The latest on The Special’s bookshelves

The Special’s motoring book collection is big enough to have caused a house move but our acquiring instincts mean the new shelves, which had plenty of space two years ago, are already filling up.

That doesn’t mean The Special buys just about any new car book that comes along – far from it – but motoring book publishing seems to go in cycles, where a dearth of good, imaginative titles are few and far between and then, suddenly, there are so many good books coming out it’s difficult when to stop the spending spree.

One new book is not only well-illustrated, it offers a more imaginative take on cars. ‘A Time A Place Volume 1 1964-1982’ combines Cars of the Year with buildings dating from that year, and the result is something that’s truly thought-provoking.

Broken down year-by-year there are three segments to each entry: the building; the architects; the car. While the latter segment might not tell marque enthusiasts anything they don’t already know it successfully combines the building and the motor.

The text is pleasing simple yet informative, whether it’s about the building, the architects or the car, lacking the flowery prose that can be associated with architectural criticism. And even the most-informed, broad-minded car enthusiast reader will clearly come away with some increased knowledge, and that’s never a bad thing.

Being a book that’s all about design, that was clearly going to be one element where it would work, and it does. The photography is imaginative, clever, spontaneous: There’s no poncey posing, more something from a photographic blog, placing car and building together in an everyday situation. Readers of late-1980s Car will remember how it, along with its Supercar Classics spin-off, raised the car magazine photography bar to supremely high levels in a way that’s often not repeated, other than in Magneto or The Road Rat.

The Special highly recommends ‘A Time A place’ for its different approach – one with a interesting take not only on cars but on the buildings we interact with on a regular basis.