Customer Reviews

American Cars 1946-1959: Every Model, Year by Year

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I purchased a copy of this book, but ended up deciding to send it back, even though I had to pay for the return shipping.

It's a book that I'm glad someone put together - it belongs in your local public library. But for my own personal library, no, it's not worth the price.

It's over 1000 pages, so it's printed on fairly cheap paper. The very few photos that are included are tiny and only black-and-white. (I don't have it in front of me, so I can't actually measure them, but I'd say the photos were about 1 in x 2 in.) Visually, the cover is the best thing about the book - don't expect anything like that inside.

The write-ups about each car only take up about as much space as the tables of data for each car. The data is apparently taken from brochures and dealer handbooks - some of the data is interesting, some is much beyond what I care about. For example, you can find not only the names of the available colors for a car (which sometimes don't give you a clue as to what the colors actually looked like), but also the codes for the colors the dealers would use when ordering a car. Again, it's data I'm glad someone collected so you can go to the library and look it up, but it's not really anything I need.

There are two other books that I own which cover this era much better for the armchair enthusiast: "Cars of the Fascinating 40s" and "Cars of the Fabulous 50s," from the Consumer Guide people. They are both ordered by year, and then by make within each year. They full of full-color photos and have good write-ups about what was happening with each make each year. Minor makes are included along with the major ones.

Anyway, for the right person Flory's book would be invaluable, but if I had seen an actual copy in a bookstore first I never would have bothered ordering it for myself.

Very good. you can have every kind of information about every car. But it isn't good if you are looking for pitcure

This is a great book for those looking for specific facts about cars produced between 1946 and 1959. If you have a library of all the decade car picture books this book is what you need to make your collection complete. This book will let you know most everything you want to know about every specific car. The models produced, cost, colors,options,engines,specifications etc. This is a must have book for any car lover's library.