It is a fortunate fact of history that the art of the photographer, both professional and amateur, had reached proficiency by the time the motor car had become a practicality in the last decade of the nineteenth century. It is thanks to innumerable such photographers that the illustrations in this book are possible as a record of forty years of social change that the motor car has accelerated and, indeed, played a vital role.

The images in this book serve not only as a wonderful reminder of the pioneering days of motoring in the British Isles, but also to show the dramatic changes which were taking place in the early twentieth century. The photographs in A.B. Demaus’s new volume date from as early as 1900 and recall a lost age in which intrepid motorists discovered the delights of the open road. At this time traffic calming, speed cameras and motorways would have been unimaginable. Almost all of the images are from the author’s splendid photographic archive or from other unpublished sources. This charming book will appeal to motoring enthusiasts as well as to social historians.