2025 Auto Review Programme
As we enter the second half of 2025 the programme for the year is part completed as shown on the list below. Ten new titles are spread through the year with six of them now available. Two ‘second editions’ of existing titles are also available. All Auto Review publications are A5 size 32-page softbound.
If you are new to Auto Review you may wish to know more about us and about the Auto Review series: click here.
If you want to find out which Auto Review books mention a specific marque, click here.
We have not changed our postage rates for several years but recent increases mean that we have had to make some changes. They are now 1.90 UK Pounds for packages to the UK, 3.50 UK Pounds for those to Europe and 4.00 UK Pounds for those for the rest of the world. Please note that this is a flat rate for your package so if you order multiple books at a time you will save money.
2025 Auto Review programme
AR207 Ford in the USA. Part one: cars made up to 1948. Published
AR208 Vehicles made in Korea. South Korea and North Korea. Published
AR209 Chevrolet cars part one. Up to 1960, including the Corvair story. Published
AR210 McLaren Album. Racing cars and road cars. Published
AR211 Fine Bodies II. European coach building firms and designers. Published
AR212 Ford in the USA. Part two, 1949 onwards. Published
AR213 Italian Classic. Including Ansaldo, Ceirano, Diatto, Chiribiri, Züst, OM and many more fascinating stories. September 2025
AR214 Chevrolet cars part two. From 1961 onwards. September 2025
AR215 Forgotten German Classics. Including Adler, Dürkopp, Brennabor and other important car marques in their day. November 2025
AR216 Ford in the USA. Part three: trucks and buses for over a century. November 2025
Updated second editions published in 2025:
AR054a Armstrong Siddeley Including Armstrong Whitworth, Wolseley-Siddeley, Deasy, Wilson-Pilcher, Stoneleigh, Coventry Pneumatic, Armstrong Siddeley and more. Available Now
AR061a The Sherpa Story. Including the J-type, J2, JU 250, J4, Sherpa, Convoy and Maxus Available Now
AR207 Ford USA cars: Part One: up to 1948
Available
Here we have the first part of the story of the Ford Motor Company in the USA; cars and car-derived vans or pickups made from the beginning, up to 1948. A large part of this account concerns Henry Ford himself, including the first 40 years of his life, before the Ford Motor Co was created. Our coverage in this publication ends in 1948, the year after Henry Ford died. He had already reluctantly relinquished control of the company to his grandson, Henry Ford II. Edsel Ford, Henry’s only son, had died in 1943, broken by his father’s decades of humiliation. This publication also considers Henry Ford’s pacifism and isolationism, his relationship with the thug Harry Bennett and the production of Ford aircraft in the 1920s and 1930s
The second publication devoted to Ford US cars is Auto Review 212, published later in 2025 and covering the period after 1948 into the 21st century, including car-derived vans and pickups. Sub-ranges and models such as the Falcon are included, but not the Thunderbird (the subject of Auto Review 171). The Mustang story is told in Auto Review 013, which was published in 1999, so only Mustang models released after that year are included in AR212.
Our third publication on Ford in the USA is Auto Review 216, published in 2026, describing Ford trucks and buses, but excluding light commercial vehicles which shared their sheet metal with cars, such as the Ford Ranchero. This volume will also touch on Ford tractors and military vehicles.
UK and European Fords are described in Auto Review 091, Auto Review 092 and Auto Review 100, and Australian Fords are in Auto Review 104.
Other US Ford marques which are already the subject of other Auto Review publications are Lincoln (AR162), Mercury and Edsel (AR188), Mustang (AR013) and Thunderbird (AR171).
AR208 Made in Korea: Vehicles from a divided country
Available
The names of Kia and Hyundai are now well-known and respected around the world, though it took time for them to become established motor manufacturers, and it seems that some owners still have no idea that their cars come from Korea. Among other South Korean marques described here are SsangYong (later KGM), Daewoo (later GM Korea) and Samsung (later Renault).
The merged Hyundai and Kia (plus Asia Motors) were, however, by far the largest in terms of production. Here we have the stories of those companies as they grew from tiny beginnings to become automotive world leaders. By the 2020s Hyundai had grown to become the world’s third-largest carmaker in terms of production numbers, behind only Toyota and Volkswagen. The Hyundai plant in Ulsan, South Korea was the biggest in the world, producing more than 1.6 million vehicles per year. Hyundai also wins our prize for the most entertaining car name; the Getz Cross (don’t we all?).
