Thursday, September 9, 2010

British family cars of the 50s and 60s


The three decades following WW2 saw a big dominance of British vehicles on NZ roads, a result of government trade policies of the time which supported 2-way trade with the 'old country'.

After the UK joined the EEC (now EU) at the beginning of 1973 and NZ's exports there suddenly faced big obstacles, this changed. The Kirk government and its successors sought to develop reciprocal trade with other countries, particularly Japan and Korea, and as a result better engineered Japanese cars quickly replaced British ones.

This A5 format book takes a fond look at the dinky cars that many NZers will remember from those years, probably because they owned one. They certainly kept repair shops busy but they were a major part of the 'scene'. The book has 64 pages (8 of them allocated to 'outsiders' i.e. continental European cars), and about half the illustrations are in colour. Card covers.

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