Kirjahaku

Steam, and then cumbersome motor, tractors existed in small numbers before 1914, after which the need to produce more foods using less horse and man power saw the origins of the machine we know today. Thanks to mass production, Ford brought the price down to suit average farmers, and in the 1920s to 1940s numerous rivals brought in such novelties as diesel engines, pneumatic tyres, hydraulic implement lifts and even cost-effective all-wheel drive and weather protection. After the Second World-War, a strong new indigenous tractor industry was led by Ferguson, David Brown, Nuffield and Ford. This book highlights these developments and goes on to show the dramatic improvements of the 1950s and 1960s.

Providing a vital service to communities and businesses over the years, delivery vans have evolved through time, with many different models taking to the road. In the 1920s and 1930s many types of unusual bodywork were fitted and numerous and diverse technical specifications were available. Exploring the fascinating development of old delivery vans, the author discusses the improvements and fashions up to the 1960s, including the advances in locomotion from steam to petrol, electricity and diesel. With a close look at the Ford Model T, which first brought the van within the reach of high street business, and then at the more purpose-built light vans after 1945, this is a comprehensive and fully illustrated introduction to the history and design of classic delivery vans.

Like Henry Ford, Herbert Austin had farming roots. Both brought motoring to the masses and both attempted to take the physical drudgery out of farming by introducing mechanisation. Austin imported American machines in the First World War and heard about the revolutionary new Fordson. His take on the new rigid, frameless technology was the 1919 Austin R, built at his Birmingham car factory. The inexorable reduction of the price of Fordsons saw Austin move his tractors to the more protected French market, where they soon challenged Renault’s dominance. A former leather works with farming estate at Liancourt, near Paris, became exclusive home to Austin’s tractors, and diesel technology was adopted there long before it was introduced at Austin in England. The Second World War saw Liancourt producing German military vehicles and the imprisonment and in some cases execution of the Austin management. The dreadful conditions at Liancourt were highlighted at the Nuremberg Trials. Afterwards, there was a brave attempt to revive the French tractors and British Austin engines were used in Bristol crawlers. This book tells the fascinating and largely untold story of the tractors made by one of Britain’s biggest car makers, and also looks other uses of Austin engines in the Austin Champ and Gipsy.

Dr. Gloom's Crypt of Curiosities - Take Home Tourist is a macabre testament to everything strange and unusual on this mortal coil. Inside these pages, you can bear witness to the freakish spectacles on display at Baltimore's infamous oddities museum. Feast your eyes on such horrible images as Grigore the Hideous Bat Child and Frisco the Killer Ape. This book is not for the faint of heart