Australia's Vintage & Veteran Cars by Barry Hanrahan

Australia's Vingate and Veteran Cars is a colourful collection of cars built in the years before 1930. The great historic cars were conceived, designed and built at the direction of despotic and often bloody-minded geniuses, bent on creating something magical and immortal. Names such as Maserati, Bianchi and Edge conjure up the bygone days of motor racing. The covered grandstands and bitumen surfaces of today were not even dreamed of in those early smoke-laden, dust-filled days. Among the vintage and veteran cars here are some which are the only known examples of their marque left in the world. Others have won high awards at local and international veteran-car rallies in Australia. All of them display the loving pride and care with which they have been restored and maintained, and are a fitting reminder that plastic and die-cast will never rival brass and leather as testaments to the craftsman's art.