"Art Deco and British Car Design" ( Upd.: more Singer Airstream survivors)

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Book review by Michael E Ware: I love the Airline type cars of the 1930’s and art deco in general. Barrie introduces us to various stream line cars from an earlier age at the beginning, such as the Miller Golden Submarine and the Burney. He covers the Airline cars very well indeed and the many other models that had art deco exterior design features. The MG Airline was always a favourite of mine as was Walter Belgrove’s superb 1935 Triumph Gloria Flow-free. Whilst I was sorry the Chrysler Airflow as originally designed was not a selling success, its influences were many. On the other hand I am really not surprised that the Singer Airstream was a failure. Barrie was able to photograph the only one surviving in the store of the Coventry transport Museum. The book is heavily illustrated, possibly almost over so. There are many pictures which almost duplicate each other and printed large giving me the impression they were there partly as padding.
This book is about exterior overall design and in this it succeeds well. I was disappointed that there was virtually no mention of any of the smaller items on the car whose design was influenced by art deco. The door handles, window winders, instruments, ash trays, makers badges, mascots and logos. Let’s hope they come in a volume 2.

(photo -courtesy Veloce- shows a publicity photograph for the 1936 Flying Standard range – this one showing the Flying Twenty)

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