by: Ian Sadler [ ]
The book under review is the New Title "Jeeps in Detail"; Special Museum Line Red Series from Wings and Wheels publications. The address is RAK P.O. Box 35, 170 06 Prague 7, Czech Republic. The Authors are Frantisek Koran and Jan Mostek. The cost varies from country to country and as this is a review sample I have no idea of the cost in the UK, so please check with your local book dealers as to availability and price. CONTENT
This book covers all the main Jeeps used in WW2, Willys MA/MB, Ford GPW, US Armoured MB, WW2 SAS variants plus the ¼ ton trailer in full colour photographs. It has in its 132 pages a colossal 535 full colour photographs and mostly they are four to a page. The quality and clarity is outstanding. It is printed in English and the text is kept to the minimum alongside the related photographs and is used to add more information or point out various details to the reader. A word of caution, due to the different legal requirements in many countries extra lighting and traffic indicators have been added, these are noted in the text.
The book starts with the very first jeep produced by Willys the MA and to make it easy for the reader all the different types of jeep are colour coded at the top right of the page, a very good and simple idea. For each vehicle the coverage is from the ground up and all the details you could ever want are here, chassis, engine, dashboard, lights, seats, fuel tanks etc.
The vast majority of the photographs are taken during the restorations of several vehicles and these show areas that cannot normally be seen to the model maker. It is in the attention to the little details, that this book wins over others published in the past, like the labels on the fuel strainer and oil filter, the section on the fitting of the armament to the armoured jeeps is a masterpiece of close up photography and shows fully that the authors understands just what model makers requirements are.
If you need to know exactly just what was carried by the SAS in the desert campaign in WW2 the section on the restored one is worth the price of the book alone. This vehicle is part of the LRDG re-enactment society and has been full researched by them and by speaking to the few survivors still left. To be fair to the authors only one of the main variants of the jeep has been omitted and that is the SAS Jeep used in Europe and I know of only one fully restored one in the UK and it turns up very infrequently and you have to be there on the day to photograph it. It is a rare beastie but had all the hall marks of a classic Jeep. CONCLUSION
A very well thought out and comprehensive book on the Jeep, the quality and quantity of the photographs and information are as usual of the highest standard.If you only ever buy this one book on the Jeep you will not be disappointed and it will take a very long time for any publisher to come up with a better book. It must find a space on all model makers' reference shelves and will be used many times over.Highly recommended not only to the modelling fraternity but also to museums or vehicle restorers, all other books on the Jeep frankly do not come up to the sheer quality of this book. Go out and order your copy now.
Many thanks to Franti for the review copy.Ian Sadler SUMMARY |
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About Ian Sadler (IanSadler) Copyright ©2021 text by Ian Sadler [ ]. All rights reserved.
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