Cars (mini edition) by Stephen Bayley
Conran Octopus
RRP $47.99

Stephen Bayley's little treasure of a book “Cars” has a long subtitle which is taken from Tom Wolfe's book, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby where he says, "Cars mean more to these kids than architecture did in Europe's great formal century, say, 1750 to 1850. They are freedom, style, sex, power, motion, colour."

Bayley has set out to put together what are the 86 most sexy, well designed cars over the one hundred years since the Model T Ford.

The emphasis is almost solely on the design aspect with little note taken of the cars power, handling, track record or price.

The short text he has written for each of the cars concentrates on the designers and the influences on them as well as their impact on other designs and designers.

All the cars have been newly photographed and printed entirely in black and white which leaves out the “colour” element of Wolfe’s criteria but allows for ease of comparison between the cars.

Each of the cars is featured in a double page spread with a view taken from the side and there are another two pages which feature some of the other iconic design elements of the car – grille, tail lights, and dashboard.

He writes about the role of the car designers, about how they have to work within constrained parameters and how they have to learn about the nature and psychology of shape and detail, the impact of colour and the way that light is reflected off the various surfaces.

They have to know the difference between a curve which is fat, powerful or anorexic and they have to be able to dream but not too fancifully.

He mentions some of the important designers such as Harley Earl who worked for Cadillac in the 1920’s and was one of the first stylists for the American car and who invented the idea of the concept car which is still used today.

The photography by Tif Hunter of these 86 select cars, from the Model T through to the BMW5 is accompanied by a essays of a couple of hundred words which are informative and succinct.

The cars chosen are not just the standard elegant cars like the E type Jaguar or the Porsche 911. He also includes the humble Fiat 500, the Volkswagen Beetle and the Toyota Corolla. However his reasons for including the Corolla are not for aesthetic design but rather for being “the perfect product of the Japanese industrial method” referring to the car as “Plain of aspect and technologically unadventurous”

There are a few cars which some people will wonder about their inclusion such as the chunky Nissan Cube and Ford Sierra but each of them have been experiments in design which have changed the way we look at cars.

But the book is packed with some of the great designs such as the Citroen 11CV Traction Avant, the star of many French detective movies which was designed by the Italian Futurist sculptor Flaminio Bertoni and the Chevrolet Bel Air which was one of the first two tone cars.

Other cars include the most of the BMW designs, the Audi 100, the Mini, Ford Mustang, Lamborghini Countach.

Cars of the last decade and a half are the Renault Twingo the smart car Renault Avantime, Nissan Cube and the BMW 5

There are no Holdens in the collection and for some unfathomable reason he has also left out the Trekka.