The Macro World of Micro Cars

Rating:
Summary: Remember the Crosley, the Nash Metropolitan
Review: Just after World War II there was a great demand for automobiles. In Europe a number of companies began building small, very inexpensive automobiles. You may remember the Isetta and the Messerschmit. Or in the United States we had the Crosley and the Nash Metropolitan (There's one of these for sale at Ebay as I write, $5,000.). All in all there were dozens of brands, most of which had their heyday in the 1950's and died in the 1960's.

Today small cars are staging somewhat of a comeback. The Mercedes Smart is starting to be imported: easy to park, high fuel economy. The worldwide success of There are quite a few others in the design phase all around the world. Concept cars have been shown by Ford, Toyota, Lamborghini (can you imagine), and others.

This book is a somewhat nostalgic look at the collectable cars of the past, the people (and museums) who collect them, and a short chapter on what is known about the new cars being worked on now. It has hundreds of pictures, copy that is somewhat historical, somewhat nostalgic.

This is an interesting car sub-category, (I guess you'd call it.) where collectors are beginning to come out and where prices haven't gone through the roof -- yet.

Rating:
Summary: Minimalist coffee table book lacks detail
Review: This is an attractively designed book, although I can't help thinking its minimalist layout and arty typefaces would look more at home if the subject matter was more modern. I suppose the cars themselves are minimalist, in a way, and definitely `arty'. Even so, the book looks like it would be about cutting-edge Italian kitchenware, not ancient oily cars.
To some extent, the book is a triumph of form over function, certainly if you thought its function was to provide information in detail about microcars. No, it doesn't do that.
There's barely any text, and most pages have no more than one or two photographs, so it really just gives you a fleeting impression of things.
There's a section about people and their microcars, a brief section about the history of the little devices, and an A-Z of the main manufacturers.
So, it's nicely produced, would look nice on your Ikea coffee table, but won't tell you all that much about the subject.