Vehicles were also produced in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in the northern half of the Korean peninsula. They are described in the second part of this publication. We are grateful to Jean-Louis Pothin for much of the information and photos on North Korean vehicles. Jean-Louis is the only one of our friends and regular contributors to have visited North Korea in recent years, so his input has been especially valuable for this Auto Review book.
AR209 Chevrolet cars in the USA: part one: up to 1960
Available
This publication begins our coverage of the Chevrolet marque, which will span three titles in the Auto Review series. Here we cover the inception of the Chevrolet brand, along with the lives of Billy Durant, creator of General Motors, and Louis Chevrolet, who gave his name to the marque, as well as many other personalities who made their contributions to the story.
We describe all the cars made by Chevrolet from the era before the Great War until 1960, by which time it had been for some years the biggest-selling American car brand.
The Corvair was also launched in 1960, so we tell its story here, up to its demise in 1969.
Part two of the story, after 1960 is told in Auto Review 214, published later in 2025.
AR210 McLaren Album
Available
Bruce McLaren was born in New Zealand in 1937. He moved to England in 1958 to pursue a career as a racing driver. In 1964 he set up his own company to make sports-racing cars, and began the M series of designs, which ran from M1 to M30. Bruce McLaren was killed in a testing accident in 1970, but the company continued under the control of team manager Teddy Mayer and Bruce’s friend Denny Hulme, who retired from the firm in 1975, and the company ceased to make sports-racers. Under Mayer the company drifted until 1981, when it merged with Ron Dennis’s Project 4 concern. Chassis were from then on designated MP4 (McLaren Project 4), best-known for the McLaren MP4-00 Formula 1 cars. In 2016 Dennis was forced out of McLaren and the F1 cars were designated MCL from then on. McLaren began the slow climb back to the top echelons of Formula 1, where McLaren was the second longest-surviving team in Formula 1, after Ferrari. McLaren achieved the F1 Constructors Championship in the final race of 2024, their first for 28 years.
In the 1990s McLaren began making supercars for road use with the F1, and later for competition events. In 2015 the road car range was reorganised into a new model structure. Three Series were called Sports, Super and Ultimate, with cars in the first two series denoted by the power output in PS (metric horsepower); 570, 720 etc. PS stands for pferdestärke; German for ‘horsepower’, equivalent to 98.6% of UK hp. The PS value would be followed by a suffix: C club, S sport, GT grand tourer, LT longtail. The 570S, 570GT, 540C and 600LT were thus in the base Sports Series. the 650S, 625C, 675LT and 720S were in the Super Series. The Ultimate Series included the P1, Senna, Speedtail, Elva and Solus.
In the 2020s hybrid McLaren supercars began to appear, and by the 1930s all McLaren road cars are likely to have alternative power sources, including electric. The electric revolution didn’t end there: McLaren already owned the Lavoie folding e-scooter brand when in 2023 they bought Van Moof, the bankrupt Dutch e-bike maker, with plans to invest ‘tens of millions of pounds’ in the venture.
AR211 Fine Bodies II: European coachbuilders
Available
In Auto Review 055 Fine Bodies we described a selection of British coachbuilders, as well as providing some background information on the process of coachbuilding, and we reproduced charts of the many types of body style. We therefore do not need to repeat any of that in this publication, Fine Bodies II, which is devoted to European coachbuilders. Only the more important or more interesting companies are noted here. In our limited number of pages we could not cover all of the many hundreds of coachworks which have been established down the years. Some of the companies we have left out of our coverage only made a few bodies, or they mostly made commercial vehicle bodywork. Most of the firms which solely did ‘conversions’ of mass-produced cars to make convertibles etc, are also not included here, though a few notable firms in the sector are described. We apologise if we have omitted your favourite coachbuilder, or only given them a more modest entry than you would have liked. There are some names we would have liked to include, but we could not unearth sufficient information for a description here. We have, however, included potted biographies of a few of the eminent designers whose names are often mentioned in the coachbuilder histories. When car manufacturers turned to monocoque bodies in the 1930s there were fewer separate chassis available, and many coachworks closed down or moved to other types of work, such as vans or buses. By the late 1940s there were even fewer separate-chassis manufacturers left, so not many car marques from that era offered possibilities, with the exception of marques such as Delahaye. By 1960 it was mostly only exotic sports cars or expensive luxury cars which merited custom coachwork, and that situation persisted into the 21st century.
AR212 Ford cars in the USA: part two
Available
Here we have the second part of the story of the Ford Motor Company in the USA; cars and car-derived vans or pickups made after 1948, into the 21st century. Sub-ranges and models such as the Falcon, Torino, Fairlane, Pinto and Maverick are included here, but not the Thunderbird (the subject of Auto Review 171). The Mustang story is told in Auto Review 013, which was published in 1999, so only models produced after 2000 are included here, to bring the Mustang account up to date.
