Over Here – The American Car in England in the 1960s
The American Car in England in the 1960s
written & photographed by Steve Miles
Volume 2: ISBN 978-0-9564536-6-2; June 2012; SGM Publishing;
Paperback £11.99
Volume 3: ISBN 978-1-909551-26-8; June 2013; SGM Publishing;
Paperback £11.99
Volume 4: ISBN 978-1-909551-35-0; April 2014; SGM Publishing;
Paperback £11.99
Volume 5: ISBN 978-1-909551-42-8; August 2014; SGM Publishing; Paperback £11.99
See also
VOLUME 2
It was back in 2004 that SGM Publishing produced the first book of Steve Miles’ old black and white photographs of American cars, taken on the streets of London. Now we are proud to offer a second volume of these historic pictures.
The photographs in Over Here Volume Two date from between 1960 and early 1965. All were taken on aged 120 roll-film cameras, and most of them have never been previously published, although some have appeared in Classic American Magazine, published by the Mortons Media Group, in features which also bore the title of ‘Over Here’. Most show the cars in the streets of the City of Oxford, or in the surrounding area including some of the local airfields then still occupied by the United States Air Force; some again include areas of London as the background.
A self-confessed American Car Nut from childhood, Steve went on to work in the US vehicle parts trade for some fifteen years, in the 1970s and 80s, which enabled him to develop an encyclopaedic knowledge of his subject, which comes through now in his chatty, detailed captions to each and every picture. His archive of photographs runs to around 7500 negatives, so we will be working on a third volume, for possible publication in 2013 – this will be drawn from his later pictures, shot on 35mm reflex cameras, between 1965 and 1970. And more could follow!
Still as enthusiastic as ever, Steve has run American cars himself for most of his life behind the wheel – his pride and joy now is a 1965 Chrysler Newport sedan, a rare survivor which remained with one family for its first forty years and still has only some 56,000 miles on the clock.
VOLUME 3
Over Here Volume Three focuses entirely on cars built during the 1950s. Almost all remained in daily use at the time they were photographed – some even have the scars to prove it! And many of them were ten years old or more then, too. The next two volumes will cover cars from five-year periods of the 1960s – it is intended to produce one next year, in 2014, and the last in 2015.
The photographs in Over Here Volume Three date from anywhere between 1960 and about 1972. Some are drawn from the same elderly 120 roll-film negatives as we used in volume two, but most of them come from his later 35mm days. Most have never been previously published, although some have appeared in Classic American Magazine, published by the Mortons Media Group, in features which also bore the title of ‘Over Here’. Many show the cars in the streets of the City of Oxford, or in the surrounding area including some of the local airfields then still occupied by the United States Air Force; others include various areas of London as the background.
A self-confessed American Car Nut from childhood, Steve went on to work in the US vehicle parts trade for some fifteen years, in the 1970s and 80s, which enabled him to develop an encyclopaedic knowledge of his subject, which comes through now in his chatty, detailed captions to each and every picture. His archive of photographs runs to around 7500 negatives, so we have plenty more material to go through yet!
Still as enthusiastic as ever, Steve has run American cars himself for most of his life behind the wheel – his pride and joy now is a 1965 Chrysler Newport sedan, a rare survivor which remained with one family for its first forty years and still has only some 60,000 miles on the clock.
VOLUME 4
The story behind Steve Miles’ amazing archive of photographs is well known by now, how he spent many hours as a teenager carrying a camera around the streets of Oxford and travelling to London to take pictures of American cars. Time spent, he will admit, to the detriment of his schooling! But the result is a collection of many thousands of pictures which now form a unique snapshot not only of the cars he was interested in but of the streets of England in the 1960s.
This fourth volume focusses on American cars built between 1960 and 1964; the 300+ images also give a snapshot in time of their surroundings, mostly around the City of Oxford and the West End of London. Volume 3 covered the 1950s, and the fifth and final volume will move on to the cars of 1965 to 1970. The early 1960s saw the first proliferation of new, smaller cars from the US manufacturers; the first ‘big three’ compact cars in 1960, and then the intermediates bridging the gap up to the traditional full-size models. And in those years too began the move towards high performance in those smaller packages, with such cars as the Falcon Sprint and the turbocharged Corvair Spyder, which would reach its conclusion later in the decade.
VOLUME 5
Volume 5 covers US and Canadian cars manufactured between 1965 and 1970, selected from Steve’s archive of pictures taken around his home in Oxford or on trips into the City of London. Those trips were made for the express purpose of photographing whatever American cars he could find around the West End and Mayfair, so you could describe this as something of an obsession! One trip every year was to the annual Earls Court Motor Show; in these later years he had discovered a technique for taking pictures under the limited lighting in the exhibition hall, and a number of these pictures are included here, along with similar ones taken in some of the London dealers’ showrooms