft and lorries. This item of printed petroliana must have been quite an expensive promotional item to publish, yet copies are still available on a certain auction website for prices often in the £5-£10 bracket only, which has to be a bargain.
I've three copies of this, the early edition I have was published around 1933 I think, the copy shown in the video is 2-3 years later as an amended list of cars (and their recommended lubricants) has been stuck in over the original table.
For anyone interested in pre-war cars, vintage cars, and just old cars in general, I'd recommend tracking a copy of this illustrated large-format book down.
There are now hundreds of videos on the Old Classic Car channel about classic cars, lorries, vans, museums, automobilia (motoring memorabilia), shows and more, so once you're finished here please take a look - the full list of titles is here:
/ oldclassiccarrj
Thanks for watching.
The following page on the Old Classic Car site talks about these publications in more depth:
www.oldclassic...
#1930scars #vintagecars #prewarcars
Hi, thanks for watching, a full list of the videos on the channel is here:
ua-cam.com/users/oldclassiccarRJvideos
Channel homepage:
ua-cam.com/channels/KaTg9fPUvmUQi94FcnDbrg.html
You do a brilliant job great videos 👍♥️
Really interesting, I love these publications you show. I couldn't help myself and jumped on to ebay and bought a copy.
This is fantastic I would love to see the lorry version.
Beautiful to look at and fascinating. Not sure about the scary guy on the cover!
A wonderful publication, the prose and the art work etc is amazing, many thanks for posting. Some more similar would be really appreciated.
Excellent, I really enjoyed that. I have used the Internet since its dawn (well almost!) But I do love hands on books such as these. Thanks for sharing. 👍
Marvellous what they can do these days! 😁
Wow! Awesome video,what an amazing find!! Thanks for sharing!!!
What a great book. Going to see if I can find one in Australia.
Definitely worth a look if the older cars are your thing, thanks for checking it out
That's gorgeous - thank you! Stuff like this is great for those who don't have the space or the funds to run a real old car. Love the way they used to write!
Thanks Dave, it's the kind of vid that gets very low views but first and foremost I just like to waffle about things that I find interesting :)
I'd love to see more of this kind of thing.
Such amazing details great video guys the art work is fantastic thank you 😄
Thanks for watching. PS there's no team of people here, just me :) 👍
WOW, what a fantastic Book - I'm just going to look on line to see if I can find one :-)
Thanks for watching - before anyone wonders, no I don't have copies of this for sale online and this vid is not a ruse to drive sales :-)
Great video, amazing publication for free. Not sure it would happen today 😊
Yes more videos like this are very interesting.
Absolutely first class video. More please!
Thanks, I'll see what I can do!
Fascinating, never seen anything like that before! Thanks for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed it
I was really taken by this cut away book.. my mind went crazy thinking of the applications that it could be used for.. for example teaching in Tech schools.. or maybe a company like Haynes Manuals. Maybe even I could understand some of the more modern cars. Thanks mate.. cheers n happy "hic" new year 🥂🥂🍺🍺
Glad you liked it, happy new year
Yes, I like old car books.
The illustrator's art...line work and colour all done by hand. As you say, that must have cost a fair bit back in the day when it was produced.
Now this is interesting
I’ve always been interested in
How things work books etc
I’d love to see more of these
Pleased you found it worthwhile, I'll see what else would suit a similar vid
That quite impressive really, considering when it was done. The modern motor car - 1932
Cool