The long subtitle to this large format volume — sumptuously bound in a grey, suede-like fabric — is, I believe, taken from Tom Wolfe’s book; The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, which Bayley quotes a being a strong personal influence. Anyone familiar with Wolfe’s iconoclastic New Journalism will probably have some sense of what to expect from Cars.
Bayley, a regular contributor to the UK’s Observer magazine, is a well known style and design guru and he matches his passion for cars with a writing style that is both informative and a delight to read. Don’t expect long lists of performance figures and technical specifications, what Bayley delivers is an entertaining, cultural tour through a century of motoring milestones — from the Model T to Chris Bangle’s controversial ‘flame-surfaced’ BMW 5-Series.
A surprising writer, like the late L J K Setright, Bayley is just as likely to quote beat poet, Allen Ginsberg or British novelist, Aldous Huxley, as he is to quote automotive style icons such as Harley Earl or Butzi Porsche. The end result is a motoring book with a genuinely different outlook — and one with it’s sensibilities firmly planted within a truly artistic environment.
And, if the words weren’t enough, photographer, Tif Hunter, supports Bayley’s inimitable words with a series of superbly realised monochrome images — capturing the essence of cars as diverse as Jaguar’s E-type, the marvellously over-the-top ’59 Cadillac Eldorado, the plain-jane Toyota Corolla and the weird Renault Avantime.
Anyone interested in cars as a manifestation of popular culture will be delighted with this handsome book. Highly recommended.
Cars: Freedom, Style, Sex, Power, Motion, Colour, Everything by Stephen Bayley
Review copy supplied by the publisher
Review by Allan Walton
