1969 Hardback, 273 pages
Unique book on the very British sport of Speed Hillclimbing and Speed Trials up to 1925 when most of them had been run on (theoretically) open public roads not exactly legally....but tolerated for some reason. Mostly..closing the roads in mainland Britain for motor sport was against the law until the Birmingham street race in 1986 got legal agreements in place . Prior to 1925 events were run in rural areas , along straight roads (speed trials) or on steep or winding hills (hillclimbs) and with no actual circuit racing, aside from at Brooklands, such events often attracted the major names of the time - Raymond Mays, Malcolm Campbell, Henry Segrave, J A Joyce, Archie Frazer-Nash, Basil Davenport and Parry Thomas all taking part in between Land Speed Record, Grands Prix or events at Brooklands.
Venues included Spread Eagle, Kop, SunRising, Caerphilly , Angel Bank, Holme Moss and the wonderfully names (Thundersley Church) as well as a few private-road venues that are still in use like Shelsley Walsh.
The sport was so important at the time that works cars from AC, Sunbeam, Vauxhall, GN, Alvis etc were often entered along with hoards of Morgans, Austins, Morris', Bentleys, Bugattis and so forth.
It all came to an end in 1925 when a fairly minor accident resulted in a sudden panic by the motor sport authorities who overnight ceased issuing permits for such events in case they were hit by a legal action (nothing changes , does it?) And this style of event vanished.
Masses of results , reports and descriptions of long-forgotten hillclimbs all over the British Isles plus photos.
Superb book. Rare these days.
This one is smart and has a good jacket whichb has some areas of wear to the printing (see photos) and a few repairs to splits around the extremities
Generally probably as good as you are likely to find. Mint examples are near impossible to locate.
