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The James Flood Book of Early Motoring is a substantial and richly illustrated history of the formative years of motoring in Victoria and Australia. Edited by H. H. Paynting, General Manager of the James Flood Group and an active member of several vintage and veteran car clubs, the book traces the transformation from horse-drawn coachbuilding to the earliest motor vehicles, placing this technological change within its distinctly Australian social and industrial setting.
Central to the work is the history of James Flood Pty Ltd, one of Victoria's most important early motor-body builders. James Flood emigrated from England to Australia in 1904 and subsequently established a major coachbuilding and automotive enterprise during the veteran and vintage eras. The book documents the company's activities, its 1908 Austin, historic body plates and changing coachwork styles, while reproducing period advertisements, catalogues, specifications and photographs associated with the firm.
Extending well beyond company history, the volume provides an absorbing survey of early motoring culture. Its contents include veteran and vintage vehicles, early RACV trials and rallies, Australian and overseas car clubs, motoring personalities, coachbuilding practice and numerous historic body designs. Detailed sections reproduce factory specifications, prices and photographs for hundreds of British, Continental and American automobiles of the period, together with pages from an early Thomson catalogue and line drawings illustrating many different body styles.
Published in 1968 to commemorate sixty years of James Flood business activity, this handsome Australian production is generously illustrated with rare archival photographs and impressive full-colour studies of restored vehicles. This first-edition copy carries registered number 2586 and retains its original unclipped pictorial dustjacket. An important and highly engaging reference for collectors of veteran automobiles, Australian motoring history, coachbuilding and Victorian industrial heritage."
