Auto Erotica

Published by FUEL

The origins of this book go back to the mid 1970s / early 1980s when my schoolmate Adrian and I used to go out “car spotting”. In other words standing on the pedestrian island of the A325 dual carriageway for hours on end watching the cars whizz past in the hope that one might be a rare Porsche, a Jag or Dame, or just another DAF to laugh at.

I can’t recall how it all started, but the combination of geeky facts, model numbers and that strange collecting bug that young boys find irresistible were all certainly factors. I had mates who were trainspotters, all with that funny little book full of train engine and carriage numbers to tick off. This never appealed to me. But cars, wow, I loved cars. I’d ask to be taken to London whenever possible so I could stand outside Harrods all day waiting for supercars to park or pass - this is where I saw my first Countach and more importantly, my first De Tomaso. I can still see it now, all low and red with a black bonnet.

We’d go to the annual Motor Shows in Earls Court (1977) and then Birmingham (1978), and Adrian’s parents had a Granada estate that made me vomit on the Birimingham trip. We’d annoy local garage owners every Saturday nagging for new car brochures - and went bonkers when the new XJS was launched, even getting thrown out of the Jaguar dealership showroom. I’d regularly write to car manufacturers asking for more brochures. We always had to pull over and park if we went past an exotic garage on the way to a National Trust house (yes, my parents dragged me to all of them). And then one day it all stopped. I moved on. It might have been the discovery of John Player Specials, Rothmans and Senior Service that drew it all to a close, when my Saturdays were then spent under bridges or in woods illegally lighting up smokes bought from vending machines. Either that or video games overtook my love of cars.

But those car memories run very deep. Decades later I can still watch an old film and know all the makes and models. And when I was looking around for a new nostalgic graphic book project to follow Wrappers Delight and Sainsbury’s Own Label the car brochures seemed like the right direction. To my amazement, no one has ever put together a book about vintage car brochures. So I started collecting them again. Thankfully the internet, online auctions and the odd specialist shop or dealer give far greater access than those grumpy garage owners from all those years ago ever did.

For the book itself I stuck to a few simple rules. The brochures had to fall somewhere between the 1960s and the 1980s. I feel that a lot of design before that is a little twee for my taste, and after that a little naff. The brochures also had to be British printed or issued for the UK market (although I have to admit there are one or two exceptions in the book). There were a few times while I was out about collecting when I slipped into the van and camper van world too. When I was growing up the Commer and Transit were ubiquitous, so the book features a few of these van brochures too towards the end of the book.

Also, it’s not by any means a completists book of car brochures. There was not enough space to feature every model by every car manufacturer that we have featured over our chosen period - there really are just too many. I met one dealer while researching all this and he had about 400,000 car brochures, across something like 8 rooms, in countless filing cabinets, stacked boxes, shelves, the floor and even in attic space. And that wasn’t counting all the doubles. This really is another vast collectors world. So the book hopefully represents the more creative, graphically interesting and inspired part of that massive car manufacturing and brochure industry.

I must also point out that the reason I called the book Auto Erotica was not, as you may think, to allow for a mass of images of scantily clad woman draped over cars. In fact I think it’s a common myth that (especially) 1970s car brochures regularly used sex as a marketing tool. I found just a handful of brochures with women featured, rarely in a sexual way and more often than not looking like really bored passengers. I believe foggy memories of images from other kinds of 1970s publications may well be getting in the way. I just called it Auto Erotica because I think it’s a great and attention grabbing name for a book about cars and, if you ask me, the cars, photography and typography are all pretty sexy in the book. And Fuel had to stop me putting the word “sexy” on the front cover twice.

These days I drive an old and slightly battered 1968 Triumph Herald (with period “TriumphTune” engine modifications). It’s built like a grown up go-kart, has strange charisma and real personality when you drive it or even just sit in it. When you do get in it stinks of old leather, oil and petrol. When you drive it everyone looks, points and often stops or winds their window down for a chat “about the olden days”. It’s not even a flashy collectors car, but it looks like a little animal, sounds alive and puts a smile on your face, unlike the homogenous monsters of today. I look about the roads and see giant vehicles that are indistinguishable, all the same, all looking like big black sports shoes (I saw an MG the other day that looked like an Air Jordan) and I bet very few of them will still be on the road in six decades time.

So the book looks back to a pre digital period when designers had pencils and wood and made models out of clay to make cars. To when car companies took risks, when inventors could go a bit mad based on a drawing in the sand, to when engines failed all the time and you needed a jump start when it got a bit cold. And then you had to de-ice the locks and radiator too. There were no electric windows (well hardly), no sat navs, no central locking, no airbags, no power steering, practically no safety features, no alarms, no parking cameras, no computer analysis available, no dashboard screens, no intermittent wipers, no proper heating, but you might have a cigarette lighter, rev counter and a terrible radio if you were lucky. These were cars you had to drive and suffer slightly while doing it.

I’m not saying it was a better time, but the cars were way, way more sexy.

Jonny Trunk 2021