The Birth of the British Motor Car, 1769-1897

In the space of just a dozen hectic years in the 1820s and 1830s, Britain's and in some cases the world's, first self-propelled coach, city bus, truck, internal combustion-engined road vehicle, and finally the first purpose-built private care all took to the road, one growing out of another. For a little while it looked as though the road vehicle might beat an equally new machine, the railway locomotive, in the battle to take long idstance passenger traffic away fromthe stage coaches. Why Not? New ideas, new technologies were of the very air men breathed - anything was possible.

How this astonishing state of affairs came about, and why its promise was not fulfilled, is the subject of this volume - a story of mechanical genius contending with financial innocence, of vision and determination with cupidity, envy, vested interest and political opportunism. Often these characteristics combined in the same person, for it is a story without villains or heroes; one of familiar human frailty, set against dominant themes of the time- among them unemployment, rising prices, and the threat of revolution.