RETRO RIDE traces the evolution of the automobile and the simultaneous marketing messages that helped it flower across five decades. Beautifully illustrated with original advertisements, RETRO RIDE celebrates not only the beauty and diversity of the American automobile but also the heyday of American print advertising.

The American automobile has always been more than a means of transportation. The inspired fusion of form and function has meant that for more than a century now men and women have been driving about their daily business in machines which can only be described as works of art on wheels.

Between the 1930s and 1980s, American automotive design reached new heights, quietly staking out a place as an art form in its own right. This innovative period saw the birth of concept cars whose appeal lay not so much with the power of their engines or the luxury of their added features, but in the sheer beauty and novelty of their overall design. Automakers employed artists from outside the industry with the primary goal of creating bold new designs whose "eye appeal" would prove irresistible to the public. In their heyday, thousands of these prototype sketches were created, but nearly all were either lost or deliberately destroyed by the car companies to minimize the risk of copycats. In IMAGINE!, Patrick Kelley presents a wealth of eye-catching car designs--more than 230 images from eighty-seven different artists--that he has spent over fifteen years gathering and assembling into the Kelley Collection. These artworks are rare survivors, vivid illustrations of the singular work of the men and woman who drew and designed the vehicles from their art school days through their later employment with the auto industry's Big Three: GM, Chrysler and Ford. IMAGINE! is a tender tribute to the artists' contributions and imagination, transporting us back to a time in US commercial history when the wildest dreams were encouraged and there was nothing but the open road ahead.

“Just what is a Muscle Car?” Road Test magazine asked in June 1967. The answer: “Exactly what the name implies. It is a product of the American car industry adhering to the hot rodder’s philosophy of taking a small car and putting a BIG engine in it. . . . The Muscle Car is Charles Atlas kicking sand in the face of the 98 horsepower weakling.” Unconcerned with such trivial details as comfort and handling, the vintage American muscle car was built for straight-line speed and quickly became the ride of choice for power-hungry racers and serious gearheads. In a country where performance was measured in brute force, a quarter mile at a time, the muscle car was the perfect machine. In the intervening years, these down-and-dirty, high-performing beauties have earned their place in the automotive pantheon. As prized by collectors and aficionados as they are by denizens of garages and drag strips, classic muscle cars now fetch upwards of a million dollars at auctions and feature in any story of America’s automotive glory days. The icons of muscle car art—including Camaro and Chevelle SS, the Hemi and 440-6 ’Cuda, Challenger, Roadrunner, Super Bee, GTX, Super Bird, Daytona Charger, Super Cobra Jet and Boss Mustang, Talladega Torino, Buick GSX and W30 Oldsmobile 442, and AMX Javelin—are all here, on full display in this lavishly illustrated volume, each described in a detailed essay followed by a gallery of portraits and special gatefold presentations that capture the art of the muscle car at its finest.

A big, beautiful car book with a different slant. Eminent British automotive writer Georgano partners with an outstanding car photographer from his own country, Nicky Wright, to produce a testament to the dictum "the automobile is art." Their focus is on individual car stylists who adhered to the philosophy that the automobile "has to sell on its appearance as much as on its mechanical qualities." The men profiled here were not (and are not) specialty designers of custom cars but employees of big car companies who devoted themselves to beautifying cars sold to a mass market.

Future Retro~ISBN 0-87846-690-8 U.S. $27.50 / Hardcover, 10.5 x 8 in. / 88 pgs / 50 color. ~Item / February / Design