The first part of the history of Ford in the USA was told in Auto Review 207, from the beginnings until 1948, including the first 40 years of Henry Ford’s life, before the Ford Motor Co was created. Our coverage in that publication ended in 1948, the year after Henry Ford died. He had already reluctantly relinquished control of the company to his grandson, Henry Ford II. Henry’s only son, Edsel Ford, had died in 1943, broken by his father’s decades of humiliation.
AR213 Italian Classic
September 2025
This publication pays tribute to the irrepressible creative urge of Italian engineers, designers and entrepreneurs in the early 20th century. Their enthusiasm, in the face of financial or technical obstacles, resulted in a fascinating selection of car designs, featured in these pages. Some of the car marques described here resulted from the efforts of large industrial concerns to get into motor vehicle production, but their financial muscle was not always enough to guarantee success.
Most of the makers described here were based in the famous Turin-Milan-Genoa industrial triangle. Ceirano, Diatto and Chiribiri were based in Turin (capital of Piedmont), Ansaldo had its power base in the port of Genoa, and Züst was located in Milan. Only Brescia is beyond the triangle; that is where Brixia-Zust and its successor OM were based. These marques are less familiar outside Italy, but they deserve to be better-known. Settle in for some fascinating tales. One of our contributors wished us good luck in disentangling the
stories of the many car marques founded by the Ceirano family. We hope that a little clarity has been brought to that complex and fascinating subject. There is one non-Italian marque described here; Clément-Bayard of France was chosen by Diatto as the design with which to begin car manufacture. Adolphe Clément was a director and major shareholder in the Diatto-Clément concern, so his story had to be told here as well.
AR214 Chevrolet cars: part two
September 2025
Auto Review 206 told the story of Chevrolet cars and car-derived light commercial vehicles from the beginning until 1960. This publication continues the story from 1961 into the 21st century. We include car-derived vans and pickups, such as the El Camino, and we also include those SUVs such as the Blazer and Tahoe which are based on Chevrolet pickup families to be described in Auto Review 221. Ford led the way in most market sectors in the 1960s, Chevrolet following with competitive models in an increasingly fragmented car market. These included the Chevy II, Nova and Vega compact cars, the Camaro ponycar, the Chevelle intermediate, the Malibu SS and Impala SS muscle cars and the Caprice full-size dreamboat. All of these are included here, and more, but excluded are the Corvette (described in Auto Review 175), the Corvair (described in Auto Review 206) and Chevrolet commercial vehicles, which will be covered in Auto Review 221.
Down the years Chevrolet struggled to compete with foreign imports; one attempt was the creation of the short-lived Geo division of Chevrolet, which sold Japanese cars with American badges.
By the 21st century, like other American auto makers, Chevrolet had begun to concentrate almost entirely on producing SUVs. Auto Review 221 published in 2026, will cover Chevrolet trucks, buses, pickups and vans, as well as those produced under the GMC nameplate.
Once again we have to apologise to readers in North America for the use of British nomenclature here, such as bonnet (hood), wings (fenders), MPV (minivan) and so on, though we generally use terms such as sedan and station wagon rather than the British descriptions saloon and estate car.
In this publication we have tried to cover only those Chevrolets offered on the US market, so Chevrolet-badged models for other countries (eg Matiz, Kalos, Lacetti etc) are not included.
AR215 Forgotten German Classics
November 2025
In this Auto Review publication we look at some German car-makers with less-familiar names, though they were prominent brands in their day. They often began their existence making everyday mechanical items including typewriters (Adler), sewing machines (Dürkopp and Stoewer), prams (Brennabor) or bicycles before turning to motor vehicles. They mostly entered the field cautiously, via motorised bicycles, motorcycles, and three-wheelers which often had the engine perched over the single front wheel (Phänomen, Cyklon). These firms were all successful in their automotive efforts. Brennabor became the biggest car producer in Germany in the 1920s, and Adler was the third largest manufacturer a decade later. These companies were often well-funded by their production of non-automotive products, and could afford to employ well-known car designers such as Porsche, Rumpler, Rohr and Ganz.
Three firms found themselves in Soviet-controlled regions after the Second World War. Phänomen evolved to make Robur trucks in East Germany, and Brennabor returned to pram-making, but Stoewer, ending up in Poland, disappeared entirely. The other companies mostly returned to their core product lines; typewriters, sewing machines, bicycles or motorcycles, and a number of them had a stab at motor scooters in the 1950s. Some of these great names had to combine in order to survive, such as Dürkopp-Adler, while others faded into obscurity as the big car marques came to dominate the motor industry.
