Book review "4WD in 1000 photos"

[austastar]

ISBN 1 84425 115 2
Haynes Publishing
Compiled by Serge Potier

Got it from the State Library of Tasmania.
More general interest than technical, covers history from 1924 with the Citroen half track, first Willys Jeep, Landrover from the first prototype on a Jeep chassis with central steering through to the Td5 Defender.
It looks at some of the many aspects of 4wd sport and recreation, trends of manufacturing, some future glimpses (as seen from 2004) and as the title suggests, lots of photos.
Has a more European feel to it than any Australian perspective, but it does look at the scene in USA and shows some of the American view of the industry/recreation.

Enjoyable read
Lots of interesting stuff
Would buy it if the price was right.

cheers

[JDNSW]

Sounds interesting, but also sounds as if it ignores the first twenty years or so of four wheel drive. (Four wheel drive vehicles were used extensively in WW1 and earlier)

John

[VladTepes]

well jdnsw... do tell.

[JDNSW]

well jdnsw... do tell.

Most information from "Landrover - the formative year, 1947-1967" by John Smith, 2009.

1900 'Toujours Contente' designed by Ferdinand Porsche for Jacob Lohner.
1903 'Mogul' in commercial production by American Four Wheel Drive Company.
1903 Spyker four wheel drive car seems to be the first with drive offset to one side.
1903 Armoured 4x4 by Paul Daimler
1905 4x4 artillery tractors by Austro-Daimler and others.
1907 Mercedes six seat 4x4
1908 Badger (similar to Spyker) by Four Wheel Drive Auto Company
1912 FWD started development of 4x4 trucks and cars. Used first in the Mexican war, by 1918 16,000 FWDs had been manufactured plus another 700 manufactured in the UK.
Also used in large numbers in WW1 were the Jeffery 'Quad' from the USA and the French 'Latil'.
Armoured 'Quads' built in Canada and Russia were also used by the British in Ireland and India during the war.

Half track vehicles, designed by Kegresse (Fr) were introduced by the Russians just before the revolution, and were so successful that by the mid twenties the major powers, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and the USA had turned all their attention to halftracks. It was not until the late '30s that serious attention again turned to four wheel drives, although some continued manufacture right through this period. The main reason why wheeled vehicles became more important was that there came to be more reasonable roads, especially in Europe, so on-road performance became more important.

John