AR216 Ford in the USA part III: trucks and buses
November 2025
Two previous Auto Review publications have described Ford cars built in the USA.
Auto Review 207 included cars built up to 1949, and Auto Review 212 covered cars built since 1949. Ford cars and commercial vehicles built in the UK and Europe are described in Auto Review 091, 092 and 100.
In this publication we look at commercial vehicles produced or marketed by Ford in the USA.
Vans, pickups, trucks, buses, fire appliances and military vehicles are considered here, but not car-derived pickups and delivery vans. Vehicles like the Ford Ranchero, which were derived from cars and remained closely related to them, are described in Auto Review 207 and 212.
Over a century of Ford commercial vehicles is an extensive heritage to be covered in our restricted number of pages, so we apologise in advance if your favourite Ford gets only a small amount of coverage, or if it is not mentioned at all. Many vehicles which were virtually identical with US Ford products have also been assembled in Ford plants in the UK and other countries. This may mean that in a few cases a vehicle produced outside the USA is pictured in this volume.
Updated Editions
AR054a Armstrong Siddeley Second edition with minor changes and updates
Available Now
This car marque combines two great names in British industrial history. Sir William Armstrong (1810–1900) was a Victorian ‘self-made man’. He trained as a solicitor, but was interested in engineering. In his 30s he set up a firm to build hydraulic cranes, and soon expanded into many other fields of engineering, his firm eventually becoming the enormous Armstrong Whitworth combine. In the 20th century the organisation he founded continued to expand into new areas, including cars and aircraft. In 1919 Armstrong Whitworth took over the Siddeley Deasy company, which had been successful in both car and aircraft design, under the control of John Davenport Siddeley (1866-1953). JDS was a remarkable man, a true 20th century visionary and industrialist, a stickler for disciplined thinking and hard work. As we see in this book, he worked for other car makers, eventually running the Siddeley Deasy company, building motor vehicles and aircraft until the takeover by Armstrongs, who nearly ran the firm into the ground. He took out a personal loan in 1927 to buy the firm back, and transformed it into a market leader in aviation and automobiles. His company became a cornerstone of the Hawker Siddeley Group from 1935 onwards. Armstrong Siddeley cars were made from 1919 to 1960, and they are the constant thread which holds this story together.
AR061a The Sherpa Story Second edition with minor changes and updates
Available Now
The Sherpa van was a mainstay of commerce on the roads of Britain for decades, and many are still in service into the 21st century. The saga of the closure of the LDV factory, where the Sherpa was built, was followed closely by press and public. Everyone knows the iconic Sherpa van, but few know the background story, as told here. It starts with the Morris Commercial J type (with its JB and Austin 101 descendants), then goes on to the J2, J4 and 250JU, leading to the Freight Rover Sherpa under all its denominations and owners including Leyland-DAF. The Sherpa was later updated as the LDV Convoy and Pilot. The LDV story also includes the Cub and the Maxus, leading to a period under ownership by the Russian GAZ firm and then factory closure in Christmas 2008. In October 2009 Eco Concept Ltd bought the LDV assets from the administrators, with the intention of producing and assembling low volume specialist light commercial vehicles. The doors of the Birmingham factory where Morris Commercial vans and Sherpas were made have now closed for good, and a new chapter has opened in the Sherpa story. The first half of this book describes the predecessors of the Sherpa, then the Sherpa and its successors are covered.
2024 Auto Review programme
All books below are all available to order
AR197 Oldsmobile Album. Including Reo, Viking and Saturn. Available NOW
AR198 Armour on Wheels. The story of wheeled armoured fighting vehicles. Available NOW
AR199 Cars produced in Latin America.Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and more. Available NOW
AR200 Plymouth Album. Plus DeSoto, Fargo, Valiant. Available NOW
AR201 Commercial Vehicle Album 2. Minor postwar UK Manufacturers. Available NOW
AR202 They also made cars:Suzuki Album.Plus Isuzu, Hino and Daihatsu. Available NOW
AR203 Pontiac Album. Plus the story of Oakland. Available NOW
AR204 MAN. Including Büssing-NAG and more. Available NOW
AR205 Not just Volvo, Saab and Scania:The Other Nordics.Vehicles made in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Iceland. Available NOW
AR206 The White Saga. Including Autocar, Freightliner, Reo, Diamond T, Western Star, Cletrac, Indiana, Sterling, Euclid. Available NOW
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